Weird routing via France for PN users. (Level 3)

[#1]

Thank you Kelly

[#2]

So sky doesnt go via LINX also, the LINX issue maybe the host's isp end they may have turned it off or something.
Does plusnet have direct ntt connectivity?

[#3]

Nope, just Level3, BTnet and Hurricane.

[#4]

From what I can see PN  has several direct peers which also peer direct peer with my hosts (ie Entanet, Hotchilli, Hutchinson)... 
... however when it comes to transit theres only the BT regional network and Level 3
Hope Im wrong on that 

----
ETA
>> Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. <<
Cant see Hurricane.

[#5]

http://bgp.he.net/AS6871#_asinfo
Level3 and BTNet are their main transit peers. Hurricane is their main IPv6 transit peer, but is also listed as IPv4.
As Paul explained on a previous thread, the way the peering works is it automatically selects the route with the fewest AS paths, which will be through Level3 for 185.24.96.0/22. Unfortunately, the automatic best path algorithm doesn't look at latency or whether there is a block on that site somewhere.

[#6]

Thanks vm for the additional info Andy.
I am though still confused..  if you look at my tracerts in this post.
You will see that for both traces they go to my webhost gateway at 91.198.165.76.  Going via cogentco takes 14 hops to their datacenter, yet via ntt and france it takes 19 hops to get to the gateway.  To me that just does not make sense.

[#7]

Quote from: Kelly

I've flagged in again.

Just to let you know, as suggested by Andy, I also raised this with my web hosts on Friday.  Within a few mins I got a reply that although this was outside their control, they would see what they could do.
I later got an email to say they've applied to direct peer with Plusnet.
Tonight Ive got an email from one of  the directors of  my  hosts saying that hopefully & if everything goes through ok,... within 48-72 hours this should be complete.
Top marks to Vidahost - all at a weekend too!   
Whilst this may resolve my own issue..  I still feel that what is going on at Level3 isnt satisfactory and Plusnet should be demanding answers from Level3.
It appears that L3 constantly fail with this routing..  and as transit providers they should have better links and peers in London. 
My site is hosted in London at a large data centre who use both cogent & ntt..  so why are L3 failing so badly at being able to directly connect to other major transit providers in London? 
I can well understand why gamers in the other thread arent too happy.    The lag from Paris at peak times is dreadful and it slows me down so badly to the point that any SQL dumps fail.  The link between L3 and ntt in paris is heavily congested, so gaming must be the pits.

[#8]

yeah they need to get that peering sorted, whilst its no longer going across the channel, its still a silly looking traceroute needing 2 transit providers to get there.

Tracing route to kitz.servers.eqx.misp.co.uk [185.24.98.37]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  home.gateway [192.168.1.253]
  2    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  lo0-central10.pcl-ag03.plus.net [195.166.128.184
]
  3    14 ms    15 ms    14 ms  link-a-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.16
8]
  4    14 ms    40 ms    15 ms  xe-10-2-0.pcl-cr01.plus.net [212.159.0.200]
  5    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  xe-11-2-0.edge3.London2.Level3.net [212.187.201.
213]
  6    15 ms    14 ms    14 ms  vl-3101-ve-127.ebr1.London2.Level3.net [4.69.202
.169]
  7    16 ms    14 ms    14 ms  ae-47-47.ebr1.London15.Level3.net [4.69.159.74]
  8    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  ae-41-41.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.167.18]
  9    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  ae-56-111.csw1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.153.114]
 10    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  ae-116-3502.edge3.London1.Level3.net [4.69.166.1
34]
 11    16 ms    16 ms    15 ms  be3043.ccr22.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1
5.245]
 12    15 ms    14 ms    15 ms  te3-8.ccr01.lon10.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.75.
66]
 13    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  te3-2.ccr01.lon15.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.57.
234]
 14    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  te3-2.ccr01.lon14.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.58.
49]
 15    17 ms    17 ms    17 ms  te0-6-0-3.rcr21.lhr01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.11
7.51.185]
 16    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  149.6.8.226
 17    17 ms    17 ms    17 ms  91.198.165.76
 18    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  kitz.servers.eqx.misp.co.uk [185.24.98.37]

[#9]

Kelly / One of the PN guys.

Did you get any further with this?
Really surprised that plusnet these days seem to use L3 for practically all their routing - link
Im still bouncing all round London and the number of hops seem pretty high to me.

C:\Users\kitz>tracert www.kitz.co.uk
Tracing route to kitz.co.uk [185.24.98.37]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  ZyXEL.Home [192.168.1.1]
  2    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  lo0-central10.ptn-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.191]
  3    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  link-b-central10.ptn-gw02.plus.net [212.159.2.134]
  4    15 ms    15 ms    16 ms  xe-1-2-0.ptw-cr02.plus.net [212.159.0.114]
  5    15 ms    16 ms    15 ms  ae2.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.4]
  6    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  ae1.pcl-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.1]
  7    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  xe-11-2-0.edge3.London2.Level3.net [212.187.201.213]
  8    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  vl-3101-ve-127.ebr1.London2.Level3.net [4.69.202.169]
  9    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  ae-48-48.ebr1.London15.Level3.net [4.69.159.78]
 10    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  ae-42-42.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.167.22]
 11    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  ae-56-111.csw1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.153.114]
 12    16 ms    17 ms    16 ms  ae-118-3504.edge3.London1.Level3.net [4.69.166.142]
 13    17 ms    18 ms    18 ms  be3043.ccr22.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.15.245]
 14    18 ms    18 ms    18 ms  te3-8.ccr01.lon10.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.75.66]
 15    18 ms    17 ms    18 ms  te3-2.ccr01.lon15.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.57.234]
 16    17 ms    18 ms    17 ms  te3-2.ccr01.lon14.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.58.49]
 17    19 ms    20 ms    19 ms  te0-6-0-3.rcr21.lhr01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.51.185]
 18    19 ms    19 ms    19 ms  149.6.8.226
 19    18 ms    19 ms    18 ms  91.198.165.76
 20    18 ms    18 ms    18 ms  kitz.servers.eqx.misp.co.uk [185.24.98.37]

and as to

Quote

Tonight Ive got an email from one of  the directors of  my  hosts saying that hopefully & if everything goes through ok,... within 48-72 hours this should be complete.

Is it possible you poke your side of things with your Network guys ie
UK Webhosting Ltd AS198047 appear to be still awaiting a response from Plusnet.
They peer with most other UK ISPs
eg from a Sky connection

1     4 ms     4 ms     4 ms  host-62-24-233-143.as13285.net [62.24.233.143]
  2     5 ms     5 ms     5 ms  78.151.227.0
  3     5 ms     5 ms     5 ms  host-78-151-227-21.as13285.net [78.151.227.21]
  4    11 ms    10 ms    11 ms  host-78-144-9-97.as13285.net [78.144.9.97]
  5    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  195.66.237.228
  6    13 ms    13 ms    12 ms  91.198.165.76
  7    11 ms    11 ms    12 ms  kitz.servers.eqx.misp.co.uk [185.24.98.37]

Cheers.

[#10]

ETA

Quote

Sorry for the delay here. It looks like we are still waiting to hear back from Plusnet regarding peering over LINX.  I will try to chase this up with them today,

Come on PN, this is an problem with your (L3) routing...  and my hosts are trying their best to resolve it for Plusnet customers from their side and need a response.
Theres 2 issues here.
1) L3's stupid routing with far more hops than necessary
2) UKHosting (Vidahost) need a response re peering.

[#11]

We're still talking to Level 3.  Not sure on the peering request, but will check.

[#12]

Thanks for the reply Kelly.  Hope they (& PN)  get it sorted soon.

[#13]

Quote from: Kelly

We're still talking to Level 3.  Not sure on the peering request, but will check.

if direct peering is pending forget level3
seems to me if level3 cant get their act together stop sending traffic over their network , that should wake them up.

[#14]

Whilst the routing is a little odd
Sending the traffic Via France really shouldn't make the site slow or cause backups to fail.etc as France is still relatively close in internet terms, whilst there will be some additional latency it really shouldn't be more than a few ms and certainly not enough to cause the problems that are being described in this thread.
It sound to me like there's a bit more going on here than simply a slightly longer path, I wonder if not only is it going to France and back but also one of the Peers is congested or there's a link somewhere that's dropping packets, might be worth running an MTR trace along the path.
That said even then some routers DE-prioritse ICMP to the point where they show Packetloss on a hop during MTR traces that there actually isn't any (as witnessed by no packetloss at minimal jitter seen at the final destination hop)
Edit The hop in Kitz's tracert

11 22 ms 23 ms 22 ms ae-4-90.edge4.Paris1.Level3.net [4.69.168.199]
12 67 ms 66 ms 67 ms NTT-level3-2x10G.Paris.Level3.net [4.68.63.118]

Looks interesting to me, Seems to be a massive jump in latency there.
Kitz might be worth pinging the server continuously for a time and also running an MTR when you have the problem, from my connection it's going Level 3 then Cogent and I cannot see any issues.

[#15]

Also, just because the outbound traceroute shows France, that doesn't mean the inbound route is the same.
Really the traceroutes and the hops it shows are a distraction.  Something is causing the traffic to be slow.