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Testing latency: Dallas compared to Amazon

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lighthope1
Senior

Testing latency: Dallas compared to Amazon

Did a latency check with testmy.com.

 

First was to Dallas.  That came in from 900ms to a whopping 6663ms!  https://testmy.net/latency?tID=ote22wkbwe

Second test was to Amazon.  That came in from 626ms to 741ms.  https://testmy.net/latency?tID=f7pkodp9j1

 

What a difference.

 

So it doesn't seem to be a gateway issue or a data shaping issue.  Someone (Centurylink!) is blocking HughesNet. Okay, blocking is probably not the right word.  But CL may be traffic shaping for those who pay them for priority.

 

At least that is my guess.

15 REPLIES 15
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@lighthope1 

 

CenturyLink is progressively becoming and even bigger pile of you know what.  Sometimes I wonder if they even know what they're doing.  

 

I just tried a latency test and it wouldn't even register Dallas.  It said it was offline.  😛 


@GabeU wrote:

CenturyLink is progressively becoming and even bigger pile of you know what.  Sometimes I wonder if they even know what they're doing.  


I am not in favour of net neutrality as I believe people should be able to do with their private property what they will.

 

But I am also not in favour of one company holding others hostage.

 

HughesNet should be able to route around CL's servers.  The internet was designed to do that.

 

CL should be blacklisted by other companies.  Just refuse to accept connections from CL and see how long it takes CenturyLink to start playing ball.  lol


 

C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

Sadly, with how things are, Hughesnet will never have the option to route around anyone.  Even if they did, there may not be any routes available that would avoid a poor performing network.  But yeah, CentruyLink has... been problematic for many.

The one good thing from Net Neutrality was that no one could charge excess fees for superior performance, or degrade traffic for one particular company.

I think anyone, even companies should be allowed to do what they wish with their property, however, there should be limitations to that when it comes to communications systems.


@C0RR0SIVE wrote:

Sadly, with how things are, Hughesnet will never have the option to route around anyone.


Oh absolutely they can.  I had a chat with a very high up a few months ago.  He said it was possible, but a massive undertaking.  I kind of don't understand why, as the internet is designed to auto-route around dead servers.  But that is all above my pay grade.


  Even if they did, there may not be any routes available that would avoid a poor performing network.


That could be an issue. The fact that we can get good connections to Cloudflare and Amazon is proof that good routes are out there.


 I think anyone, even companies should be allowed to do what they wish with their property, however, there should be limitations to that when it comes to communications systems.


Dr. Phil said that anything you say before the word "but" doesn't count.  🙂 🙂 🙂

 

But yeah, I understand the quandary.  Either private property is private property or it isn't.

 

Is CenturyLink the first hop after it leaves HughesNet?  Or is it after Qwest, which is what all my traceroutes seem to show?

Qwest IS CenturyLink now

CL bought them, Level3, and one other.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.


@MarkJFine wrote:

Qwest IS CenturyLink now

CL bought them, Level3, and one other.


That does indeed make it a problem.

 

We could be slowed down in several spots rather than a single one.

 

That would explain the wild swings in latency.  If it was just one hop or even two, the latency swings would not be so massive.  But if five or seven hops all slowed us down at once, that would be massive!

 

So...CenturyLink is looking to be bribed by HughesNet to let traffic pass through unhidered?

CL's network is plagued with slowdowns and dropouts all over the place.

You may remember that they nearly brought the whole internet down on the west coast because of a single card failure a couple of years ago.

Don't think it's a bribe CL needs, it's competence.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
maratsade
Distinguished Professor IV

Hopefully their direct customers are doing something about this, but it may take time. The current situation makes everything worse, too. 

 

 


@MarkJFine wrote:

CL's network is plagued with slowdowns and dropouts all over the place.

You may remember that they nearly brought the whole internet down on the west coast because of a single card failure a couple of years ago.

Don't think it's a bribe CL needs, it's competence.


 

If CenturyLink is having slowdowns, how does that explain the multi-second delays we are seeing?  At most, we should get a bump in latency, but not 3 seconds, 6 seconds, 10 seconds!

 

No one who has terrestrial internet is complaining of these kinds of delays.

 

Why is it only satellite is seeing this?

maratsade
Distinguished Professor IV

Everyone is seeing this. The difference is, if you have cable, you have  higher speeds, so you notice it less.  @MarkJFine has shown the problem with CL many times. 

And on the home subscriber side of CL, user complaints are legion. 

As an example, my web server has started timing out when backing up to Google Drive because of complete gaps in service of over 60 seconds - all over a CL-only path.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.


@maratsade wrote:

Everyone is seeing this. The difference is, if you have cable, you have  higher speeds, so you notice it less. 


It's not a speed problem.  It's a latency problem.   My speeds are 43mbs.  And I am still getting multi-second latency.

 

Are you saying that CenturyLink customers are getting multi-second latency spikes all the time?  (I haven't heard any of those complains, but I could be looking in the wrong place.)

 

maratsade
Distinguished Professor IV

It's not just latency; it's more complex than that and it involves issues with the backbone,  network load, task prioritisation, congestion, and probably other variables. All those together may be interpreted by users as latency issues or speed issues, but it's more than that.  It's also very noticeable if you're on satellite, but it's affecting everyone. 


@maratsade wrote:

It's not just latency; it's more complex than that and it involves issues with the backbone,  network load, task prioritisation, congestion, and probably other variables. All those together may be interpreted by users as latency issues or speed issues, but it's more than that.  It's also very noticeable if you're on satellite, but it's affecting everyone. 


WHY is it more noticable on satellite?

 

Consider this:  There are five hops from me to the destination.

 

1  2  3  4  5

 

Now, at hop 2 is CenturyLink.  There is a 70ms delay due to traffic shaping.  So that adds 70ms to the delay.

 

Hop 3 is another CenturyLink.  There is a 100ms delay due to a problem with their server.  Now we're up to an additional 170ms delay.

 

Why is a satellite user seeing a 5000ms delay when a terrestrial user is only seeing a 200ms delay?

 

Unless for some reason hop 2 and 4 is communicating back to the user.  Thus you're having to resend the data two, three, four times.  That would certainly account for it.

 

That's not a delay, that is a packet loss.  (I may be using the wrong term here.)

 

If CL is losing data and requiring us to resend it, that is a major issue.  Nothing to do with latency.

maratsade
Distinguished Professor IV

"WHY is it more noticable on satellite?"

Because satellite is slower and has more latency, so issues stand out a lot more, kind of like a guy with a big mustache stands out more in a small room with 15 people in it than in a stadium with 20,000.  

"Why is a satellite user seeing a 5000ms delay when a terrestrial user is only seeing a 200ms delay?"

My guess would be that it has something to do with the pathways between CL and individual ISP servers, so there are different routes your request would follow, depending on the ISP.  Some pathways may be slightly cleaner, less congested, etc.  EDIT: I imagine that the fact that our signals travel to and from space has something to do with the issue too. 

CL does have major issues.