High pings Stateside?

Reya · May 12, 2011, 21:54:28

Hi, all

I've been experiencing a massive increase in ping times to almost all US-based websites lately (especially the ones I access all the flipping time!). Traceroutes seem to indicate no problems until I get to the US leg.

When I ran a tracerout to my site before contacting my webhost (Dreamhost), the US hops looked like this (UK bit excised, as it was all around 28ms) -

6 28 ms 29 ms 28 ms ge-2-1-0.mpr1.lhr2.uk.above.net [64.125.28.141]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 101 ms 107 ms 101 ms xe-1-3-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.29.21]
9 138 ms 127 ms 127 ms xe-0-2-0.cr1.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.25.114]
10 132 ms 127 ms 127 ms xe-0-0-0.cr2.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.30.66]
11 159 ms 159 ms 159 ms xe-0-3-0.cr2.lax112.us.above.net [64.125.30.50]
12 161 ms 184 ms 177 ms xe-0-1-0.mpr1.lax7.us.above.net [64.125.30.5]
13 160 ms 202 ms 203 ms 64.124.196.90.t00867-01.above.net [64.124.196.90]
14 159 ms 158 ms 345 ms ip-66-33-201-221.dreamhost.com [66.33.201.221]
15 303 ms 230 ms 238 ms ip-66-33-201-66.dreamhost.com [66.33.201.66]
16 158 ms 158 ms * apache2-able.kakuji.dreamhost.com [69.163.132.229]
17 162 ms 159 ms 158 ms apache2-able.kakuji.dreamhost.com
[69.163.132.229]

The response I received from my webhost's support people was as follows (bolding mine) -

Thank you for contacting us. Any latency(slowness) you see would be the result of the high ping times and router timeouts in the above.net portion of your circuit to us. Unfortunately we can not help with these types of issues because your ISP controls the networks that you use. Its your ISP that provides your connectivity so you will want to contact them and ask them to put you on a more efficient circuit to US based websites. Once your connectivity(especially the transatlantic portion) improves then your pages will load faster for you. When I check your websites they all load normally for me. I also used a remote testing tool at tool.pingdom.com and all the test showed normal page load times.

Would IDnet be able to do this? Can I be put on this 'more efficient circuit' to US based websites? Just about every site I access on a regular basis is in the US, and the slow loading lately is driving me up the wall. My own website and sub-domained blog on it can take anything upwards of a minute to load, which is getting to be a pain in the rump every time I want to update it.

(I'm posting and running, I'm afraid. Got to get to bed in about ten minutes, but if anyone can give me a yea or nay, or let me know if it's worth contacting support, I'd be very grateful.)

Steve · May 12, 2011, 21:59:21

You can discuss possible changes of routing with support they have on occasions been able to re route. I suggest send them details with the relevant traceroute

Reya · May 12, 2011, 22:00:58

Thanks, Steve. I didn't even know if it was possible, so I thought I'd ask here before I pestered the support guys

esh · May 12, 2011, 22:03:26

Can you give us some links? I'm registering 130-140 ms to that IP you showed.

Steve · May 12, 2011, 22:22:14

Which I guess is not too bad @ that rate

Reya · May 12, 2011, 22:22:35

Esh, two of the sites I access that give me issues are secondlife.com-

Pinging secondlife.com [216.82.2.17] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.82.2.17: bytes=32 time=137ms TTL=242
Reply from 216.82.2.17: bytes=32 time=137ms TTL=242
Reply from 216.82.2.17: bytes=32 time=136ms TTL=242
Reply from 216.82.2.17: bytes=32 time=137ms TTL=242

Ping statistics for 216.82.2.17:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 136ms, Maximum = 137ms, Average = 136ms

Traceroute to secondlife.com again shows the latency shooting up once it gets Stateside -

5 28 ms 28 ms 27 ms ge-2-1-0.mpr1.lhr2.uk.above.net [195.66.224.76]
6 28 ms 28 ms 29 ms ge-4-1-0.mpr1.lhr2.uk.above.net [64.125.27.145]
7 102 ms 101 ms 101 ms so-1-1-0.mpr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.31.186]
8 102 ms 101 ms 105 ms xe-1-3-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.29.21]
9 160 ms 128 ms 128 ms xe-0-2-0.cr1.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.25.114]
10 180 ms 128 ms 148 ms xe-0-0-0.cr2.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.30.66]

Also livejournal.com -

Pinging livejournal.com [208.93.0.168] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 208.93.0.168: bytes=32 time=175ms TTL=238
Reply from 208.93.0.168: bytes=32 time=174ms TTL=238
Reply from 208.93.0.168: bytes=32 time=176ms TTL=238
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 208.93.0.168:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 174ms, Maximum = 176ms, Average = 175ms

Traceroute to livejournal.com -

6 27 ms 29 ms 28 ms ldn-b5-link.telia.net [213.248.93.81]
7 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms ldn-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.249.181]
8 105 ms 106 ms 108 ms ash-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.251.209]
9 106 ms 107 ms 109 ms qwest-119092-ash-bb1.telia.net [213.248.88.178]
10 175 ms 175 ms 174 ms bil-core-02.inet.qwest.net [205.171.8.154]
11 174 ms 172 ms * bil-edge-03.inet.qwest.net [205.171.154.69]
12 172 ms 172 ms 173 ms 209.181.1.98
13 173 ms 173 ms 173 ms 208.93.0.168

I am getting better pings tonight than I have been, but everything is still much slower than it was a few weeks ago.

I have to get to bed now. Got to be up at stupid o'clock, so I'll be back at about 4am.

pctech · May 12, 2011, 22:34:52

For comparison I ran some traceroutes for you from a non IDNet connection (its on Zen), I should point out though line is interleaved so it will have an effect and traffic is handed off to AboveNet in New York rather than the UK,

Tracing route to apache2-able.kakuji.dreamhost.com [69.163.132.229]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Removed as its a fixed IP
2 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms losubs.subs.dsl2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.21]

3 35 ms 23 ms 23 ms ae0-114.cr1.th-lon.zen.net.net [62.3.84.185]
4 29 ms 27 ms 27 ms ge-3-0-0-0.cr2.kp-leeds.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.77]

5 30 ms 29 ms 29 ms so-0-0-0-0.cr1.ha-sthp.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.82]
6 101 ms 102 ms 100 ms so-0-0-0-0.cr1.tlx-nyc.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.86]
7 102 ms 160 ms 100 ms ny-iix.above.net [198.32.160.22]
8 103 ms 102 ms 101 ms xe-1-1-0.cr1.lga5.us.above.net [64.125.26.161]
9 106 ms 106 ms 106 ms xe-3-2-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.26.101]
10 133 ms 133 ms 164 ms xe-2-2-0.cr1.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.29.37]
11 136 ms 134 ms 132 ms xe-0-0-0.cr2.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.30.66]
12 172 ms 164 ms 164 ms xe-0-3-0.cr2.lax112.us.above.net [64.125.30.50]

13 165 ms 164 ms 164 ms xe-0-1-0.mpr1.lax7.us.above.net [64.125.30.5]
14 165 ms 165 ms 165 ms 64.124.196.90.t00867-01.above.net [64.124.196.90
]
15 165 ms 165 ms 165 ms ip-66-33-201-221.dreamhost.com [66.33.201.221]
16 270 ms 354 ms 373 ms ip-66-33-201-66.dreamhost.com [66.33.201.66]
17 165 ms 166 ms 166 ms apache2-able.kakuji.dreamhost.com [69.163.132.22
9]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Admin>tracert secondlife.com

Tracing route to secondlife.com [216.82.2.17]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Removed as its a fixed IP
2 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms losubs.subs.dsl2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.21]

3 22 ms 23 ms 22 ms ae0-114.cr1.th-lon.zen.net.net [62.3.84.185]
4 28 ms 27 ms 36 ms ge-3-0-0-0.cr2.kp-leeds.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.77]

5 29 ms 29 ms 31 ms so-0-0-0-0.cr1.ha-sthp.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.82]
6 101 ms 100 ms 107 ms so-0-0-0-0.cr1.tlx-nyc.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.86]
7 102 ms 101 ms 102 ms ny-iix.above.net [198.32.160.22]
8 103 ms 102 ms 101 ms xe-1-1-0.cr1.lga5.us.above.net [64.125.26.161]
9 106 ms 105 ms 109 ms xe-3-2-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.26.101]
10 152 ms 137 ms 133 ms xe-2-2-0.cr1.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.29.37]
11 134 ms 139 ms 133 ms xe-1-0-0.cr2.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.30.70]
12 139 ms 139 ms 138 ms xe-2-3-0.cr2.dfw2.us.above.net [64.125.31.121]
13 138 ms 138 ms 138 ms xe-1-1-0.er2.dfw2.us.above.net [64.125.26.214]
14 175 ms 138 ms 138 ms 64.124.146.2.allocated.above.net [64.124.146.2]

15 140 ms 138 ms 137 ms sw-core1-72.dfw.lindenlab.com [216.82.7.170]
16 138 ms 139 ms 139 ms vip.www-dfw.secondlife.com [216.82.2.17]

Trace complete.

Tracing route to livejournal.com [208.93.0.168]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Removed as its a fixed IP

2 23 ms 23 ms 22 ms losubs.subs.dsl2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.21]

3 23 ms 23 ms 22 ms ae0-114.cr1.th-lon.zen.net.net [62.3.84.185]
4 22 ms 22 ms 24 ms sl-gw10-lon-12-019.sprintlink.net [82.195.189.65
]
5 23 ms 23 ms 22 ms sl-bb22-lon-9-0-0.sprintlink.net [213.206.128.60
]
6 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms sl-bb21-lon-3-0-0.sprintlink.net [213.206.129.15
2]
7 107 ms 91 ms 91 ms sl-crs2-nyc-0-5-3-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.9.16
4]
8 97 ms 96 ms 96 ms 144.232.18.238
9 96 ms 96 ms 96 ms 0.ae3.XL3.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.16.182]
10 149 ms 148 ms 148 ms 0.so-7-3-0.XL3.DEN4.ALTER.NET [152.63.66.178]
11 149 ms 149 ms 148 ms POS6-0.GW8.DEN4.ALTER.NET [152.63.88.185]
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 156 ms 156 ms 155 ms 208.93.0.168

Trace complete.

esh · May 12, 2011, 22:35:55

And from me. Livejournal does feel a bit sluggish. Not sure if that's normal.

Tracing route to livejournal.com [208.93.0.168]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms pallin.garagos.net [192.168.1.3]
2 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms telehouse-gw2-lo1.idnet.net [212.69.63.51]
3 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms telehouse-gw5-e4-400.idnet.net [212.69.63.245]
4 8 ms 9 ms 9 ms telehouse-gw3-g0-1-400.idnet.net [212.69.63.243]

5 8 ms 11 ms 8 ms v225.core1.lon1.he.net [216.66.86.45]
6 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms ldn-b5-link.telia.net [213.248.93.81]
7 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms ldn-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.249.181]
8 84 ms 83 ms 83 ms ash-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.251.209]
9 88 ms 100 ms 86 ms qwest-119092-ash-bb1.telia.net [213.248.88.178]

10 152 ms 152 ms 152 ms bil-core-02.inet.qwest.net [205.171.8.154]
11 154 ms 154 ms 153 ms bil-edge-03.inet.qwest.net [205.171.154.69]
12 154 ms 153 ms 153 ms 209.181.1.98
13 153 ms 166 ms 153 ms 208.93.0.168

Trace complete.

jameshurrell · May 12, 2011, 23:24:58

I don't think 160ms ping time to Dreamhost is all that bad (IMHO)...I've always pinged around that on IDNet (I have a few sites with them). Their datacenter is in California... The jump of 30ms you see between hop 10 and 11 is going from Houston (IAH) to Los Angeles (LAX)... that's always been where the ping times increase. I get the same here.

I have a VPS in Texas (Dallas) and that is pinging 120ms tonight (via above.net as well) - I don't think that's too shoddy at all...

zappaDPJ · May 13, 2011, 05:18:43

The servers I'm connecting to in the states seem to ping at around 120ms - 140ms. It's not something I test that often but I've not personally noticed any hike in ping recently.

pctech · May 13, 2011, 11:43:39

I had to post and run last night but I did wonder whether anyone else was sharing your connection Reya or whether you've got any upload or download activity going on?

Have always had about 160ms or so latency to the US no matter what ISP I have used but as I say thats partly to do with interleaving I think.

pctech · May 13, 2011, 11:52:07

I've just re-run the test for you

Tracing route to apache2-able.kakuji.dreamhost.com [69.163.132.229]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Fixed IP removed
2 23 ms 24 ms 22 ms losubs.subs.dsl2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.21]

3 24 ms 22 ms 23 ms ae0-114.cr1.th-lon.zen.net.net [62.3.84.185]
4 28 ms 28 ms 27 ms ge-3-0-0-0.cr2.kp-leeds.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.77]

5 30 ms 30 ms 29 ms so-0-0-0-0.cr1.ha-sthp.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.82]
6 100 ms 101 ms 100 ms so-0-0-0-0.cr1.tlx-nyc.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.86]
7 101 ms 101 ms 101 ms ny-iix.above.net [198.32.160.22]
8 102 ms 108 ms 101 ms xe-1-1-0.cr1.lga5.us.above.net [64.125.26.161]
9 109 ms 106 ms 106 ms xe-2-2-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.26.97]
10 107 ms 107 ms 106 ms xe-0-0-0.cr2.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.28.242]
11 133 ms 133 ms 133 ms xe-0-2-0.cr2.iah1.us.above.net [64.125.28.50]
12 167 ms 165 ms 164 ms xe-2-0-0.cr2.lax112.us.above.net [64.125.25.18]

13 207 ms 165 ms 164 ms xe-0-1-0.mpr1.lax7.us.above.net [64.125.30.5]
14 211 ms 204 ms 164 ms 64.124.196.90.t00867-01.above.net [64.124.196.90
]
15 165 ms 164 ms 165 ms ip-66-33-201-221.dreamhost.com [66.33.201.221]
16 200 ms 166 ms 165 ms ip-66-33-201-66.dreamhost.com [66.33.201.66]
17 166 ms 165 ms 165 ms apache2-able.kakuji.dreamhost.com [69.163.132.22
9]

As you can see its looking better today, I wonder if Dreamhost or AboveNet had a router issue that is now fixed or that simply the networks are busy because it would be late afternoon/evening over there.

Rik · May 13, 2011, 11:57:57

From within IDNet:

tracert 69.163.132.229

Tracing route to 69.163.132.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 41 ms 15 ms 11 ms 212.69.63.51
3 14 ms 13 ms 11 ms 212.69.63.245
4 13 ms 14 ms 13 ms 212.69.63.243
5 15 ms 11 ms 13 ms 195.66.224.76
6 15 ms 15 ms 13 ms 64.125.27.145
7 88 ms 84 ms 85 ms 64.125.31.186
8 108 ms 88 ms 84 ms 64.125.29.17
9 113 ms 129 ms 118 ms 64.125.29.37
10 113 ms 112 ms 113 ms 64.125.30.66
11 146 ms 144 ms 145 ms 64.125.30.50
12 144 ms 143 ms 144 ms 64.125.30.5
13 144 ms 143 ms 143 ms 64.124.196.90
14 145 ms 143 ms 143 ms 66.33.201.221
15 160 ms 163 ms 145 ms 66.33.201.66
16 145 ms 143 ms 143 ms 69.163.132.229

Trace complete.