Business Support Internet

There is a system that keeps track of all assigned internet address and domain names, and defines their point of connection to the Internet Backbone.

The ``Backbone'' is the main trunk lines that carry Internet traffic across the country, and around the world. Each backbone machine has a copy of a master set of tables, which direct traffic for a particular network to a specific backbone carrier, and from there down the chain of service providers until it reaches your network.

It is the task of Allstream  to advertise to the backbone sites that they are the point of connection (and thus the path inward) for your site. This is known as propagation.

Once CA*net or the InterNIC announces that your domain name has been registered (or transferred, if applicable), it usually takes about 72-hours before it is active. All internet providers must update their records (DNS tables) to reflect new site locations.