The increased use of peer-to-peer communications could improve the overall capacity of the Internet and make it run much more smoothly. That’s the conclusion of a novel study mapping the structure of the Internet.

The researchers’ results depict the Internet as consisting of a dense core of 80 or so critical nodes surrounded by an outer shell of 5,000 sparsely connected, isolated nodes that are very much dependent upon this core. Separating the core from the outer shell are approximately 15,000 peer-connected and self-sufficient nodes.