Who Determines The Traceroute?

[chingching]

The webhost I use has servers someplace in Kansas. U.S.A. I connect here through TOT. (101.109.144.1) My question is does TOT determine the route taken to Kansas, or is it determined on the fly. I ask because I cannot reach my website now, it dies in Los Angeles, and the same thing happened last month for 3 days. I would have thought if the traffic could not get through at any point that it would automatically reroute itself. But it dies here and has been unreachable for a day and a half this time. (It dies at 4.69.144.207) If it is TOT that determines the path, is there any point in bringing this to their attention.

[Darrel]

Your routing is largely down to TOT though the particular error you are having may be due to a routing problem at another point between you and where the trace ends, and so not TOTs responsibility.

In my experience your ISP will neither understand what the problem is or give a XXXX about fixing it.

If you can use a proxy or VPN this should sort you out and is an acceptable workaround. I find I have to open a VPN quite often (though irregularly) to get to some sites in parts of Europe as CATs routing can be very strange indeed to some places.

[tormok]

I'm on a TOT ADSL line and have the same problem.

Yesterday and today most of the sites I usually visit every day have been unavailable.

I just did a traceroute to four of them - two hosted in USA and two in Europe, and they all die at 180.180.248.218 which is:

descr: TOT Public Company Limited

descr: Zone A, 6th Floor, Building 1

descr: Swicthing and Network Interconnection System Standard Sector

descr: TOT Public Company

descr: 89/2 Moo 3 Chaengwatthana Road

[tormok]

Other TOT users with similar problem here:

Some have had succes with resetting their modem for 5 minutes. That didn't help here. Still no cennection or extremely slow connection.

[beano2274]

Routing in Thailand by TOT, outside it depends on the Carrier how the circuit is set up, an outage would also make the circuit re-route along its other path (protection, if there is bandwidth). Usually it is the shortest and quickest route defined by the operators and how the circuits have been added into the Management Systems.

Such a route might use more than 2 carriers plus the subsea operator, in the UK Eurotunnel have the system through the tunnel it is monitored and circuits routed by themselves.

Although most often the subsea operator lays the cable and lands it at a designated site that is owned by an operator.

[rakman]

The Boarder routers use BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). In the Level3 issue, they don't allow the routers to pass the traffic across the peering and the Boarder Routers don't reconverge the whole map so the internet traffic doesn't re-route to the final destination.

Sometimes, there is peering issues between Level 3 and another ISP, I forget which one we used to regularly see. Lately its been Level3 and Comcast. The issue they have is who pays for the bandwidth in the peering between the two ISPs.

Often it takes a few days to hash it out, such as you're seeing.

4.69.144.207 is Level3 so I'm not surprised.

[beano2274]

Used to work for them years ago (Level 3)....

[tormok]

Problem solved.

My wife called TOT customer center on 1100.

Selected ADSL.

Selected problems with internet.

Typed in the number for the phoneline with the ADSL.

Typed in her mobile number.

Recieved SMS about problem registrered - working on it.

I waited half hour stopped the modem for 5 minutes and now everything is OK.

[chingching]

Problem solved.

My wife called TOT customer center on 1100.

Selected ADSL.

Selected problems with internet.

Typed in the number for the phoneline with the ADSL.

Typed in her mobile number.

Recieved SMS about problem registrered - working on it.

I waited half hour stopped the modem for 5 minutes and now everything is OK.

i was unable to try this solution, but if the problem was with the level 3 station, it would seem the problem witth tot is even worse, as that would mean they are willing to fix it on a case by case basis, but let everyone else swing in the wind, Anyway the problem has resolved itself within this past hour.

[rakman]

Problem solved.

My wife called TOT customer center on 1100.

Selected ADSL.

Selected problems with internet.

Typed in the number for the phoneline with the ADSL.

Typed in her mobile number.

Recieved SMS about problem registrered - working on it.

I waited half hour stopped the modem for 5 minutes and now everything is OK.

i was unable to try this solution, but if the problem was with the level 3 station, it would seem the problem witth tot is even worse, as that would mean they are willing to fix it on a case by case basis, but let everyone else swing in the wind, Anyway the problem has resolved itself within this past hour.

That is typically what happens. Once Level3 and the other party (comcast?) agree to a contract, the problem goes away until the next contract negotiation.

You can give TOT the traceroutes, ask them for assistance (sometimes ISP to ISP relationships fall on a couple of guys). I wouldn't guarantee anything, but sometimes you get just a bit lucky.