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Poll: The worst upstream provider
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Poll: The worst upstream provider

What so you think:

Which is in your opinion the worst upstream provider?
  1. Please choose:107 votes
    1. Cogent
      43.93%
    2. Hurricane Electric
      17.76%
    3. Tinet
        0.93%
    4. Interoute
        1.87%
    5. TeliaSonera
        5.61%
    6. GTT
        4.67%
    7. NTT
        1.87%
    8. TATA
        3.74%
    9. Level 3
        4.67%
    10. RETN
        2.80%
    11. other
      12.15%
«1

Comments

  • @Anthony2016 said:
    What so you think:

    Network performance or morally?

  • HackedServerHackedServer Member
    edited October 2016

    GTT 100% for me. I've had issues with others, but they always seem to be the providers fault. GTT just sucks always. I had to move from Choopa because of them. New my place has them as a secondary and they suck there too.

  • pbgbenpbgben Member, Host Rep

    @raindog308 said:
    The NSA.

  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider
    edited October 2016

    All and neither of them at the same time.

    Each upstream has pros and cons, they will depend on the destination you want to reach, the mix that the destination operates and if the destination or upstream oversells it.

    What you should look for is a good, balanced Tier-2 carrier that uses best routes out of a couple of upstreams to deliver a great service.

    The pool, for example, lists Cogent as the worst one at the time of writing, yet as Cogent is used, among others, by the cheapest networks, we find quite often that not Cogent is at fault, but a cheapskate ISP who oversells bandwidth on the cheapest possible upstream that Cogent is, can hardly be blamed on Cogent, but it's easier for the ISP to blame it on them, rather than on themselves.

    A good network would never over-rely on a single upstream. It's not one size fits all, nor a simple equation. You need a few of them and some routing logic to deliver a good quality connection to your Clients.

    As such, the pool makes no sense as it's too generalised to provide you with any meaningful data.

  • I do agree on what @Clouvider says

    Clouvider said: they will depend on the destination you want to reach, the mix that the destination operates and if the destination or upstream oversells it.

    There no such thing as the worst upstream provider some upstream will have a better route to destination x isp x than the other upstream but the other upstream will have a better route to destination z isp z

  • HackedServerHackedServer Member
    edited October 2016

    The OP says "in your opinion the worst", not "factually the worst". So what could be the worse in your opinion was someone that has bad routes for you.

  • shovenoseshovenose Member, Host Rep

    Hillary Clinton

    Thanked by 2ManofServer boernd
  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    HE is probably the worst in that list. But is that a fair comparison? I'm not so sure, they are generally 1/6th the price of Level3 for example.

  • Why would HE be the worst.

  • I assume this question refers to a singlehomed network?

    To what target area? HE to peered EU networks most likely works excellent and comes out less than peering yourself at times.

    In Asia being singlehomed Cogent + having local users (there are some Mongolian ISPs that backhaul Cogent & Level3 to MN from god knows where but as they have virtually no asian traffic it is fine) is a death sentence i guess?

    You also forget to mention at least one big player in your list (DTAG, Deutsche Telekom - a very large Tier 2 by old measurements) and most east of EU/US:

    • Rostelecom is a major player in Central Asia and down to Iran
    • Bharti (India) is a major wave owner and transit provider in Africa (mostly East)
    • IS is as well for South
    • The Mauritian state (?) telco does transit for the African islands (so them, Seychelles and some French islands, which are surprisingly well connected/equipped)

    • NTT in Asia is not NTT global

    • The Chinese do some transit business with immediate neighbours (North Korea but also South, Taiwan, HK obviously)

    • South America has at least noteworthy Telmex (which pretty much exists in any country) and Claro, also Columbus networks which runs most of the island ring (Turks &C., Antigua etc.)

    • One highly important missing is Cable & Wireless (Islands, former UK colonies etc.), other is France Telecom (Africa, former/current French colonies) which both are not exactly first hop to many but second after prestigious ISPs (getting direct connected is actually hard at times)

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    I've had the most issues with GTT & Telia but since they're both with Choopa i'm inclined to blame Choopa just as much as them.

    I've had no problems with HE or Cogent but maybe I'm not testing from problematic markets for them.

    NTT has been nice but I don't see enough of it to make a solid opinion.

    Francisco

  • HackedServerHackedServer Member
    edited October 2016

    @Francisco said:
    I've had the most issues with GTT & Telia but since they're both with Choopa i'm inclined to blame Choopa just as much as them.

    I've had no problems with HE or Cogent but maybe I'm not testing from problematic markets for them.

    GTT at Choopa was abysmal.

    HE at Continuum near Chicago was the only place I've had severe HE issues, and I completely blame Continuum.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @HackedServer said:

    @Francisco said:
    I've had the most issues with GTT & Telia but since they're both with Choopa i'm inclined to blame Choopa just as much as them.

    I've had no problems with HE or Cogent but maybe I'm not testing from problematic markets for them.

    GTT at Choopa was abysmal.

    HE at Continuum near Chicago was the only place I've has severe HE issues, and I completely blame Continuum.

    I've had a lot of issues with Choopa's Telia connectivity too. Telia is a recent addition and they've offloaded a lot of their transit to it. For a while they had a BGP community to remove Telia from in & outbound routes but I'm guessing too many people were using it and they've since then removed the option and you have to use Telia if you like it or not.

    I've talked to @jbiloh about it and he's fairly sure the issue is just Choopa botching how they have things setup or just some serious overselling since supposedly Telia in the other parts of the east coast are perfectly fine.

    Francisco

  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    @Francisco said:

    @HackedServer said:

    @Francisco said:
    I've had the most issues with GTT & Telia but since they're both with Choopa i'm inclined to blame Choopa just as much as them.

    I've had no problems with HE or Cogent but maybe I'm not testing from problematic markets for them.

    GTT at Choopa was abysmal.

    HE at Continuum near Chicago was the only place I've has severe HE issues, and I completely blame Continuum.

    I've had a lot of issues with Choopa's Telia connectivity too. Telia is a recent addition and they've offloaded a lot of their transit to it. For a while they had a BGP community to remove Telia from in & outbound routes but I'm guessing too many people were using it and they've since then removed the option and you have to use Telia if you like it or not.

    I've talked to @jbiloh about it and he's fairly sure the issue is just Choopa botching how they have things setup or just some serious overselling since supposedly Telia in the other parts of the east coast are perfectly fine.

    Francisco

    We do a ton of traffic to gtt and telia, amongst others. What I can tell you is that we don't see the same issues when directly connected vs. Issues that are so well documented with constant/choopa.

    Thanked by 2Francisco Clouvider
  • @William said:
    I assume this question refers to a singlehomed network?

    • South America has at least noteworthy Telmex (which pretty much exists in any country) and Claro, also Columbus networks which runs most of the island ring (Turks &C., Antigua etc.)

    For residents (in Chile) everyone hates Claro, Claro = Telmex.
    Telmex/Claro (Chile) have a bad peering to Brazil: +200ms.

    Look at IFX Networks, they are in Colombia/Chile

  • @Francisco said:
    I've had no problems with HE or Cogent but maybe I'm not testing from problematic markets for them.

    What are the 'definitely problematic' markets for he, cogent in your experience?

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran
    edited October 2016

    @vimalware said:

    @Francisco said:
    I've had no problems with HE or Cogent but maybe I'm not testing from problematic markets for them.

    What are the 'definitely problematic' markets for he, cogent in your experience?

    I'll be 100% honest I've not had any on HE at least. I know I hear people complain about Cogent but whenever i used it I never really had complaints minus maybe a few odd routes. Right now coming down from west coast Canada there is no LAX->LAS route so I get bumped through Texas->PHX or something like that.

    I know @william has made comments about them towards DTAG or whatever but that ISP seems to have issues with lots of providers due to capacity issues that are under their own control.

    What I can say is that the end user connectivity has been really good from what i've seen. Normally on my home connection I'll be around 2MB/sec pulling from most east coast networks, even on Choopa's older blend, yet with Cogent i'm hitting 5 ~ 7MB/sec single thread. I know they've had their few peering disputes over the years but if you're not single homing them long term it should be fine I would hope.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited October 2016

    The worst upstream provider

    China Telecom / China Unicom. :)

    Thanked by 2simonindia Clouvider
  • bacloudbacloud Member, Patron Provider

    Cogent is number ONE! It was, and it will be

  • Francisco said: I'll be 100% honest I've not had any on HE at least. I know I hear people complain about Cogent but whenever i used it I never really had complaints minus maybe a few odd routes.

    In my experience the issue is not per se Cogent it's self, its last mile and peering to Cogent. Because a lot of networks use it cheaply, there is a lot of demand for it to last mile providers (Cable, DSL, etc). During peak times getting a decent sustained throughput to some Cogent heavy locations can be difficult. While the pings and route seem decent, you just can't sustain the high peak speeds (because everyone is competing for a slice and I suspect some QOS to make it cheaper for them). Comcast is an example of this in at least a few markets of theirs I have been in, there are certain times of day where speeds just go to crap when using Cogent homed servers as the source.

    In the direct datacenter market, connectivity wise to just transfer some files around, sure its not bad, and can impress in some markets. Cogent for a backup server isn't something to dismiss, I have seen some pretty nice routes, for example, between Toronto Cogent (Luna Node) and some UK/DE locations, no problems pushing at least a sustained 10MB/s (if not more) and nice latency.

    my 2 cents.

    Cheers!

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    Cogents strongest area is their last mile no doubt.

    What you get with them however is routing always based on cost and rarely, if ever, performance. And that's just impossible to overlook, at least for us.

  • rm_ said: China Telecom / China Unicom. :)

    China Unicom / China Telecom / China Mobile and CNC2 work EXCELLENT as upstream - if you pay for it as expected. This means 1$/Mbit inside China or 10-15$/Mbit outside (without China routes). CNC2 has obscure IPv6 routes you see nowhere else.

    TheLinuxBug said: While the pings and route seem decent

    Cogent/Level3 are still in fight - my UPC traffic went to from Austria to NY back to AMS to a Cogent singlehomed ISP and this seems to be still the case.

  • jh_aurologicjh_aurologic Member, Patron Provider

    Cogent, due to the fact, that they sales constantly annoys me by calling me in order to get their shitty expensive trash transit contracted. Not going to request a offer again after six times (since 2015) telling them, that they should stop calling me if they cant meet my requirements (Anti-DDoS ACLs).

  • @raindog308 said:
    The NSA.

    Network performance or morally?

  • Network performance, of course.

    @William said:
    Cogent/Level3 are still in fight - my UPC traffic went to from Austria to NY back to AMS to a Cogent singlehomed ISP and this seems to be still the case.

    All UPC in Europe customers seem to be affected by it.
    I don't know why there isn't a direct peering between Cogent and Aorta after so many years.

  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider
    edited October 2016

    @Anthony2016 said:
    Network performance, of course.

    @William said:
    Cogent/Level3 are still in fight - my UPC traffic went to from Austria to NY back to AMS to a Cogent singlehomed ISP and this seems to be still the case.

    All UPC in Europe customers seem to be affected by it.
    I don't know why there isn't a direct peering between Cogent and Aorta after so many years.

    Likely Liberty doesn't want to pay Cogent and wants the transit free, or wants Cogent to enter into an agreement that can make Cogent even pay them if they cross the ratio ;-).

    They have ridiculous peering policy and don't care about their routing.

    We've been attempting to peer with them over 3 years, emailing weekly, would even be happy to pay on cross ratio. To date received exactly zero emails back from them. Same with Virgin Media after they bought it for that matter.

    Your solution is to change an ISP. I don't think complaining to them will help in any way.

  • Clouvider said: They have ridiculous peering policy and don't care about their routing.

    Oh yea, the ratio and country requirements (you would not qualify for free peering though or? was there no multi country requirement?)... much fun

    http://www.libertyglobal.com/oo-bs-settled-peering-policy.html

  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider

    @William said:

    Clouvider said: They have ridiculous peering policy and don't care about their routing.

    Oh yea, the ratio and country requirements (you would not qualify for free peering though or? was there no multi country requirement?)... much fun

    http://www.libertyglobal.com/oo-bs-settled-peering-policy.html

    Multi-country would be doable, but it doesn't matter since they don't even acknowledge the request, it looks like their peering@ goes straight to >/dev/null

  • @rm_ said:

    The worst upstream provider

    China Telecom / China Unicom. :)

    It's probably the MOST congested and oversold network in the world.

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