# The SBHonline Community Daily > Digerati Discussions! >  >  SBH Internet

## Petri

There's been a saying that the internet in St. Barth is bad, one shouldn't except much, it's a island, and there isn't bandwidth available.  Some people even say it's connected by a satellite.

So while on the island last spring two different occasions, I checked out the details a bit from the user perspective.  Thank you for the villa owners for keeping the default passwords :)

A bit of basic understanding for the non-technical people; Internet works in layers.  When you surf to sbhonline.com from your villa, the traffic happens at IP level between hosts with IP addresses like 10.7.107.17.  Your browser doesn't know how you are actually connected, it's just traffic from IP address A to B without any idea how it flows.


IP packets are like your UPS delivery from Apple manufacturing in China.  The packets hop from "city to city", "airport to airport" and end up at your doorstep.  These packets go back and forth all the time.   The trunk lines, "trucks and planes" between cities and airports can be shared by multiple packets, just like your UPS package.  In the Internet the same link can be shared by UPS, Fedex and DHL.  Happy folks they are.


These packets are encapsulated in various layers, "wrapped in cargo containers for longhaul".  The IP packet gets encapsulated for the physical media, like a DSL line or ethernet cable.  And at the bottom there will be the physical layer that tells how to transmit 1's and 0's on that piece of copper or fiber cable.  Your ADSL modem is the one that takes the IP packets from ethernet frames, turns them into ADSL frames and into electronic signals on the copper phone line.  But your browser will never know about this.


In real life things get a bit more complicated as there may be additional layers for authentication, separating traffic from each other, and using the same physical infrastructure for multiple customers and even carriers.  And with the layers, each layer can often be from different A to B.  A single fiber can carry a lot of data.

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## Petri

Let's start with a villa near St. Jean.  The ADSL line had a raw upstream speed of 1 Mbit/s and raw downstream speed of 15.6 Mbit/s, using the latest ADSL2+ technology.  These speeds are pretty good and tell that the other end of the ADSL line is less than 2 km away.  The line uses PPPoA technology which means a lot of layers, your IP packet will be inside a PPP frames, inside ATM frames and inside the ADSL frames.


The PPPoA technology gives the option to terminate the customer connection further away, if it made any sense, the next hop of the connection from the villa in St. Barth could be in New York.  Sometimes it makes sense to terminate the connection further away to make administration easier.


So how does the traffic flow from Villa A?


Let's start with a traceroute to a finnish newspaper web site:


traceroute to www.hs.fi (158.127.30.40), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  2.178 ms  0.991 ms  1.336 ms
 2  net1lo-bidon.bsami113.amiens.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.3)  24.693 ms  25.605 ms  24.819 ms
 3  80.10.245.253 (80.10.245.253)  25.997 ms  26.746 ms  25.539 ms
 4  pos0-3-0-0-100.nyktr3.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.248.2)  75.289 ms  76.319 ms  74.629 ms
 5  tengige0-3-0-6.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.151.240)  72.888 ms  71.446 ms  72.857 ms
 6  te0-0-0-12.ccr21.jfk07.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.11.229)  70.540 ms  70.671 ms  71.915 ms
 7  be2059.mpd22.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.1.221)  71.038 ms
    be2056.ccr21.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.44.217)  71.133 ms
    be2057.ccr22.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.80.177)  70.623 ms
 8  be2094.ccr21.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.30.14)  76.504 ms  76.425 ms
    be2097.ccr22.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.30.118)  76.849 ms
 9  be2386.ccr21.lpl01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.44.162)  161.214 ms
    be2387.ccr22.lpl01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.44.166)  155.340 ms  155.650 ms
10  be2182.ccr41.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.77.245)  158.531 ms
    be2183.ccr42.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.58.70)  156.333 ms  155.327 ms
11  be2187.ccr42.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.126)  163.529 ms
    be2186.ccr41.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.122)  160.751 ms
    be2187.ccr42.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.126)  164.247 ms
12  be2281.ccr21.sto03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.63.2)  184.862 ms  184.080 ms
    be2282.ccr22.sto03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.72.106)  182.787 ms
13  be2396.ccr21.sto01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.50.122)  184.255 ms  180.472 ms  181.148 ms
14  cgnt-130.kn1.sth.portlane.net (149.6.168.130)  176.175 ms  176.720 ms  179.443 ms
15  rai1-tr1.dnaip.fi (62.78.107.175)  194.278 ms  199.186 ms  194.742 ms
16  hel5-tr3.dnaip.fi (62.78.107.12)  182.745 ms  182.071 ms  186.221 ms
17  hel1-tr2.dnaip.fi (62.78.107.124)  191.398 ms  191.039 ms  187.591 ms
18  * * *


Traceroute is one of the basic tools to see how traffic flows at the IP level.  The time for each hop tells the round trip time, how many ms it takes for a packet to reach that hop and come back.  As there's a limit how fast light goes, the rtt can give an idea how far we've gone, for example when we cross the ocean.


Hop #2 tells that Villa A has ADSL from Orange (France Telecom).  This also tells that the PPPoA layer is not terminated in St. Barth but all traffic from the Villa goes to St. Maarten before it enters France Telecom's IP network.  Easier for administration.


Hop #3 is the router to France Telecom's OpenTransmit global backbone and on Hop #4 and #5 we're already in New York!   There's no direct link between St. Maarten and New York but again the IP network and physical network are separated, just like there's a physical link between St. Barth and St. Maarten.  Thehe IP traffic from the villa goes straight to St. Maarten.  


The physical connection from St. Maarten to New York is most likely using the GCN, Global Carribean Network, that connects a lot of Caribbean islands with 2.1 Tbit/s capacity and further to the US from Puerto Rico with other links.  Puerto Rico is a well connected hub in the region.  For example the new Pacific Caribbean Cable System, PCCS, with 80 Tbit/s of capacity is there.


From New York it's business as usual, just like any other France Telecom customer.  France Telecom uses Cogent's network to get to North Europe; JFK to Boston, from Boston to Liverpool, further to Amsterdam, to Hamburg and Stockholm.  That's not very straightforward but hey..  In Stockholm the finnish newspaper's carrier (DNA) connects to Cogent's network.  You can see the hop across the Atlantic at #9 when the round trip time increases about 90 ms.


Let's take something more interesting.  How about traffic to Google from the Villa A?

traceroute to www.google.com (173.194.67.105), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  1.536 ms  1.030 ms  1.031 ms
 2  net1lo-bidon.bsami113.amiens.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.3)  25.347 ms  25.587 ms  25.203 ms
 3  80.10.245.253 (80.10.245.253)  24.935 ms  25.139 ms  25.159 ms
 4  pos0-3-2-0-100.nyktr3.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.247.233)  75.819 ms  75.390 ms  72.142 ms
 5  tengige0-3-0-6.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.151.240)  73.609 ms  73.659 ms  75.742 ms
 6  tengige0-7-0-12.madtr1.madrid.opentransit.net (193.251.241.193)  172.982 ms  180.671 ms  171.615 ms
 7  72.14.202.58 (72.14.202.58)  169.547 ms  169.236 ms  170.399 ms
 8  209.85.252.150 (209.85.252.150)  171.562 ms
    209.85.251.242 (209.85.251.242)  169.503 ms  169.680 ms
 9  209.85.240.191 (209.85.240.191)  160.090 ms  160.534 ms  160.339 ms
10  209.85.248.200 (209.85.248.200)  169.613 ms
    209.85.245.87 (209.85.245.87)  172.167 ms
    209.85.254.62 (209.85.254.62)  171.715 ms
11  209.85.250.163 (209.85.250.163)  168.157 ms
    wi-in-f105.1e100.net (173.194.67.105)  170.276 ms  171.056 ms


Again all the traffic hits St. Maarten right away and to New York.  From New York we continue in France Telecom's OpenTransit network to Madrid across the Atlantic (again notice the increased rtt).  In Madrid we hit a number of unnamed 209.85.x.x hops that belong to Google.  1e100 (hop #11) is Google's network (just google what google means).


What exactly happened?  Google from St. Barth goes to Spain?   Yes it does.  When your browser asks for the IP address to Google, they see that the request comes from France Telecom's network and give you Google address that would be close to France.  So when you type www.google.com on Orange ADSL connection in St Barth to your browser, you'll go through Spain to Google's network.


Again France Telecom hides the IP network and physical network quite well, there isn't a direct cable between New York and Madrid.


What about Facebook then, does it go to Spain as well?  Let's see (www.facebook.com)


traceroute to star.c10r.facebook.com (31.13.69.176), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  1.386 ms  1.066 ms  1.001 ms
 2  * net1lo-bidon.bsami113.amiens.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.3)  26.342 ms *
 3  80.10.245.253 (80.10.245.253)  25.499 ms  25.549 ms  24.824 ms
 4  pos0-3-0-0-100.nyktr3.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.248.2)  74.148 ms  74.197 ms  71.921 ms
 5  tengige0-3-0-6.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.151.240)  72.157 ms  72.320 ms  71.157 ms
 6  ae10.edge2.newyork.level3.net (4.68.70.169)  70.285 ms  70.239 ms  69.645 ms
 7  vlan80.csw3.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.155.190)  77.200 ms  76.340 ms
    vlan70.csw2.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.155.126)  76.824 ms
 8  ae-81-81.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.134.73)  78.320 ms
    ae-91-91.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.134.77)  76.992 ms  76.097 ms
 9  ae-4-4.ebr1.newyork2.level3.net (4.69.141.18)  78.771 ms
    ae-56-56.ebr2.washington12.level3.net (4.69.201.62)  77.359 ms
    ae-46-46.ebr1.newyork2.level3.net (4.69.201.42)  76.528 ms
10  ae-40-40.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.201.93)  78.146 ms
    ae-37-37.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.132.89)  76.507 ms
    ae-40-40.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.201.93)  77.620 ms
11  ae-72-72.csw2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.150)  77.424 ms
    ae-92-92.csw4.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.158)  77.637 ms
    ae-72-72.csw2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.150)  78.317 ms
12  ae-4-90.edge2.washington4.level3.net (4.69.149.208)  77.309 ms
    ae-3-80.edge2.washington4.level3.net (4.69.149.144)  78.612 ms
    ae-2-70.edge2.washington4.level3.net (4.69.149.80)  77.438 ms
13  facebook-in.edge2.washington4.level3.net (4.53.114.46)  77.357 ms  76.071 ms  76.814 ms
14  ae2.bb01.iad1.tfbnw.net (204.15.20.120)  76.515 ms
    ae1.bb02.iad1.tfbnw.net (74.119.79.204)  77.584 ms
    ae3.bb02.iad1.tfbnw.net (74.119.78.60)  78.521 ms
15  ae1.dr03.ash3.tfbnw.net (204.15.21.106)  77.716 ms  79.981 ms  76.711 ms
16  po126.msw01.08.iad1.tfbnw.net (31.13.29.155)  90.485 ms  97.445 ms  77.303 ms
17  edge-star-shv-08-iad1.facebook.com (31.13.69.176)  77.032 ms  76.453 ms  76.557 ms


Again we head to New York in France Telecom's network but the traffic doesn't go to Europe but to Level3's network right there in New York.


In Level3's network (hops #6 to #13) we travel through New York to Washington DC, where Facebook is connected to Level3's network.  TFBNW?  The FaceBook NetWork.  The "ash" and "iad" in the naming indicate that it's the rental facility Facebook has in Ashburn, VA, from DuPont Fabros Technology.  You'll find Yahoo and MySpace at the same location as well.  DFT actually runs at least six data centers there, ACC2 to ACC7.


We see the round trip time to hit about 70-80 ms when we go from St. Maarten to New York but it never really increases above that.  We never go across the Atlantic.


One more example, just to give a picture how network connect to each other


traceroute to www.sonera.fi (194.251.244.241), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  1.633 ms  1.366 ms  1.317 ms
 2  net1lo-bidon.bsami113.amiens.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.3)  25.537 ms  24.806 ms  25.499 ms
 3  80.10.245.253 (80.10.245.253)  25.048 ms  25.474 ms  25.015 ms
 4  pos0-3-2-0-100.nyktr3.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.247.233)  73.413 ms  71.841 ms  71.107 ms
 5  tengige0-3-0-6.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.151.240)  70.931 ms  71.879 ms  71.614 ms
 6  nyk-b5-link.telia.net (213.248.103.1)  70.794 ms  71.041 ms  71.843 ms
 7  nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (213.155.135.18)  115.617 ms  70.806 ms  70.876 ms
 8  kbn-bb3-link.telia.net (80.91.247.116)  173.021 ms  176.035 ms  176.330 ms
 9  s-bb3-link.telia.net (213.155.136.173)  180.741 ms
    s-bb3-link.telia.net (213.248.65.141)  186.364 ms
    s-bb3-link.telia.net (62.115.136.187)  183.061 ms
10  hls-b1-link.telia.net (213.248.64.102)  189.066 ms
    hls-b1-link.telia.net (80.91.247.219)  190.591 ms
    hls-b1-link.telia.net (213.155.133.73)  190.158 ms
11  tsf-ic-155157-hls-b1.c.telia.net (213.248.68.210)  194.937 ms  198.770 ms  198.351 ms
12  141.208.25.30 (141.208.25.30)  181.533 ms  181.917 ms  182.167 ms
13  finn.sonera.eu (194.251.244.241)  197.131 ms  193.603 ms  194.817 ms


The Finnish part of TeliaSonera carrier.  Again all the way to New York but right in New York France Telecom connects to TeliaSonera's global network.  In TeliaSonera's network we head to Copenhagen, Stockholm, and eventually Helsinki.  The finnish carrier goes pretty straightforward to Northern Europe but the finnish newspaper traffic travelled all around Europe.  That's the Internet.


All the big players with global networks talk to each other in different places around the globe, exchange traffic when it makes sense, and sometimes use other's network to reach the destination.


As we can see, the round trip times to everywhere are pretty normal.  There isn't a single connection in the network infrastructure that is saturated with too much traffic.  Using the consumer oriented SpeedTest from Ookla we can see that from the Villa A we get about 12-13 Mbit/s download speed and .9 Mbit/s upload speed from all the way from New York.


With all the layers mentioned earlier this is pretty much as fast as one can go on the ADSL line to the villa.  The layers add overhead but the performance is the same to St. Maarten as it's to New York.  That's enough bandwidth to watch Netflix in HD.


In summa summarum, Villa A had pretty much the same Internet access as one would get in a suburb somewhere in the US or Europe.



3548194263.png

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## Petri

Let's move to another perfect villa on the island.  While the island is a paradise no matter where you are, the Internet isn't always the same.


The ADSL line is connected at raw speed of 23 Mbit/s downstream and 1 Mbit/s upstream.  That's pretty damn good, the other end of the ADSL line must be just 1.5 km away, tops.


Let's start with Google:


traceroute to www.google.com (173.194.67.147), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  2.308 ms  2.213 ms  1.198 ms
 2  net1lac-net1.bsmgt103.marigot.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.227)  649.833 ms  614.589 ms  921.493 ms
 3  10.123.104.138 (10.123.104.138)  921.538 ms  678.337 ms  614.557 ms
 4  pos0-3-0-2-100.nyktr2.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.254.65)  614.754 ms  920.940 ms *
 5  tengige0-12-4-0.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.242.230)  838.185 ms  926.096 ms  918.487 ms
 6  tengige0-7-0-12.madtr1.madrid.opentransit.net (193.251.241.193)  649.935 ms  866.802 ms  921.878 ms
...


This looks different, what's going on?   Again the ADSL is from Orange (France Telecom) but for some reason the connection is terminated to a different box in St. Maarten (*.  The round trip time increases to 600+ ms which is like going to the Moon, everything will be very slow.  The link is simply too congested.


How can this happen if the performance from Villa A was just fine?  Because of the layers.  The physical layers from Lorient and St. Jean are different.  The capacity to Lorient is insufficient but not to St. Jean.  As they both use the same route out of the island, it's the inter-island capacity that's the issue.


On our daily drives we saw people installing fiber on the road from St. Jean to Lorient so this problem has most likely been solved by now and Villa B enjoys perfect internet connectivity today.


The local bandwidth problem can be seen when, for some reason, people are not busy surfing the internet and even Villa B got decent connectivity like villa A:


traceroute to www.google.com (173.194.67.147), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  2.075 ms  2.198 ms  1.522 ms
 2  net1lac-net1.bsmgt103.marigot.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.227)  27.286 ms  18.927 ms  21.356 ms
 3  10.123.104.142 (10.123.104.142)  18.406 ms  20.045 ms  21.029 ms
 4  pos0-3-0-2-100.nyktr2.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.254.65)  63.710 ms  61.871 ms  102.905 ms
 5  tengige0-9-1-0.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.242.228)  70.727 ms  61.532 ms  85.567 ms
 6  tengige0-6-0-0.madtr1.madrid.opentransit.net (193.251.242.157)  171.786 ms  168.453 ms  168.177 ms
 7  72.14.202.58 (72.14.202.58)  166.090 ms  168.070 ms  166.676 ms
 8  209.85.252.150 (209.85.252.150)  173.875 ms  167.266 ms  174.072 ms
..


The rest is the same as for Villa A, both use France Telecom's Orange.  Google goes to Europe, Facebook goes to Virginia.


*) If one reads carefully, the ADSL from Villa A looked like it was connected to the village of Amiens in mainland France but the IP address (193.253.160.3) is almost the same as for this box in Marigot.  They've probably recycled the IP network from Amiens and forgot to update all the names.  It happens, humans..

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## Petri

Unfortunately I never checked the ADSL speed for this hotel.  Most likely similar to villa B due to the location.


However the results for traffic are something very different.  Let's start with Google:


traceroute to www.google.com (74.125.196.103), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  * 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  1.698 ms  1.574 ms
 2  1.232.112.74.dyn-ip.domaccess.com (74.112.232.1)  44.498 ms  41.970 ms  43.783 ms
 3  209.46.117.64.static-ip.domaccess.com (64.117.46.209)  46.567 ms  45.896 ms  45.206 ms
 4  66.129.175.1 (66.129.175.1)  51.374 ms  50.183 ms  46.201 ms
 5  ae3-208.mia10.ip4.tinet.net (77.67.79.41)  96.785 ms  96.529 ms  96.910 ms
 6  72.14.210.140 (72.14.210.140)  75.915 ms  75.766 ms  77.198 ms
 7  209.85.253.120 (209.85.253.120)  90.473 ms
    209.85.253.116 (209.85.253.116)  92.526 ms  76.851 ms
 8  209.85.252.96 (209.85.252.96)  94.496 ms
    209.85.252.98 (209.85.252.98)  92.460 ms  93.037 ms
 9  209.85.248.31 (209.85.248.31)  91.443 ms
    209.85.243.254 (209.85.243.254)  87.531 ms  89.123 ms
10  * * *
11  yk-in-f103.1e100.net (74.125.196.103)  91.568 ms  87.646 ms  92.955 ms


Instead of Orange the hotel has an ADSL connection from Dauphin Telecom.   Dauphin is further connected to PREPA Networks in Puerto Rico (hop #4), from there the traffic to Facebook flows to Miami on GTT's network where Google is connected to (209.85.x.x networks).


With Facebook the route looks like:


traceroute to star.c10r.facebook.com (31.13.73.145), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  1.825 ms  3.329 ms  1.508 ms
 2  1.232.112.74.dyn-ip.domaccess.com (74.112.232.1)  43.245 ms  43.687 ms  41.985 ms
 3  209.46.117.64.static-ip.domaccess.com (64.117.46.209)  41.969 ms  43.781 ms  46.629 ms
 4  66.129.175.1 (66.129.175.1)  54.368 ms  46.030 ms  48.456 ms
 5  ae3-208.mia10.ip4.tinet.net (77.67.79.41)  101.825 ms  154.604 ms  97.707 ms
 6  as3356.mia10.ip4.tinet.net (199.229.229.174)  95.904 ms  96.351 ms  95.094 ms
 7  4.59.242.22 (4.59.242.22)  77.531 ms  75.789 ms  75.511 ms
 8  po126.msw01.10.mia1.tfbnw.net (74.119.76.141)  78.093 ms  75.922 ms  75.465 ms
 9  edge-star-shv-10-mia1.facebook.com (31.13.73.145)  78.672 ms  77.241 ms  76.040 ms


Again we head to PREPA Networks in Puerto Rico.  Orange (FT) was relying on their own network infrastructure all the way to New York and further but Dauphin Telecom seems to buy all their connectivity from PREPA.  PREPA seems to be well connected to GTT, perhaps buying all their transit from them.


Traffic to Facebook enters from Puerto Rico to Miami and further straight to Facebook's own network.


What about Dauphin's global traffic then:


traceroute to www.elisa.fi (195.197.95.175), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  2.001 ms  1.582 ms  1.568 ms
 2  1.232.112.74.dyn-ip.domaccess.com (74.112.232.1)  54.066 ms  54.104 ms *
 3  209.46.117.64.static-ip.domaccess.com (64.117.46.209)  66.917 ms  50.202 ms  44.258 ms
 4  66.129.175.1 (66.129.175.1)  63.323 ms  53.709 ms  46.618 ms
 5  ae3-208.mia10.ip4.tinet.net (77.67.79.41)  101.097 ms  98.662 ms  96.506 ms
 6  xe-8-2-0.stk10.ip4.tinet.net (89.149.182.113)  303.501 ms  360.685 ms  409.244 ms
 7  elisa-gw.ip4.tinet.net (141.136.97.154)  307.206 ms  307.433 ms  307.322 ms
 8  ae0-10.bbr2.hel1.fi.eunetip.net (213.192.191.73)  306.881 ms  306.836 ms  307.816 ms
 9  213.192.184.110 (213.192.184.110)  254.891 ms  306.763 ms  307.455 ms
10  ae1.helpa-gw1.fi.elisa.net (139.97.6.242)  307.094 ms  409.033 ms  307.184 ms
11  139.97.22.250 (139.97.22.250)  306.949 ms  306.658 ms  307.157 ms
12  195.197.95.175 (195.197.95.175)  307.355 ms  306.828 ms  307.049 ms


Again to PREPA in Puerto Rico and further to GTT's network in Miami.  This pretty much says that GTT is the primary route for all the traffic from Dauphin.  GTT has a "direct" link from Miami to Stockholm (remember the layers) where the finnish carrier is connected to them.  As a founder I'm happy to see EUnet still active in the naming of routers :-)


We did experience a increased round trip times on the first links for Dauphin Telecom as well in Lorient but nowhere as bad as Orange was.  Hopefully the new fiber to Lorient will be shared by Orange and Dauphin.

----------


## Petri

Unfortunately I never checked the ADSL speed in this villa.  Most likely slightly slower than the other two as the location is more distant.


However rest of the data was very similar to the other two Orange connected villas:


traceroute to www.google.com (173.194.66.105), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  2.432 ms  2.595 ms  1.962 ms
 2  net1lac-net1.bsmgt103.marigot.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.227)  20.991 ms  21.064 ms  23.381 ms
 3  10.123.104.202 (10.123.104.202)  20.790 ms  19.797 ms  19.699 ms
 4  81.52.186.149 (81.52.186.149)  73.997 ms  65.525 ms  58.719 ms
 5  tengige0-1-4-0.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.243.198)  61.675 ms  59.943 ms  59.793 ms
 6  tengige0-7-0-12.madtr1.madrid.opentransit.net (193.251.241.193)  159.343 ms  160.489 ms  158.892 ms
 7  72.14.202.58 (72.14.202.58)  163.257 ms  160.404 ms  194.240 ms
 8  209.85.251.242 (209.85.251.242)  172.282 ms  160.274 ms
    209.85.252.150 (209.85.252.150)  157.370 ms


Looks pretty much the same.  However the round trip to hop #2 in Marigot never experienced the same as near Lorient so either Colombier has already fiber installed, or there isn't as much traffic to start with.

This stay was different month than A and B, and for Facebook a different IP address received that resulted quite a different path for the traffic:


traceroute to star.c10r.facebook.com (31.13.71.144), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  2.838 ms  2.094 ms  2.004 ms
 2  net1lac-net1.bsmgt103.marigot.francetelecom.net (193.253.160.227)  22.101 ms  20.825 ms  21.193 ms
 3  10.123.104.206 (10.123.104.206)  21.095 ms  21.373 ms  20.503 ms
 4  81.52.186.149 (81.52.186.149)  59.542 ms  59.361 ms  58.934 ms
 5  tengige0-1-4-0.nyktr1.newyork.opentransit.net (193.251.243.198)  62.645 ms  66.890 ms  65.015 ms
 6  verio-6.gw.opentransit.net (193.251.249.46)  63.202 ms  66.227 ms  63.803 ms
 7  ae-2.ua.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.195.58)  81.280 ms  61.121 ms  60.984 ms
 8  po126.msw01.10.lga1.tfbnw.net (204.15.21.73)  59.264 ms  59.289 ms  59.864 ms
 9  edge-star-shv-10-lga1.facebook.com (31.13.71.144)  59.979 ms  61.542 ms  58.361 ms


All the way to New York but in New York France Telecom's OpenTransit connects to Japanese NTT's network, which is actually former Verio that was sold to NTT 15 years ago.


Facebook connects to NTT's network right there in New York.  Perhaps Facebook has terminated their deal with Verio/NTT or simply changed their policy to use Level3 for France Telecom instead.  It's quite odd really considering that Facebook is already at New York but that's how traffic policies work, you don't always connect at the most obvious places.  From engineering point of view New York and Washington are pretty much the same, a few hundred miles here and there won't hurt your Facebook user.  If you're financial company doing high speed stock trading, you care about every fraction of ms and you wish there was something faster than light.


Using the Ookla's SpeedTest one could measure about 10 Mbit/s download and 0.9 Mbit/s upload -- all the way to New York.  This would indicate raw ADSL speed slightly less than Villa A.

----------


## Petri

Something different, what about using the SIM card on your phone, as a WiFi hotspot?  Digicel's SIM card in St. Jean gives the following route for Facebook:


traceroute to star.c10r.facebook.com (31.13.69.80), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.43.1 (192.168.43.1)  9.699 ms  2.164 ms  2.007 ms
 2  172.24.15.146 (172.24.15.146)  110.755 ms  79.985 ms  79.947 ms
 3  172.24.15.145 (172.24.15.145)  119.909 ms  78.642 ms  75.984 ms
 4  172.24.17.4 (172.24.17.4)  102.709 ms  81.068 ms  74.800 ms
 5  172.24.17.34 (172.24.17.34)  113.848 ms  76.816 ms  74.548 ms
 6  172.24.17.62 (172.24.17.62)  108.057 ms  85.408 ms  72.694 ms
 7  172.24.17.17 (172.24.17.17)  113.151 ms  79.162 ms  80.150 ms
 8  94.198.176.18 (94.198.176.18)  103.009 ms  73.384 ms  82.009 ms
 9  172.24.31.234 (172.24.31.234)  159.409 ms  138.306 ms  151.314 ms
10  66.249.144.130 (66.249.144.130)  81.859 ms  128.492 ms  80.514 ms
11  66.249.144.129 (66.249.144.129)  238.695 ms  129.300 ms  181.957 ms
12  * ix-0-2-1-0.tcore1.nyy-new-york.as6453.net (216.6.90.1)  421.526 ms  205.175 ms
13  if-5-5.tcore1.nto-new-york.as6453.net (216.6.90.6)  203.980 ms  122.673 ms  120.015 ms
14  ae9.edge1.newyork.level3.net (4.68.62.185)  371.425 ms  178.460 ms  129.973 ms
15  vlan51.ebr1.newyork2.level3.net (4.69.138.222)  175.841 ms  140.281 ms  186.100 ms
16  ae-40-40.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.201.93)  137.178 ms
    ae-37-37.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.132.89)  294.098 ms
    ae-39-39.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.201.89)  175.769 ms
17  ae-92-92.csw4.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.158)  175.875 ms
    ae-82-82.csw3.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.154)  177.188 ms
    ae-92-92.csw4.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.158)  362.987 ms
18  ae-3-80.edge2.washington4.level3.net (4.69.149.144)  190.415 ms  272.128 ms
    ae-1-60.edge2.washington4.level3.net (4.69.149.16)  340.734 ms
19  facebook-in.edge2.washington4.level3.net (4.53.114.46)  121.053 ms  136.520 ms  457.404 ms
20  be2.bb01.iad3.tfbnw.net (173.252.65.30)  409.361 ms  138.856 ms  129.089 ms
21  ae51.dr01.ash3.tfbnw.net (173.252.64.201)  181.359 ms  134.797 ms  196.459 ms
22  po126.msw01.10.iad1.tfbnw.net (31.13.29.171)  128.000 ms  133.631 ms  182.942 ms
23  edge-star-shv-10-iad1.facebook.com (31.13.69.80)  122.895 ms  136.724 ms  189.342 ms


Plenty of steps inside the Digicel network (hops up to #11) before arriving to New York in "AS6453".  What is this strange AS6453?  The AS (Autonymous System) and the number are technical terms for internet routing at larger scale, and this network is Indian Tata Communications.  What's Tata doing in New York, don't they make those super cheap cars in India?  They do, but they also own former Teleglobe.


From Tata's network in New York the traffic heads to Level3's network and further down to Washington DC as with Orange (FT).


Google looks pretty much the same:


traceroute to www.google.com (74.125.228.83), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.43.1 (192.168.43.1)  2.972 ms  2.251 ms  2.330 ms
 2  172.24.15.146 (172.24.15.146)  397.736 ms  409.156 ms  84.148 ms
 3  172.24.15.145 (172.24.15.145)  75.521 ms  73.958 ms  97.288 ms
 4  172.24.17.4 (172.24.17.4)  72.670 ms  76.833 ms  72.229 ms
 5  172.24.17.34 (172.24.17.34)  70.132 ms  76.834 ms  72.601 ms
 6  172.24.17.62 (172.24.17.62)  77.736 ms  85.284 ms  76.455 ms
 7  172.24.17.17 (172.24.17.17)  83.566 ms  91.102 ms  84.577 ms
 8  94.198.176.18 (94.198.176.18)  69.528 ms  69.915 ms  69.866 ms
 9  172.24.0.81 (172.24.0.81)  120.171 ms  127.219 ms  117.635 ms
10  66.249.144.130 (66.249.144.130)  76.781 ms  74.937 ms  77.538 ms
11  66.249.144.129 (66.249.144.129)  120.559 ms  123.200 ms  118.136 ms
12  ix-0-2-1-0.tcore1.nyy-new-york.as6453.net (216.6.90.1)  117.655 ms  124.382 ms  119.622 ms
13  if-5-5.tcore1.nto-new-york.as6453.net (216.6.90.6)  127.781 ms  128.577 ms *
14  63.243.128.122 (63.243.128.122)  1532.360 ms  433.719 ms  409.589 ms
15  74.125.52.6 (74.125.52.6)  409.565 ms  409.527 ms  409.347 ms
16  209.85.248.180 (209.85.248.180)  409.347 ms
    209.85.248.178 (209.85.248.178)  409.210 ms  409.260 ms
17  209.85.252.250 (209.85.252.250)  409.387 ms
    209.85.252.242 (209.85.252.242)  614.113 ms
    209.85.252.250 (209.85.252.250)  157.623 ms
18  209.85.249.11 (209.85.249.11)  140.339 ms  128.944 ms
    72.14.239.93 (72.14.239.93)  139.450 ms
19  72.14.236.99 (72.14.236.99)  136.496 ms  136.075 ms
    72.14.236.149 (72.14.236.149)  133.190 ms
20  72.14.238.247 (72.14.238.247)  136.534 ms  134.312 ms  133.971 ms
21  iad23s07-in-f19.1e100.net (74.125.228.83)  133.868 ms  136.200 ms  129.091 ms


Again hopping around the Dauphin's network towards New York where Tata talks directly with Google.


The last hop #21 probably tells us that we'll find Google leasing space in Ashburn, VA, as well.


The bandwidth itself was nothing to write home about, about 350 kbit/s up- and downstream.  The phone itself was indicating a DC-HSPA+ connection but it didn't look like it.

----------


## Petri

I did similar check in our hotel in Antigua with the following results:


traceroute to star.c10r.facebook.com (66.220.158.19), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  172.16.0.1 (172.16.0.1)  6.447 ms  5.374 ms  6.339 ms
 2  76.76.160.129 (76.76.160.129)  7.830 ms  7.012 ms  6.757 ms
 3  209.59.96.126 (209.59.96.126)  6.816 ms  6.799 ms  6.866 ms
 4  69.57.250.73 (69.57.250.73)  7.729 ms  7.136 ms  6.987 ms
 5  209.59.68.86 (209.59.68.86)  49.164 ms  48.237 ms  49.051 ms
 6  206.126.115.45 (206.126.115.45)  47.650 ms  48.001 ms  47.290 ms
 7  * * *
 8  * * *
 9  ae13.bb03.frc1.tfbnw.net (31.13.31.249)  181.386 ms  717.182 ms  511.839 ms
10  ae60.dr04.frc3.tfbnw.net (74.119.79.29)  512.015 ms
    ae3.dr03.frc3.tfbnw.net (31.13.28.8)  117.155 ms
    ae61.dr02.frc3.tfbnw.net (173.252.64.63)  307.001 ms
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  edge-star-shv-07-frc3.facebook.com (66.220.158.19)  406.604 ms  443.297 ms  394.670 ms


A bit more difficult to decode, I'm afraid?  Not really.  Antigua is bigger island than St. Barth so the ADSL layer terminated right away.  Hop #2 tells that the connectivity is from Cable & Wireless in Antigua, and as there isn't increased round trip time we are actually talking about fiber connectivity, not ADSL.  pretty good.


Hop #3 to #5 are all part of Cable & Wireless in Antigua.  The increased round trip time between #4 and #5 indicate congestion on that particular point in the network, perhaps inter-island.


Hop #6 belongs to Brazilian GlobeNet.  No, Antigua isn't connected Brazil :)  Antigua is connected to the same GCN, Global Caribbean Network, as St. Barth.  There's also the older ECFS, East Caribbean Fiber System.  Both GCN and ECFS connect to Trinidad and Tobago when they go southwards.  So what's the deal with Brazil then?  There are actually quite a few cables that go to Brazil, including South American Crossing that connects St. Croix among other places to Fortazela in Brazil.  Fortazela is a major concentration for submarine cables, just like Puerto Rico.


From GlobeNet we enter The FaceBook Network so where exactly did we go?  The answer is in the "FRC", which is Forest City.  Facebook has a big data center in Forest City, New Jersey.   GlobeNet has a cable in the Caribbean that lands in New Jersey but it's unclear from the data where C&W might be connecting to it.


Let's give Google a try from Cable & Wireless in Antigua:


traceroute to www.google.com (173.194.38.144), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  172.16.0.1 (172.16.0.1)  5.927 ms  5.769 ms  5.596 ms
 2  76.76.160.129 (76.76.160.129)  530.754 ms  659.511 ms  614.316 ms
 3  209.59.96.126 (209.59.96.126)  339.419 ms  376.933 ms  614.142 ms
 4  * 69.57.250.73 (69.57.250.73)  425.737 ms  409.147 ms
 5  209.59.68.86 (209.59.68.86)  410.143 ms  408.925 ms  409.682 ms
 6  72.51.68.14 (72.51.68.14)  196.903 ms  481.036 ms  376.308 ms
 7  209.85.248.180 (209.85.248.180)  306.799 ms
    209.85.248.178 (209.85.248.178)  387.066 ms *
 8  72.14.236.206 (72.14.236.206)  630.323 ms
    209.85.252.242 (209.85.252.242)  110.195 ms  48.273 ms
 9  209.85.249.11 (209.85.249.11)  59.044 ms  54.587 ms  54.506 ms
10  72.14.232.71 (72.14.232.71)  69.026 ms  69.351 ms  69.337 ms
11  209.85.241.43 (209.85.241.43)  126.826 ms  511.689 ms  511.869 ms
12  209.85.250.126 (209.85.250.126)  614.851 ms  113.069 ms
    209.85.240.228 (209.85.240.228)  500.455 ms
13  72.14.233.165 (72.14.233.165)  361.930 ms
    72.14.238.131 (72.14.238.131)  274.018 ms  603.755 ms
14  209.85.250.228 (209.85.250.228)  921.208 ms  580.962 ms  408.811 ms
15  66.249.94.93 (66.249.94.93)  410.290 ms  818.821 ms  818.572 ms
16  72.14.233.79 (72.14.233.79)  819.672 ms  819.405 ms  716.660 ms
17  sin04s01-in-f16.1e100.net (173.194.38.144)  818.424 ms  537.562 ms  554.116 ms


Pretty messy, eh?  Again a lot of congestion in the C&W Antigua network.  


With just the IP networks the actual topology is quite hidden but at least we can check that hops #7 to #17 actually belong to Google, pretty long way inside Google's infrastructure.


Hop #6 is registered for Cable & Wireless in Barbados but it could be elsewhere.  What the traceroute does show is that Google and C&W talk to each other directly, perhaps quite close and the traffic goes mostly inside Google's own network.

----------


## Petri

And if someone happened to read all the way down here, here's the executive summary:

The connectivity to the islands in generally pretty good.

The copper distances for the ADSL are decent (St. Jean, Lorient, Colombier) and give quite comfortable 10-20 Mbit/s download bandwidth.

The bottleneck today is the connectivity within the island but work seems to be underway to fix it.  Hopefully this will also make it possible to get fiber straight to villas in the future.

If Google thinks you're in France, don't be surprised.  That also means that your Google traffic goes all the way to Europe.

As the results from Antigua show, the situation in different islands is very different.  St. Maarten is probably very similar to St. Barth due to the location and the same carriers, but Anguilla might have totally different connectivity to St. Maarten.

Mobile data on Digicel isn't good.

----------


## amyb

Have I mentioned how grateful I am to have Phil in my electronic life as well as my real life...

----------


## Petri

> Have I mentioned how grateful I am to have Phil in my electronic life as well as my real life...



He explained everything to you? :)  Well done!

I know what a chef must feel when he/she gets crappy food and knows why the perfect ingredients were spoiled.  Happens with the Internet all the time to me :)

----------


## amyb

Phil just comes to my rescue every time I screw up or think I broke the computer. The most dreaded words in our house are OOPS and OH NO!

----------


## JEK

My most famous words are: "Let me sit in your chair so I can fix this"

----------


## katva

> My most famous words are: "Let me sit in your chair so I can fix this"



That's what I hear all the time!!!!

----------


## MIke R

I hope there never comes a day when I  have to actually care about all this stuff........

----------


## JEK

> I hope there never comes a day when I  have to actually care about all this stuff........




You obviously don't have a tech support role at home.

----------


## Bart -my real name-

> I hope there never comes a day when I  have to actually care about all this stuff........



He said, while typing on a computer connected to the internets

----------


## MIke R

LOL.......you missed my point

the woman on Jost was apologizing in advance for "no cell service and very slow Internet"

i just laughed and said.....well we don't go on vacation with a computer or a phone so I guess that works out real well for everyone.....

she just laughed and told us in that case the island is going to work out very well for us.....:eagerness:

and i I have a  bunch of 10 to 12 year olds to coach me on my tech issues.....

----------


## MIke R

> He said, while typing on a computer connected to the internets



I meant while on vacation in St Barts

----------


## Bart -my real name-

Ahhhh.  Makes more sense

----------


## Petri

> I meant while on vacation in St Barts



What's a vacation?  Sometimes we need interweb to book a flight to the next destination, or to apply for a visa to the country our plane is departing in 30 minutes :)

----------


## MIke R

> What's a vacation?  Sometimes we need interweb to book a flight to the next destination, or to apply for a visa to the country our plane is departing in 30 minutes :)




Maybe you do....not me...not by a long shot... :cool: ....I'm not nearly that chic and jetsetterish ( is that even a word?)...LOL

but by all means......have at it

----------


## KevinS

Petri, Thanks for the analysis.  Interesting.  Next week I'll check to see if the local speds in Lorient have improved.

Mike, Don't forget that you don't need to be a geek, you've got me for tech support.

----------


## Petri

> Petri, Thanks for the analysis.  Interesting.  Next week I'll check to see if the local speds in Lorient have improved.



Interesting to see..

But this has really nothing to do with being "off the grid".  I'm more curious about how places are connected than actually using the interweb.  If I get excellent interweb on an atoll I Maldives, I check how it's done :)  If the interweb is sub-standard, I check why it's so and is there anything I can do about it.

Just like MikeR will care about the Dover Sole actually being fresh and from Dover, unlike some other folks who just eat it like any other fish..

Professional handicap :)

----------


## JEK

You reminded me to check

Screen Shot 2014-11-15 at 7.23.37 AM.jpg

----------


## MIke R

Kevin..  Yes I do!!!!.....and for that i m grateful....driving by your exit later....I ll wave 

Petri .....Absolutely .. We all pick our causes and our battles

----------


## cec1

Great read!  I didn't follow all the tech jargon, but "bottom line" was interesting and satisfying news!

----------


## stbartshopper

All we know after reading all of this is at the Villa we stay at in Pt. Milou  during off peak times- early morning and late evening- we do ok but at peak times it can be frustrating when everybody seems to be on line- it is either a long wait or non existent. We have been hearing things will improve for a long time but that's why we go to SBH- c'est la vie!

----------


## Petri

> You reminded me to check



Nice upload speed!  We're still suffering from the ancient idea of asymmetric speeds (100/10).

----------


## JEK

This from Susie's iMac on WiFi -- 5GHz AirPort Extreme 
image.jpg

----------


## Petri

Alt click the WiFi icon and you'll see how the raw WiFi is connected.

Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 21.57.24.png

From my "DIY iMac", aka Early 2009 Mac Mini connected to a "Philips TV Monitor".  Sold the 27" iMac and won't be ordering a new yet as we're leaving the country in less than a week..

PHY Mode tells if it's 802.11n, 802.11ac or something else.  Tx Rate is the raw speed, there's plenty of overhead on top of that.  Channel width (40 MHz) is also important as it can narrow down to 20 MHz with 802.11n.

One should remember that 802.11ac is really more about supercharging 802.11n.  It can use 80 or even 160 MHz channels instead of 20/40 MHz.  It uses new modulation scheme (256QAM).  While the 5 GHz frequencies can handle eight 20 MHz channels, it's only four 40 MHz, two 80 MHz and one 160 Mhz channels..  All good if the 5 GHz area is clean and neighbours aren't there, but if it gets as crowded as 2.4 GHz..

----------


## JEK

Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 3.13.02 PM.jpg

----------


## JEK

Do we all get a network certification at the end of the thread?  :)

----------


## Petri

> Do we all get a network certification at the end of the thread?  :)



I hope so :)   I'm just filling in the forms for Australian Computer Society's Skills Assessment Application.

----------


## NYCFred

This is actually some fascinating stuff, not the least of which is that we all take it for granted...til the net goes down.

----------


## stbartshopper

Petri,
Thanks for your summary in English for us non techies! When do you think we will begin seeing results from the island work on connectivity?

----------


## NYCFred

Bazinga?

Cute.

----------


## Petri

> Petri,
> Thanks for your summary in English for us non techies! When do you think we will begin seeing results from the island work on connectivity?



From what I saw, it's already happening very well.  If the fiber was arriving to Lorient last summer, I'd assume they will go further east to Marigot pretty soon if not already there.  I don't know if they want to have a business case first, or consider it basic infrastructure, so 50-50 chances for the south coast.  Perhaps the locals from the island can report when they see fiber being installed somewhere :)

----------


## KevinS

I saw fiber being pulled on La Pointe in November, by Solutech.   They were up on Rue de la Colline, near the Gendarmerie, and pulling fiber down Rue Stephen Atwater to Rue Victor Schoelcher, then past the Hôtel de la Collectivité  and down Rue de Piteå to Wall House.  What route it took to where I saw the start of the fiber pull, and where it went afterwards, I don't know.

----------


## waynek

Thanks for the work Petri.  I didn't used to care too much about the internet access at my villa, but as I get used to using more OTT sources for entertainment having a good connection is more important than ever.  When you come back from dinner it is nice to have the option to put on a movie on Netflix or to connect to your Slingbox back home to watch the latest hockey or basketball game.

p.s. Maybe the Villa info shown on websites should include a result from Speedtest.net?

----------


## NYCFred

> I saw fiber being pulled on La Pointe in November, by Solutech.   They were up on Rue de la Colline, near the Gendarmerie, and pulling fiber down Rue Stephen Atwater to Rue Victor Schoelcher, then past the Hôtel de la Collectivité  and down Rue de Piteå to Wall House.  What route it took to where I saw the start of the fiber pull, and where it went afterwards, I don't know.



Very cool tech...at least that's what Verizon used on Fire Island after Sandy.

Fiber runs thru a conduit. Inside of the conduit is coated with a heat activated lubricant...(I know, TWSS)

So, the more friction, the more heat, the more slippery the conduit becomes. Pretty cool.

----------


## Petri

> Very cool tech...at least that's what Verizon used on Fire Island after Sandy.
> 
> Fiber runs thru a conduit. Inside of the conduit is coated with a heat activated lubricant...(I know, TWSS)
> 
> So, the more friction, the more heat, the more slippery the conduit becomes. Pretty cool.



Sounds like adult fun.

I can only imagine the lubricant salesmen who are trying to sell various lubricants for the cable guy's push and pull needs..

----------

