Community FIbre and Plusnet both routing via JNB at >200ms.

OVH (UK) routes via France-IX, possibly Marseille for around 40ms.

I manually changed our routing to prefer NTT over Level3/Lumen for this prefix - it's a hop longer, but far lower latency (as it's not been routed to a different contrinent!)

I've also asked Mauritius Telecom if they'd like to peer over LINX...

Edited by andrewhearn (Mon 02-May-22 11:57:10)

In reply to a post by andrewhearn:

I manually changed our routing to prefer NTT over Level3/Lumen for this prefix - it's a hop longer, but far lower latency (as it's not been routed to a different contrinent!)

I've also asked Mauritius Telecom if they'd like to peer over LINX...

In light of recent, and understandable, discussion on whether AAISP's prices are 'worth it' in the FTTP age, I think this is an excellent data point.

Good luck getting that out of anyone else on a bank holiday Monday!

Edited by ft247 (Mon 02-May-22 12:19:53)

Well that sorted it. I posted more as a curiosity than anything else and that's fantastic to see you've fixed it.

Before:
http://www.nperf.com/r/3381921621277277-88i1rUgT

After:
https://www.nperf.com/r/3382265865030995-iQv1phbC

In reply to a post by ft247:

In light of recent, and understandable, discussion on whether AAISP's prices are 'worth it' in the FTTP age, I think this is an excellent data point.

Good luck getting that out of anyone else on a bank holiday Monday!

Quite agree.

Ping here in Dumbarton, Scotland is now 15ms on AAISP FTTC connection.
As said before what other ISP could beat that service on a Bank holiday?

In reply to a post by andrewhearn:

I manually changed our routing to prefer NTT over Level3/Lumen for this prefix - it's a hop longer, but far lower latency (as it's not been routed to a different contrinent!)

I've also asked Mauritius Telecom if they'd like to peer over LINX...

While your quick response is to be congratulated (as obviously your primary goal is for your customers to get the best experience), what can be done to push a proper fix higher up the chain?

I checked Zen, Vodafone and Three, they all have problem with this route and aren't using level3 to get there. Surely this is a core routing issue and needs to be addressed?

I checked Cogent (a common peer amongst them all) and there seems to be no way for a normal human to contact them other than their info e-mail address. Wouldn't an ISP have more clout here?

My Plusnet connection looks OK and not going the long way round

Tracing route to 197.227.5.218 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 6 ms 5 ms 5 ms 172.16.12.220
3 * * 13 ms 141.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.141]
4 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms 140.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.140]
5 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms peer7-et-0-1-7.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.252.240]
6 12 ms 11 ms 15 ms 166-49-214-194.gia.bt.net [166.49.214.194]
7 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms ix-be-68.ecore1.ldn-london.as6453.net [195.219.83.104]
8 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms if-ae-66-2.tcore1.ldn-london.as6453.net [80.231.60.144]
9 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 195.219.83.158
10 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 197.227.5.218

Trace complete.

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

In reply to a post by andrewhearn:

I manually changed our routing to prefer NTT over Level3/Lumen for this prefix - it's a hop longer, but far lower latency (as it's not been routed to a different contrinent!)

I've also asked Mauritius Telecom if they'd like to peer over LINX...

While your quick response is to be congratulated (as obviously your primary goal is for your customers to get the best experience), what can be done to push a proper fix higher up the chain?

I checked Zen, Vodafone and Three, they all have problem with this route and aren't using level3 to get there. Surely this is a core routing issue and needs to be addressed?

I checked Cogent (a common peer amongst them all) and there seems to be no way for a normal human to contact them other than their info e-mail address. Wouldn't an ISP have more clout here?

The underlying issue is with Mauritius Telecom - they are advertising that the preferred way to reach MT is via Level 3, with NTT as a backup. However, they only interconnect with Level 3 in South Africa, not the UK, whereas they interconnect with NTT in London.

MT have multiple ways they could fix this:

1. Change their BGP advertisements to tell ISPs to prefer NTT to Level 3 for this netblock. Chances are that this would cost them more than advertising Level 3.
2. Interconnect with Level 3 in London as well as Johannesburg, and get the traffic for this netblock handed over in London. Again, though, this costs money.
3. Given that they have a London presence, peer at LINX and/or LONAP and advertise this netblock to all comers over that peering. Costs money to set up.

You'll notice a theme here - all the options cost MT money compared to leaving things as-is. Indeed, it's quite likely that by manually overriding their preferences and routing via NTT instead of Level 3, Andrew has increased MT's bills by a small amount.

However, if you're paying Mauritius Telecom for something, and point out this divergence, they may well be willing to adjust their routing to keep their paying customers happy.

Also important to have some perspective here - this is a speed test server. Nobody has mentioned any actual services they use being hosted by MT that are affected by this.