Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Mauritians finally get good bandwidth…

By 54 Comments

… on some selected websites but, of course, this is still an excellent news if one takes into account the pathetic bandwidth we had before.

Since a few weeks, some of us have noticed that some websites were very snappy and that downloads from them were much quicker than usual. I investigated and found out the following:

$ nslookup 
> server 202.123.2.6
Default server: 202.123.2.6
Address: 202.123.2.6#53
> www.intel.com
Server:		202.123.2.6
Address:	202.123.2.6#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.intel.com	canonical name = www.intel.com.edgesuite.net.
www.intel.com.edgesuite.net	canonical name = www.intel-sino.com.edgesuite.net.
www.intel-sino.com.edgesuite.net	canonical name = www.intel-sino.com.edgesuite.net.chinaredirector.akadns.net.
www.intel-sino.com.edgesuite.net.chinaredirector.akadns.net	canonical name = a961.g.akamai.net.
Name:	a961.g.akamai.net
Address: 196.27.66.9
Name:	a961.g.akamai.net
Address: 196.27.66.8

 

Let’s see. www.intel.com which is, of course, the official website of Intel has an IP address of 196.27.66.8 or 196.27.66.9 when the Mauritius Telecom DNS server is queried. More interesting is the fact that those two IP addresses seem to correspond to one server owned by Akamai (i.e. a961.g.akamai.net) From the Akamai website, we read:

Akamai has created a digital operating environment for the Web. Our global platform of thousands of specially-equipped servers helps the Internet withstand the crush of daily requests for rich, dynamic, and interactive content, transactions, and applications. When delivering on these requests, Akamai detects and avoids Internet problem spots and vulnerabilities, to ensure Websites perform optimally, media and software download flawlessly, and applications perform reliably.

Hundreds of enterprises worldwide use our global platform to sell, inform, entertain, market, advertise, deliver software, and conduct their business online.

I knew a company like Intel was an Akamai customer but this didn’t explain the increase in bandwidth in Mauritius. Something more interesting was going on. 196.27.66.8 and 196.27.66.9 looked familiar… Suddenly I understood. They looked like the dynamic IP addresses we have in Mauritius. Maybe 196.27.66.8 and 196.27.66.9 were in Mauritius which would easily explain everything.

I did:

$ whois 196.27.66.9

OrgName:    African Network Information Center
OrgID:      AFRINIC
Address:    03B3 - 3rd Floor - Ebene Cyber Tower
Address:    Cyber City
Address:    Ebene
Address:    Mauritius
City:       Ebene
StateProv:
PostalCode: 0001
Country:    MU

This is cool. It means that 196.27.66.9 is managed by the African Network Information Center, an organization based in Mauritius. To be 100% sure that 196.27.66.9 is really in Mauritius, I did:

$ traceroute 196.27.66.9
traceroute to 196.27.66.9 (196.27.66.9), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  41.212.192.1 (41.212.192.1)  72.663 ms  10.613 ms  11.346 ms
 3  ADSL-TPLUS-70-97.telecomplus.net (196.27.70.97)  10.627 ms  11.536 ms  11.003 ms
 4  ph-g1-1-1.1662.telecomplus.net (196.192.102.25)  10.251 ms  10.462 ms  11.510 ms
 5  196.27.66.9 (196.27.66.9)  11.108 ms  10.278 ms  10.987 ms

Phew! This is confirmation that a mirror of www.intel.com is, at least for us, Mauritians, found in Mauritius. Notice how 196.27.66.9 is just one hop from ph-g1-1-1.1662.telecomplus.net which belongs to Telecom Plus. Notice how all the IPs start with 196.

I wonder what other websites have already received the Akamai treatment…

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. In theory, all MT would have to do to maximise bandwidth usage is to connect to one of the big CDN (Akamai, Limelight, etc) and take advantage of their peers.

    Anyway, it’s nice to read something positive about MT.

    Eddy.

  2. Kool but already i have been downloading at amazing rate some servers at least such as norton updates with my download rate reaching at least 150 kps despite the fact im on a 256 kps connection. Anyways the livebox can support till 4 gbits connection limit . i Wonder when those damn says of cyber island will relase a good bandwidth connection as it cost Rs 350 rupees for a 2Mbps connection in india

  3. Only sites that are mirrored by Akamai are available in Mauritius.

    This includes:
    – Akamai – http://www.akamai.fr/ & http://www.akamai.com/
    – Intel – http://www.intel.com/
    – AMD – http://www.amd.com/
    – Audi – http://www.audi.com/ :P
    – BMW – http://www.bmw.com/
    – Toyota – http://www.toyota.com/
    – General Motors – http://www.gm.com/
    – Sony Ericsson – http://www.sonyericsson.com/
    – Intercontinental – http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/
    – France Televisions – http://www.francetelevisions.fr/
    – Nasa – http://www.nasa.gov/
    – NBA – http://www.nba.com/
    – NBC – http://www.nbc.com/
    – Rediff – http://www.rediff.com/

    The whole list is here: http://www.akamai.com/html/customers/customer_list.html

    But I think if you use OpenDNS, it won’t work. :)

  4. Isn’t it time we get to watch streamed content at decent speeds without the annoying buffering phase where it takes you 30 minutes to watch a 10 minute content.

  8. This is not all, the networking infrastructure itself is changing.
    MT is already deploying FTTC here in mauritius which in itself is a major upgrade. so we might expect to have a better connectivity in the coming months.
    Note that FTTC/FTTH is already common abroad.. and i do believe that this might be a reality for us mauritians soon.
    so let’s wait and watch
    i noticed that nokia as well seems to be having a mirror in mauritius. i download the pc suite software and it was considerably faster than the last time i downloaded that software.

    PS. I’ve been to madagascar..very recently and this made me realise how lucky we were to have the bandwidth we have in mauritius and we definitely are among the african countries with the most decent internet connectivity.

  10. I think my previous comment has been spammed?

    Doesn’t anyone think that Akamai setting up a server in Mauritius is linked to Apple/Orange setting up iPhone/iTunes Mauritius? So that the iTunes content can be delivered directly in Mauritius… that seem quite plausible! :P

  11. Finally some “improvement”… I did notice some weeks ago when I downloaded Java JDK that the speed was quite fast… Well, I was at work, so I did not pay much attention to it…

    Now, at home, I’m downloading Visual Studio 2008 from Microsoft, and find myself downloading at >200 KB/s…

    Means that I’m downloading those stuff through the local bandwidth of “2 Gbps”… ok great! BUT (as there is always a ‘but’ with MT!), I wonder if that too would count towards their infamous “fair usage policy”… :s
    Hope that stupid policy does not apply to downloads from the local servers as well!

    One thing, is there any way of knowing which are the sites that are hosted on Akamai Tech’s servers???… That might be useful…

  14. @avinash
    Here’s what I found so far:

    Akamai – http://www.akamai.fr/ & http://www.akamai.com/
    Intel – http://www.intel.com/
    AMD – http://www.amd.com/
    Nvidia – http://www.nvidia.com/
    Rediff – http://www.rediff.com/
    Sony – http://www.sony-mea.com/
    Sony Ericsson – http://www.sonyericsson.com/
    InterContinental Hotels – http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/
    Audi – http://www.audi.com/
    BMW – http://www.bmw.com/
    Toyota – http://www.toyota.com/
    General Motors – http://www.gm.com/
    L’Equipe – http://www.lequipe.fr/
    France T̩l̩visions Рhttp://www.francetelevisions.fr/
    NBA – http://www.nba.com/
    NBC – http://www.nbc.com/
    ESA – http://www.esa.int/
    NASA – http://www.nasa.gov/

  16. Microsoft’s download website
    Corel Draw’s Website
    add also
    Nvidia

    and other i forgot :(

  20. I did a traceroute on Adobe’s download page address, and I noticed it resolved to a Mauritian IP. I managed to download the 900MB of Adobe professional 9 in around 1 hour.

    Other websites where I got high speeds include Zone Alarm and Microsoft.

    Btw Raj, on which website do you watch movies that take 30 minutes to buffer a 10min content??

  22. Avinash can u edit your post and add all the websites altogether , am sure it will help everyo0ne

  25. Hello Sir,

    I read your post and I have some questions to ask you.

    #1 : does that mean that akamai has set up a server in Mauritius or its Intel(or apple or others) who has set up the server? i am a bit confused. What cause the speed to rise ?

    #2: I have made some research and i have used tracert http://www.intel,com, i have got the same results as you but i have done the same thing for apple, that is tracert http://www.apple.com i got a long list, what does that mean?

    And finally I have done the same thing …that is instead of tracert 196.27.66.9, i have used tracert www,intel.com , its the same thing. Then what the use of doing a nslookup to get the IP address ?

    Thanking you in advance.

  26. Hi A,

    #1: As far as I can deduce, yes, Akamai now has some servers in Mauritius.

    #2: Yes, you’re correct about Apple. http://www.apple.com/ is not “mirrored” yet whereas http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/ (Apple’s download site) is (thanks carrotmadman6 for this)

    #3: It’s not strictly needed. But when I used nslookup to obtain the IP address, I got 196.27.66.9 which made me realise that the server was local. You see, nslookup, was part of my thought process.

    Avinash

  29. hmm i wonder if this gain applies only to myt users?

    btw, i was checking out some of the mit ocw video lectures, those also are locally hosted :D

    [now the only thing that remains to be mirrored here is bleachportal, naruto, and if possible some p0rn :p, then i’ll truly be able to say its becoming a cyber island :D]

  30. Hello Sir,
    One of my friend which is a nomad user did not have the same output when he tracert http://www.intel.com. If Akalai has set up servers in Mauritius then all internet users in Mauritius should get good internet speed! OR this is just for orange users ? Do you think its a partnership between orange and akalai?

  31. Hi Azegen,

    Just tell your friend to use the MT DNS servers (202.123.2.6 and 202.123.2.11) and everything should be OK in principle. I don’t think Akamai discriminates among IP addresses (but I may, of course, be wrong.) Tell your friend to test and report here.

  32. Akamai and Orange peer with each other on the Global Orange IP backbone, so it’s normal that users benefit from the speed boost. There’s nothing to do with setting up servers in Mauritius and what have you.

    The rebranding exercise was more than just that it appears: to maintain its global standard, Orange just had their engineers flick the correct switches to give Mauritian users the same quality of service.

    What is PROBABLY happening is all traffic from ORANGE MU to international web sites are going through the global network thus taking advantage of the peering and traffic management optimisation already in place.

    Hopefully, some insider info will be available shortly.

    Eddy.

  33. @selven
    Thanks for the MIT tip… has been a long time since I haven’t downloaded notes from there. :)

    Actually this gain should apply to all internet users in Mauritius as they’ll get full connection speed, but more particularly to My.T users coz they have that 2Mbps local connection. ADSL users will still have their 128k/512k.

    Btw i’ve compiled a list of sites here in this post: http://themediaguru.blogspot.com/2008/09/akamai-caching-websites-in-mauritius.html

  35. some website sucks , for example mtv , ppl outside us cannot view the videos due to restriction , and video’s which can be viewed are not streamed at 2mbps

  36. I’m stuck with the good old 128K for nearly 3 years. Would anyone recommend me to make the switch to MyT 256K?

    If Akamai delivers high-speed content from only a few websites as mentioned on its site, is it really worth the effort? I know Mauritians still have not yet tasted real broadband, even with that pathetic MyT. Maybe in a decades’ time…

  37. Well, it would be nice if rapidshare could be inlcuded in the list, that should bring lot of smile on the face of many users including me :)

  38. Don’t count on this :-)

    The Akamai service is extremely expensive as far as I know and I don’t think Rapidshare can afford to pay that much.

  39. @BlueBerry
    I use 128k as well & i’m confused whether I should really upgrade to My.T to get that little speed boost??? :S

    @Adarsh
    Yeah, if RS used Akamai, that would be awesome! :) But it’s unpractical & too expensive… each day millions of files are uploaded on RS – imagine having to mirror all that content on each server! :(

  40. @carrotmadman6

    I remember the MT guys pestering me with their annoying calls urging me to try their new service in mid-2006. Now that this craze for ‘heh mo ena maye-tee cote moi’ has caught on among today’s youth, I still will not side with them.

    They phoned me yet again a few months ago but since they could not guarantee me anything from my queries regarding terms of use, download limits, etc, is there any point in my being duped by MT by switching sides?

  42. Strictly speaking, the article does not say that Orange has started limiting the bandwidth of heavy users. Rather it explains what the FUP is. As a matter of fact, in many countries, there is something similar to the FUP except that users know about the exact limits (which are completely unknown here) and it is not retrofitted to existing contracts…

  43. Vrai ou pas vrai:

    MT/Orange définit une catégorie de users et autorise de façon détournée le téléchargement illégal. “heavy user:” 4 000 MP3 ou 28 films par mois, en dessous pas de problème ??
    Je ne suis pas sur que cette formulation, soit au gout de la maison mère d’Orange.

    Ps: Pour les non-pirates, vous pouvez toujours télécharger des films en “Creative Commons Attribution” http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/ … et même relancer le calcul chez vous.

  44. Yes, you’re right!

    Compare that with Comcast’s (one of the US’s leading ISPs) recent controversial decision to impose a monthly cap on internet usage for its subscribers:

    Quoted from Wikipedia:
    ‘On August 28th, 2008, Comcast confirmed the rumors of a 250GB per month cap on downloads, set to go into effect on October 1st, 2008.’

    Only if MT has the clout to quantify what they would term as ‘excessive usage’ :)

  45. Il commence avoir un nouveau type de problème même en europe à cause:
    des offres ultra haut débit 24/50/100Mbits.
    des contenus vidéos/flash … sont de plus en plus important
    des limites physiques des équipements cables/fibres/routeur.

    Résultat, le peer-peer est discrètement coupé/réduit chez certain opérateur qui ne veulent pas assumer un investissement énorme de renouvellement d’infrastructure.

    Le contournement reste alors le https (type rapidshare)/http/ftp… pour récupérer du contenu volumineux. Et la riposte logique des opérateurs ne peut être que le Fup.

    Le FUP risque d’avoir un bel avenir devant lui. C’est malheureusement un cap à passer comme le changement de33.6 => ADSL.

    Le SAFE est un vieux câble et le cout d’upgrade (ajout de longueur d’onde Multimode = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_optics ) oblige de changer les équipements de chaque coté du tuyau … Je pense que les actionnaires d’Orange ne sont pas encore prêts à céder une partie de leur revenu pour cette mise à jour … On ne trouve pas ce type d’équipement chez n’importe quel revendeur informatique :)

  48. i wanted to know if there were any site for gaming…download patches, new maps etc

  49. hi,
    i wanted to know if it was possible to transfer files between 2 pc’s inside mauritius (both having MyT connection) over the internet and get a 2Mbit/s transfer speed?
    thanks for reply

  51. I dont know if it is accurate but i think the reason why google are not with this is because :

    1. they own a physical server im mauritius
    2. they are open minded people
    3. with this setup any good developper either on android or apple would know that any outgoing request to youtube are redirected according to there location.

    so this is to tell you if you know how to do it you are getting a slow connection youtube its probably because you dont what you are doing and my advice is to hit google and look for answers it all right there and the are ways to tell your pc where to go and bypass what your isp is offering. after all your the most important driver on a pc or mac. Even though they are setting traps to regulate traffic on the internet these days but i would really ask them politely to stop spy on everybody, i mean look on youtube what just happen to the usa with the snowden case whistle blower is this what we want for us and our children. Now they want to put chip on the identity card is it for my security or there’s and again i would call that a violation of my rights because there was know public debate and explanation about the device implanted in this. so they are going to give you something that they have full control of and all mauritian dont know any thing about . its getting scary and what makes me say this is why havent they done it on your passport yet and why now so this is a test run and we are again the laboratory rats. Every aspect of this project should be made public.

    and in mauritius the isps dont care for there users but the users pay them every month like a sheep but again you must know what your doing and what your looking for.

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