Cisco Router

Quake in Taiwan cripples Internet. The title says it all.

While many Internet Service Providers in South East Asia are affected by the crippled international link in Taiwan, the truth is that some ISPs are just plain incompetent. It just goes to show how much (or lack of) readiness the ISPs have to handle emergencies.

For Streamyx, a leading ISP in Malaysia by government linked monopoly this is the time to put the blame on Taiwan’s international link. The truth is more sinister. They’re lazy and incompetent.

A simple traceroute reveals poor network traffic route management. Take for example 72.14.207.191, one of Google’s node.

  • 10.100.0.1
  • 219.93.218.177 - Subang Jaya, Selangor, MY
  • 219.93.216.189 - Petaling Jaya, Selangor, MY
  • 210.187.142.1 - Kangar, Perlis, MY
  • 210.187.142.5 - Kangar, Perlis, MY
  • 219.94.12.138
  • 210.187.133.83 - Labuan, Sabah, MY
  • 58.27.124.54 - Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory, MY
  • 219.94.9.25
  • 219.94.9.42
  • 195.66.224.125 - London, England, UK
  • 72.14.236.216
  • 72.14.236.213
  • 72.14.233.113
  • 66.249.94.92
  • 66.249.94.50
  • eh-in-f191.google.com [72.14.207.191]

Now, if you’re familiar with Malaysia’s geography you can tell that this is stupid. The trace was done from Subang Jaya in Selangor state. It hits Perlis state in northern Malaysia, then to Sabah state just across the wide South China Sea, and then back to Kuala Lumpur, adjacent to Selangor before reaching the international gateway.

Yes, I know how Internet works. I know how router works. A lot of people do. So, why would Streamyx try to weasel out by blaming it on the fastest available route? Only if they’re incompetent and they themselves don’t know how to manage network efficiently, that’s why.

I tried the same trace 3 days later, and it gave me a similar result. This is not a packet routing issue. It’s just bad routing table entries.

To confirm my suspicions, I manually routed my connections to a VPN port I left open in Tokyo, Japan. I have less network issues when I route it through there and I can easily hit international nodes that I should but can’t even see without starting VPN.

Then I went to use Internet at an international brand hotel that uses MagiNet for broadband access, and found a more efficient route without VPN. It doesn’t look good for Streamyx, in fact, it’s beginning to smell like a dead woodchuck under the porch.

Telekom Malaysia, the parent of Streamyx, like most Malaysian government linked companies is a Malay-centric organization that often don’t deliver the best but takes credit when something randomly goes right and makes junk-o-logic comparison with their Singapore counterpart when things goes wrong.

Bad Internet is high on my whine list since I arrived here couple weeks ago.