Vodafone Routing

Please have a browse over this:

:~$ traceroute speedtest8.thinkbroadband.com
traceroute to speedtest8.thinkbroadband.com (80.249.99.73), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 vodafone.connect.broadband (192.168.1.1) 6.863 ms 6.846 ms 6.831 ms
2 host-212-158-250-34.dslgb.com (212.158.250.34) 21.240 ms 21.238 ms 21.230 ms
3 63.130.104.198 (63.130.104.198) 18.515 ms 19.515 ms 19.510 ms
4 linx-gw1.thn.ncuk.net (195.66.224.240) 21.200 ms 21.357 ms 21.836 ms
5 te2-1-9.star10g.bdr-rt3.thdo.ncuk.net (80.249.97.17) 25.091 ms 25.087 ms 25.086 ms
6 po4-31.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net (80.249.97.85) 27.835 ms 21.130 ms 21.114 ms
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *



If I do a whois on 63.130.104.198 it says New York, USA.
Are they routing this through the USA?



Also fast.com

$ traceroute fast.com
traceroute to fast.com (2.18.169.16), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 vodafone.connect.broadband (192.168.1.1) 1.095 ms 1.069 ms 1.040 ms
2 host-212-158-250-34.dslgb.com (212.158.250.34) 16.966 ms 17.399 ms 17.507 ms
3 63.130.104.198 (63.130.104.198) 19.495 ms 19.458 ms 20.013 ms
4 ae11-100-xcr1.hex.cw.net (195.89.96.1) 19.991 ms 22.725 ms 22.696 ms
5 ae9-xcr1.lnt.cw.net (195.2.24.161) 22.650 ms ae18-xcr1.lnd.cw.net (195.2.24.157) 22.649 ms ae17-xcr1.ltw.cw.net (195.2.28.150) 22.816 ms
6 ae15-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.30.114) 22.965 ms ae22-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.30.61) 21.887 ms ae36-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.25.170) 22.607 ms
7 as6453-gw-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.21.42) 23.722 ms 16.353 ms 16.726 ms
8 if-ae-26-2.tcore1.ldn-london.as6453.net (80.231.62.58) 31.438 ms 31.223 ms 30.691 ms
9 if-ae-17-2.tcore1.l78-london.as6453.net (80.231.130.129) 33.433 ms 33.408 ms 30.242 ms
10 if-ae-3-2.tcore1.pye-paris.as6453.net (80.231.154.142) 30.705 ms 31.139 ms 31.125 ms
11 if-ae-11-2.tcore1.pvu-paris.as6453.net (80.231.153.49) 30.103 ms 30.445 ms 32.510 ms
12 if-ae-32-2.thar1.b1d-brussels.as6453.net (195.219.241.10) 33.472 ms 32.141 ms 32.467 ms
13 195.219.227.54 (195.219.227.54) 33.422 ms 33.411 ms 33.586 ms
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *


Are they routing this through Paris, France and then Belgium?

It does officially belong to Cable and Wireless in the Americas, but Vodafone bought C & W. So they could well be using that range in the UK now, given that no IPv4 addresses are being issued any more. They are being moved around a lot between associated ISPs, and Vodafone in the UK will be needing a lot, given their huge expansion here.

If that node was actually in the USA the ping would be far higher than you are seeing.

As RobertoS suggests it may be owned in the US but in use in the UK.

The important point to note is that the times are around 20ms, whereas in a perfect UK to East Coast US there is 60ms so you would expect to see something above 80ms for that hop


As for the second - almost certainly going into Europe.


edit to add:

You can work it out for yourself. In round figures, for fibre it is 200,000 km per second or 125,000 miles per second. And remember that you have to account for there and back.

Edited by MHC (Wed 20-Mar-19 09:31:52)

OK, Thanks very much to all 3 of you for the information.

In reply to a post by mrmarktigger:

Also fast.com

$ traceroute fast.com
traceroute to fast.com (2.18.169.16), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 vodafone.connect.broadband (192.168.1.1) 1.095 ms 1.069 ms 1.040 ms
2 host-212-158-250-34.dslgb.com (212.158.250.34) 16.966 ms 17.399 ms 17.507 ms
3 63.130.104.198 (63.130.104.198) 19.495 ms 19.458 ms 20.013 ms
4 ae11-100-xcr1.hex.cw.net (195.89.96.1) 19.991 ms 22.725 ms 22.696 ms
5 ae9-xcr1.lnt.cw.net (195.2.24.161) 22.650 ms ae18-xcr1.lnd.cw.net (195.2.24.157) 22.649 ms ae17-xcr1.ltw.cw.net (195.2.28.150) 22.816 ms
6 ae15-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.30.114) 22.965 ms ae22-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.30.61) 21.887 ms ae36-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.25.170) 22.607 ms
7 as6453-gw-xcr1.lns.cw.net (195.2.21.42) 23.722 ms 16.353 ms 16.726 ms
8 if-ae-26-2.tcore1.ldn-london.as6453.net (80.231.62.58) 31.438 ms 31.223 ms 30.691 ms
9 if-ae-17-2.tcore1.l78-london.as6453.net (80.231.130.129) 33.433 ms 33.408 ms 30.242 ms
10 if-ae-3-2.tcore1.pye-paris.as6453.net (80.231.154.142) 30.705 ms 31.139 ms 31.125 ms
11 if-ae-11-2.tcore1.pvu-paris.as6453.net (80.231.153.49) 30.103 ms 30.445 ms 32.510 ms
12 if-ae-32-2.thar1.b1d-brussels.as6453.net (195.219.241.10) 33.472 ms 32.141 ms 32.467 ms
13 195.219.227.54 (195.219.227.54) 33.422 ms 33.411 ms 33.586 ms
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *

Seems a very long & scenic route to fast.com (Netflix) servers. I would ask their staff over on VF forums why they take such a long route.

This is mine for comparison purposes:

C:\>tracert fast.com

Tracing route to fast.com [88.221.170.233]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Linksys01421 [192.168.1.1]
2 21 ms 19 ms 20 ms SOV-D-LNS-ASR-ED.fluidata.co.uk [77.89.165.5]
3 21 ms 20 ms 20 ms 77-89-165-33.fluidata.co.uk [77.89.165.33]
4 29 ms 21 ms 23 ms lonap.netarch.akamai.com [5.57.80.72]
5 22 ms 21 ms 21 ms a88-221-170-233.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com [88.221.170.233]

Trace complete.

C:\>

When you visit rather than traceroute fast.com it will usually perform a download of a file from several servers.

If you use the api url below this will give you a list of the servers and test files:

https://api.fast.com/netflix/speedtest/v2?https=true...

You will commonly see the first few are ISP specific CDN servers e.g. ipv4-c005-lee001-virginmedia-isp.1.oca.nflxvideo.net (Sorry I left Voda a couple of weeks ago so can't give a Voda example). Sometimes you will see a couple of non-ISP servers at the bottom.

You can try tracert to these servers and also click the test files to see the speed. They are quite small so you may d/l very quick.

Voda used to have netflix CDNs "named" Manchester, Birmingham and Bracknell I think.

As I'm sure you've seen on the Voda forum they were applying fixes to nodes over a couple of weeks but the last should have been last night (19 March).

@adrenalize_

Many thanks for the api info. Very useful info. I will try that when I get home tonight.

Yes indeed, I am MarkFromPompey on the voda forum

I saw a great improvement from sundays fix with single thread speeds early Monday Morning 5 to 6am with 71 Mbit/s Speedtest.net to Voda London & Bracknell and many others. Not quite so good Tuesday & Wednesday between 5 and 6am Up and down like Yoyo.
Looks like a snake on my network history graph on Ubuntu system Information
It even drops to zero on the live graph sometimes pops up again and sometimes not.

Perfect flat line single 71 Mbit/s to some servers every time, time and time again though. So I'm sure it's still not right. tbbx1 on this site up and down too.

Why this site will not have changed is that we are not using CDN so speed tests that may be getting files from CDN systems that have had the fix applied will be better.

Only once the fix is applied to wider traffic routes will things improve.

@baby_frogmella

Absolutely no chance of getting a sensible answer from Vodafone staff

They would probably tell me it was a pigeon perching on my telephone wires going by what twaddle I've had from them so far. hahaha