Smartphone apps accompany us wherever we go, along with a multi-layered digital infrastructure that remains hidden from most people. Behind every gesture on the display, a complex interplay of Internet exchanges, data centres, content services and global providers unfolds… all of which somehow takes place in the cloud. Having a ‘simple’ app in your pocket actually means dozens of servers and networks are working in parallel. A recent analysis makes this invisible network tangible.
The symbiosis between smartphones and digital infrastructure
The study was conducted as part of a research project by Ferhan Kesici (a Master’s student at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences in Gelsenkirchen) and Prof. Dr. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security. It reveals the vast scale of the digital infrastructure behind everyday apps.
In total, the 65 applications examined contacted over 1,600 different servers with various IP addresses. On average, an app connects to around 25 servers, and the IP packets pass through 6.35 autonomous systems (AS) before reaching their destination. More than three-quarters of these Internet and servers are owned by US companies, which indicates the strong international dependency.
Amazon, Google and Akamai data centres are particularly well represented, appearing in almost 90% of all top apps. Almost every app examined uses the services of at least one of these three global infrastructure giants. This highlights the extent to which centralised providers shape the digital fabric of our everyday lives, often without users even noticing.
DNS activity also reveals complexity: an average of 65 domains were queried per app, including approximately 13 advertising or tracking servers. This equates to 23% of all requests, demonstrating how deeply third-party components are embedded in the mobile data stream.
Considerable data volumes were generated: all apps together produced 115.6 MB of uploads and 2.84 GB of downloads. On average, this equates to approximately 1.78 MB of uploads and 43.7 MB of downloads per app. Even brief use therefore activates a considerable amount of data traffic across numerous Internet networks.
Although modern platforms have long supported IPv6, IPv4 continues to dominate with a 96% share. Around 93% of the traffic was encrypted, which is a positive sign, but this does not change the fundamental dependence on global structures.
Making the invisible Internet visible
The interplay of globally distributed servers, DNS queries and high data volumes shows that even a few minutes of app usage sets a complex global Internet in motion. What appears simple on the surface — such as sending a message, opening a video or tapping an icon — activates a global chain of digital infrastructure delivery and services in the background.
This invisibility has consequences: it highlights dependencies on a few large infrastructure providers, raises questions about digital sovereignty and shows how important transparency about data flows and Internet connections is. Only when the Internet behind our everyday apps becomes visible can companies, politicians and users make informed decisions.
“It is remarkable how many Internet services and processes become active in the background as soon as we open an app that we carry around with us in our pockets as a matter of course. That is precisely why it is important to take a look behind the scenes and understand the connections that are created,” says Norbert Pohlmann.
