The Internet from Dili
This is the internet from Dili, on the Timor Telecom Netbo’ot Xlais (3G) plan. The one that takes you 1 month and a letter from one’s wife’s employer to get. One month because the billing system for post-paid plans is down from the last upgrade. And a letter from a UN organization or Big Company because there is no such thing as automatic bank transfer (yet) in East Timor or much of a postal service. So they need a stable organization to vouch for you. And you have to go to their office to pay the internet bill. In cash.
So here are a few ping times for github.com.
When it’s not working so good:
PING www.github.com (207.97.227.243): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
Request timeout for icmp_seq 4
Request timeout for icmp_seq 5
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6
Request timeout for icmp_seq 7
Request timeout for icmp_seq 8
Request timeout for icmp_seq 9
Request timeout for icmp_seq 10
Request timeout for icmp_seq 11
Request timeout for icmp_seq 12
Request timeout for icmp_seq 13
Request timeout for icmp_seq 14
Request timeout for icmp_seq 15
Request timeout for icmp_seq 16
Request timeout for icmp_seq 17
Request timeout for icmp_seq 18
Request timeout for icmp_seq 19
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=21000.422 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=20497.055 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=20422.630 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=4 ttl=48 time=18556.737 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=5 ttl=48 time=17873.283 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=7 ttl=48 time=16648.719 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=8 ttl=48 time=15675.208 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=11 ttl=48 time=16667.384 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=12 ttl=48 time=15810.244 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=13 ttl=48 time=15127.921 ms
...
Here it is at its best:
PING www.github.com (207.97.227.243): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=750.208 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=749.479 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=2 ttl=46 time=748.548 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=3 ttl=46 time=758.857 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=4 ttl=46 time=758.581 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=5 ttl=46 time=747.524 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=6 ttl=46 time=767.582 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=7 ttl=46 time=811.335 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=8 ttl=46 time=746.080 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=9 ttl=46 time=747.759 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=10 ttl=46 time=747.045 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=11 ttl=46 time=786.805 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=12 ttl=46 time=754.027 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=13 ttl=46 time=803.607 ms
64 bytes from 207.97.227.243: icmp_seq=14 ttl=46 time=775.936 ms
C
— www.github.com ping statistics —
16 packets transmitted, 15 packets received, 6.2% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 746.080/763.558/811.335/20.689 ms
Oh well.
Timor telecom is a joint venture with Portugal Telecom. East Timor is not connected to any subsea cable, so the access to the rest of the workd is by satellite. Until recently, the downlink was in Portugal, but I noticed today that it is now in Los Angeles, apparently even for european traffic :
Ikki-8:~ niko$ traceroute www.lemonde.fr
traceroute to orig-10011.lemonde.cotcdn.net (208.93.141.60), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.68.1.10 (10.68.1.10) 58.393 ms 48.982 ms 49.887 ms
2 202.72.107.233 (202.72.107.233) 49.991 ms 48.808 ms 60.100 ms
3 isp_rtr_ewsd.timortelecom.tp (202.72.104.25) 289.717 ms 198.158 ms 312.755 ms
4 97.208.119.74.in-addr.arpa (74.119.208.97) 614.660 ms 714.006 ms 730.549 ms
5 2.255.113.74.in-addr.arpa (74.113.255.2) 663.001 ms 709.718 ms 717.103 ms
6 218.255.113.74.in-addr.arpa (74.113.255.218) 716.161 ms 715.386 ms 817.722 ms
7 166.255.113.74.in-addr.arpa (74.113.255.166) 629.226 ms 700.693 ms 819.343 ms
8 ae5-286.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (4.59.50.49) 716.484 ms 920.396 ms 715.551 ms
9 ae-3-80.edge2.losangeles9.level3.net (4.69.144.143) 736.165 ms
ae-1-60.edge2.losangeles9.level3.net (4.69.144.15) 717.403 ms 718.268 ms
10 4.53.230.26 (4.53.230.26) 713.741 ms 716.148 ms 619.068 ms
11 lb140.lsag.cotendo.net (208.93.141.60) 814.379 ms 705.175 ms 716.141 ms
Another french site :
traceroute to www.macbidouille.fr (212.43.222.205), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.68.1.10 (10.68.1.10) 53.321 ms 58.998 ms 59.884 ms
2 202.72.107.233 (202.72.107.233) 58.490 ms 54.145 ms 60.118 ms
3 isp_rtr_ewsd.timortelecom.tp (202.72.104.25) 229.907 ms 247.107 ms 385.811 ms
4 97.208.119.74.in-addr.arpa (74.119.208.97) 574.238 ms 580.288 ms 568.438 ms
5 2.255.113.74.in-addr.arpa (74.113.255.2) 630.950 ms 627.160 ms 639.982 ms
6 218.255.113.74.in-addr.arpa (74.113.255.218) 639.453 ms 638.748 ms 749.713 ms
7 166.255.113.74.in-addr.arpa (74.113.255.166) 661.317 ms 767.899 ms 628.394 ms
8 ae5-286.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (4.59.50.49) 731.870 ms 664.324 ms 716.819 ms
9 ae-44-90.car4.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.144.198) 679.359 ms
ae-24-70.car4.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.144.70) 731.518 ms
ae-14-60.car4.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.144.6) 715.088 ms
10 globalcrossing-level3-10ge.losangeles1.level3.net (4.68.110.66) 716.510 ms 770.715 ms 750.373 ms
11 204.245.38.142 (204.245.38.142) 819.176 ms 716.645 ms 818.951 ms
12 th2-cr1-ge-2-4.router.fr.clara.net (212.43.193.209) 819.045 ms 741.612 ms 829.885 ms
13 fb-cr2-ge-0-2.router.fr.clara.net (212.43.193.181) 820.216 ms 818.374 ms 820.142 ms
14 fb-fb-ar1-ge-7-2.router.fr.clara.net (212.43.193.222) 708.126 ms 716.031 ms 734.438 ms
15 16.216.rev.dc-zone.net (212.43.216.16) 802.604 ms 818.576 ms 727.429 ms
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
...
Still shorter than talking to the moon I guess :-).