In recent years there have been tremendous efforts to measure, characterise and model the internet topology. We discuss why the power law degree distribution is not an artifact but an integral property of the internet. On the other hand we argue that while it is one of the properties that fundamentally characterise the global internet structure, other properties should also be considered to obtain a full description of the network. We review the power law modelling of the internet topology and provide a critical look at the contribution of such research to the Internet engineering. © 2009 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.