Facebook post — 17 February 2015

facebook 17 February 2015

I have BSNL and Airtel DSL lines terminating on the same host in Gurgaon. If you ping/trace one from the other, packets are routed through Chennai! Airtel does not peer with BSNL or NIXI! Instead it hands over traffic to VSNL (TATA), which hauls them all the way to Chennai and then hands them over to BSNL. I have an ugly feeling that Bangalore also figures on this journey. BSNL's retail broadband operations are headquartered in Bangalore. It is quite possible that they route all their broadband traffic through some core switch in Bangalore, for billing/monitoring/big-brother purposes.

$ tracepath 117.198.121.150
1: localhost 0.297ms pmtu 1500
1: airtel 0.903ms
1: airtel 0.891ms
2: airtel 1.050ms pmtu 1400
2: abts-north-static-072.220.160.122.airtelbroadband.in 40.439ms asymm 3
3: no reply
4: aes-static-005.68.144.59.airtel.in 33.364ms asymm 7
5: 14.141.116.89.static-Delhi.vsnl.net.in 32.105ms asymm 6
6: 172.31.17.5 84.003ms asymm 7
7: 14.141.139.146.static-chennai.vsnl.net.in 115.703ms asymm 8
8: 218.248.235.141 117.483ms asymm 9
9: 218.248.169.41 113.957ms
10: 218.248.169.41 118.894ms asymm 9
11: 117.198.121.150 150.196ms asymm 10
12: 117.198.121.150 154.696ms !H

Average RTT 118ms

Oh wait! Before we jump to the above conclusions, let's try the reverse journey, BSNL to Airtel:

# ip netns exec bsnl tracepath airtel-global
1: localhost 0.186ms pmtu 1500
1: bsnl 5.377ms
1: bsnl 5.675ms
2: bsnl 5.784ms pmtu 1400
2: 117.198.120.1 47.735ms
3: 218.248.169.38 68.787ms
4: 218.248.235.130 46.593ms asymm 5
5: 218.100.48.20 57.748ms asymm 6
6: 182.79.255.101 186.722ms asymm 8
7: no reply
8: no reply
9: no reply
10: abts-north-dynamic-007.3.68.182.airtelbroadband.in 155.566ms asymm 11
11: abts-north-dynamic-007.3.68.182.airtelbroadband.in 156.832ms !H

Number 5 is NIXI Delhi! Hurrah! Average RTT is 123ms for this path. What? More than when we were using TATA? I suspect something is amiss in the handover from NIXI Delhi to Airtel.

21 comments

Srinivas KotamarthiHindi mein bataao na Hide
Pallavi PhatakStop show-offing in public like this. Hide
Gouri ChughI got it! Lol! Hide
Saurabh JPallavi for once I make a geeky post on FaceBook and you guys are all over me! I do this stuff day in and day out and never get to talk about it. Anyway, as with most other posts of mine, this is a rant. Our Internet service providers can't seem to talk to each other nicely. It takes 50 milliseconds for my Airtel connection to talk to Google and revert... and Google is sitting in Singapore/HK. If the same Airtel connection talks to my BSNL connection, which is literally sitting in the same room, it takes 130 milliseconds. Ideally BSNL and Airtel should be peering somewhere in Gurgaon, or Delhi
Saurabh JSo it looks like Flipkart is on the end of something owned by Vodafone. Both Airtel and BSNL send Flipkart traffic to 122.15.101.41, which is owned by Vodafone. The trace after that is obscured.
Gouri ChughI have an Airtel connection and modem ko do thappad maro to hi chalta hai. I felt like adding an "intelligent" comment. Your work sounds quite geeky. Hide
Saurabh JGouriji I've made computer dabbas for a living all my life. Check out Thinvent, www.thinvent.in. मगर हम सिर्फ़ पेशे से ही नहीं, फ़िकरत से भी geek हैं। THINVENT.IN Home - Thinvent Technologies Home - Thinvent Technologies Remove Preview
Priya RanjanLol, its a mess in short! Hide
Ramakant JawalkarThats nothing; not too long ago the packets would go to the US & come back..... without "phoren" even pkts don't work.... Hide
Saurabh JRamakant true. I used to crib about peering being done in Singapore or Chicago. I just assumed things would be better now that India has 'the second largest number of Internet users in the world'.
Sushant SinhaISPs are extremely cost sensitive and there must be a reason for not peering with BSNL/NIXI. Latency is secondary. NIXI charges Rs 5/GB for the difference in traffic and that seems too high specially when data centers in India are offering Rs. 7/GB unconditionally. Hide
Srinivas KotamarthiSrinivas Kotamarthi · 11y · by authorHindi mein bataao naLikeHide
Pallavi PhatakPallavi Phatak · 11y · by authorStop show-offing in public like this. HideEdited
Gouri ChughGouri Chugh · 11y · by authorI got it! Lol! LikeHide
Saurabh JSaurabh J · 11y · by authorPallavi for once I make a geeky post on FaceBook and you guys are all over me! I do this stuff day in and day out and never get to talk about it.Anyway, as with most other posts of mine, this is a rant. Our Internet service providers can't seem to talk to each other nicely. It takes 50 milliseconds for my Airtel connection to talk to Google and revert... and Google is sitting in Singapore/HK. If the same Airtel connection talks to my BSNL connection, which is literally sitting in the same room, it takes 130 milliseconds. Ideally BSNL and Airtel should be peering so
Saurabh JSaurabh J · 11ySo it looks like Flipkart is on the end of something owned by Vodafone. Both Airtel and BSNL send Flipkart traffic to 122.15.101.41, which is owned by Vodafone. The trace after that is obscured.Like
Gouri ChughGouri Chugh · 11y · by authorI have an Airtel connection and modem ko do thappad maro to hi chalta hai. I felt like adding an "intelligent" comment. Your work sounds quite geeky.LikeHide
Saurabh JSaurabh J · 11yGouriji I've made computer dabbas for a living all my life. Check out Thinvent, www.thinvent.in. मगर हम सिर्फ़ पेशे से ही नहीं, फ़िकरत से भी geek हैं।THINVENT.INHome - Thinvent TechnologiesHome - Thinvent TechnologiesLikeRemove Preview
Priya RanjanPriya Ranjan · 11y · by authorLol, its a mess in short!LikeHide
Ramakant JawalkarRamakant Jawalkar · 11y · by authorThats nothing; not too long ago the packets would go to the US & come back..... without "phoren" even pkts don't work....LikeHide
Saurabh JSaurabh J · 11yRamakant true. I used to crib about peering being done in Singapore or Chicago. I just assumed things would be better now that India has 'the second largest number of Internet users in the world'.Like