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I added this onto a list in alt.games.diablo2 where some of us from
Australasia were comparing ping-times etc. to a server in California that we
play on. Thought it might be of interest:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here is my Trace route to the battlenet servers:

Tracing route to 63.241.83.111 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms SpeedTouch.lan
2 56 ms 56 ms 60 ms 60.234.8.15
3 58 ms 57 ms 59 ms 60.234.9.1
4 56 ms 60 ms 59 ms ge-0-3-0-840.akbr3.global-gateway.net.nz*
5 211 ms 211 ms 211 ms 202.50.232.22*
6 209 ms 215 ms 212 ms so-1-3-0-0.pabr3.global-gateway.net.nz*
7 240 ms 239 ms 239 ms sl-st20-pa-6-2.sprintlink.net
8 240 ms 239 ms 240 ms sl-st20-pa-1-0.sprintlink.net
9 242 ms 241 ms 240 ms 144.232.20.6
10 244 ms 240 ms 240 ms sl-st21-sj-12-0.sprintlink.net
11 220 ms 216 ms 231 ms 144.232.8.106
12 224 ms 220 ms 219 ms tbr2-p011901.sffca.ip.att.net
13 220 ms 218 ms 217 ms 12.123.13.178
14 218 ms 235 ms 238 ms idf22-gsr12-1-pos-6-0.rwc1.attens.net
15 222 ms 222 ms 220 ms mdf2-bi8k-1-eth-1-1.rwc1.attens.net
16 * * * Request timed out.

It used to be a lot closer to 25 hops but I had a talk to one of the geeks
at my ISP one night when lag was particulary bad and I was particularly
frustrated and he asked the IP range of the servers, said he'd do his best
to make sure traffic gets routed to them as quickly as possible. Thinking
about it, the game has been better since not long after that so I haven't
bothered with a tracert since.

Still laggy though, 240ms is excellent, 300 - 400 is more common. Lag spikes
several seconds long every few minutes of up to 4,000ms are normal......

*Of note is that these three IP addresses (4, 5 and 6. (Some IP's snipped
for formatting's sake)) according to the Asia-Pacific Network Information
Centre, all resolve back to NZ Telecom in Mayoral Drive, Auckland NZ. The
next hop (7) is in Kansas City. There has been a lot of talk, locally and on
The Register, of Telecom NZ deliberately introducing latency to defeat VOIP
and to protect their core business, telephony. That trace route seems to
bear this out if I'm reading it correctly. It seems that they're adding
~150ms in there right in Auckland. It would be interesting to see what sort
of pingtimes I got without that added latency.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Battlenet servers are configured to not accept pings or tracerts so the
timeout is their server. Do people here in nz.comp agree with my conclusion
about Telecom adding latency? Or have I read it wrong? Arin-Whois didn't
have info for those IPs, I had to use APNIC which suggests that they are all
local. The two IP's snipped above are:
4) 203.96.64.125
6) 202.37.245.230
Lots of latency happening between those huh?

Cheers,
--
~misfit~

IP Registers awhich match ip address/location are sometimes wrong


>
> Tracing route to 63.241.83.111 over a maximum of 30 hops
>
> 1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms SpeedTouch.lan < ---- Your Router

Latency Increase as its DSL

> 2 56 ms 56 ms 60 ms 60.234.8.15 <----- Orcon UBS Termination
> 3 58 ms 57 ms 59 ms 60.234.9.1 <-----International Router for
> Orcon
> 4 56 ms 60 ms 59 ms ge-0-3-0-840.akbr3.global-gateway.net.nz*
> <- Telecom Router in NZ

Latency Increase as it goes overseas here


> 5 211 ms 211 ms 211 ms 202.50.232.22* <----- Telecom Router
> Overseas 6 209 ms 215 ms 212 ms
> so-1-3-0-0.pabr3.global-gateway.net.nz* <-----Telecom Router Overseas
> 7 240 ms 239 ms 239 ms sl-st20-pa-6-2.sprintlink.net
> 8 240 ms 239 ms 240 ms sl-st20-pa-1-0.sprintlink.net

Also Rumours of adding VOIP latency on purpose by Telecom.. I'll just leave
it.

Thanks
Craig

This is why local peering and careful selection of an upstream provider
is a good idea

"Stu Fleming" <> wrote in message
news:43d29c66$...
> This is why local peering and careful selection of an upstream provider is
> a good idea

I cannot see how "Local Peering" has anything to do with the original post.

Thanks
Craig

Craig Whitmore wrote:

Thanks for your reply Craig.

> IP Registers awhich match ip address/location are sometimes wrong

Yes, *sometimes*.

>> Tracing route to 63.241.83.111 over a maximum of 30 hops
>>
>> 1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms SpeedTouch.lan < ---- Your Router

Yup.

> Latency Increase as its DSL

Explain please? Does this mean that dial-up would have less latency? I can
have four PCs connected to my game server in the western US and the traffic
is only about 3kB/s out and 2kB/s in, should be doable on a good dial-up.
May be worth it if the latency is lower. It actually used to be lower on
dial-up cometo think about it, about half the delay, it wasn't unusual to
get ping-times under 200ms to California. I seem to remeber a time when they
were around 140ms for a while.

>> 2 56 ms 56 ms 60 ms 60.234.8.15 <----- Orcon UBS
>> Termination 3 58 ms 57 ms 59 ms 60.234.9.1
>> <-----International Router for Orcon
>> 4 56 ms 60 ms 59 ms ge-0-3-0-840.akbr3.global-gateway.net.nz*
>> <- Telecom Router in NZ
>
> Latency Increase as it goes overseas here

Ok, thanks.

>> 5 211 ms 211 ms 211 ms 202.50.232.22* <----- Telecom Router
>> Overseas 6 209 ms 215 ms 212 ms
>> so-1-3-0-0.pabr3.global-gateway.net.nz* <-----Telecom Router Overseas

Ok, I didn't realise that Orcon were relaint on Telecom's infrastructure
overseas as well. I hear you talking about having to provision international
bandwidth (like when you opened your fourth ATM to Telecom) and I envisioned
that, once on the SC cable, you were on your own. The chart on this page:

http://www.orcon.net.nz/help/status

Gives the wrong impresssion as well then. You should have Telecom between
you and the world as well. You're the cheese in the sandwich. Telecom has
control overe everything, even the US/international side of things.

BTW, any chance of getting those charts updated? The ATM usage one is
getting on for two months old and the traffic analysis one is June last
year! I'm sure trends have changed. Orcon keeps talking about getting the
"Mom and pop" customers on and balancing the load, it would be nice to see a
chart that's less than 6 months old. A week is a long time in the business,
as I'm sure you're well aware. 2 months and 6 months respectively are
positively historical.

>> 7 240 ms 239 ms 239 ms sl-st20-pa-6-2.sprintlink.net
>> 8 240 ms 239 ms 240 ms sl-st20-pa-1-0.sprintlink.net
>
> Also Rumours of adding VOIP latency on purpose by Telecom.. I'll just
> leave it.

Ok, my bad. I seem to remember that is was pretty much confirmed that
Telecom were deliberately introducing 40-50ms (And something about jitter?
Should have kept bookmarks) to nerf Skype et al until such time as they can
offer their own VOIP. The regular huge latency increases that I see randomly
approximately every few minutes, over 4 seconds latency, lasting 10 seconds
or more, are they just a router malfunctioning? With the whole Telecom kit
and kaboodle going over IP in the next couple years things should improve I
guess. That sort of thing wouldn't be good enough for Telecom's own product.

Cheers,
--
~misfit~

~misfit~ wrote:
>
> Ok, I didn't realise that Orcon were relaint on Telecom's
> infrastructure overseas as well.
>
Telecom International is a part of Telecom and TI looks after providing
access overseas. I theenk the 'pa' is in Paolo Alto, CA. That traffic is
probably going via the Southern Cross Cable.

If you were using a different provider, you might find the traffic going
via Australia and the hop across the Tasman often adds 300 - 500 ms to
the trip. 150 ms for the hop to California sounds good. I used to see
ping times to the UK to be LESS than ping times to places in OZ when the
traffic didn't go via OZ.

Cheers,

Cliff

Enkidu wrote:
> ~misfit~ wrote:
>>
>> Ok, I didn't realise that Orcon were relaint on Telecom's
>> infrastructure overseas as well.
>>
> Telecom International is a part of Telecom and TI looks after
> providing access overseas. I theenk the 'pa' is in Paolo Alto, CA.
> That traffic is probably going via the Southern Cross Cable.
>
> If you were using a different provider, you might find the traffic
> going via Australia and the hop across the Tasman often adds 300 -
> 500 ms to the trip. 150 ms for the hop to California sounds good. I
> used to see ping times to the UK to be LESS than ping times to places
> in OZ when the traffic didn't go via OZ.

Ok. Thanks Cliff, interesting.

Cheers,
--
~misfit~