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Low Ping VPS From China (Research & Examniation)
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Low Ping VPS From China (Research & Examniation)

bakoubakou Member
edited July 2012 in General

Alright folks, I'm new here but I want to do a bit of a brain dump on my search for a solid VPS with connectivity to Shanghai where latency and reliability are the first priority as I want to run an OpenVPN server via UDP for gaming (maybe a bit of web hosting too~). Not talking about a US vps because the China-US cable is notorious for lost packets and lag spikes at any given time and then I wouldn't have good pings to the rest of Asia. For reference I am using FTTH on China Telecom

So first thing is location:
Japan and South Korea are good in theory but China Telecom's routing is just too flaky, it can be good some days and other days >100 ms. Linode would be great but currently I get 400ms ping to their speedtest server most of the time (probably being routed through America, hell yeah!). A few small Japanese VPSes are pinging lower but I just don't think it is a safe bet. internetbrothers.co.kr could be interesting but as of this writing I'm getting about 110ms to them.. Another day it might be 30ms, but I need some stability.

Singapore: pretty good but a bit too far away and not always totally reliable... Geographic position means too high pings back to Hong Kong or Japan and not really the best route to the US either. I'm getting 80ms to AsiaOneHost right now, and I've never seen less than 65ms to Singapore

Taiwan: the mysterious holy grail, but VPS there are non existent or absurdly expensive. There was a new cable built recently connecting the mainland, and I have personally experienced its greatness as my old VPN used to have a server there on HINet, and I got like 20ms ping to first hop, then 170 ping to west coast America and low pings everywhere else in Asia, huge bandwidth, no packet loss. PERFECT! except they closed the server because I assume it was bankrupting them.. Every other VPN I've found either has a terrible server there or they have even been known to lie about having a server there (OverPlay I'm looking at you). Anyway, if someone actually knows of a good Taiwanese VPS or VPN that a mere mortal could afford let me know!

Which leaves: Hong Kong
So we have VR.org (currently sold out), edis.at (not available yet) 36cloud, 38cloud, vpshosting.hk and who knows what else.. VR.org is the only one that seems to have truly reliable connections to the US, but it has horrible connections to the rest of SE Asia. edis.at looks really good but when will it be out? Also not quite perfect connectivity to the US.

XXcloud, I'm always getting them mixed up but they all seem to be on regional ISPs. 38cloud is on City Telecom/HK Broadband I believe, which is great for Asia connectivity but dropping packets all over the place when connecting to the US. SunnyVision which I think 36cloud and edis are using is actually looking pretty good, despite what others on the board have been saying about it. But I'm currently still leaning towards VR.org for access to the solid cross pacific NTT backbone.

What do you guys think? Please share! Don't let me forget about other possible VPS in the region

Comments

  • KenshinKenshin Member
    edited July 2012

    There's one major problem in Asia that you don't see in so much in US, in nice terms it's called monopoly. China Telecom prices for direct link bandwidth can go up to US$130/mbps (last known price to me). No provider is going to pay that kind of money to connect to China unless they really need that kind of connectivity (eg. multinational companies). When CT/CU connects to USA, they know it'll be a never ending bandwidth upgrade so they leave the main pipes saturated, resulting in the packet loss and lag spikes you're familiar with. CT/CU: "If you want good routes, pay premium to connect to me."

    Same thing for many other asian countries, each country is protecting their own monopoly. SingTel/Starhub peers freely in US/EU but refuses to peer with anyone in SG, in SG, "buy my transit". Malaysia same thing with TM, yet they peer all their routes at HKIX.

    Hong Kong's case is a little odd but not different from Singapore of the past (when broadband was first introduced). From what I understand they are able to exchange large amount of local bandwidth due to local peering, at the same time they do have numerous submarine cables landing there so plenty of bandwidth out of HK. Problem is, since most providers deliver local content, 100mbps server network connections are the norm there since most homes are FTTH. Here comes the problem, they have plenty of local bandwidth so 100mbps locally isn't a problem at all, but their international bandwidth purchased isn't as large as their local pipe. When you buy a 100mbps VPS, the provider assumes it's for local use so 100mbps is easily attainable, but internationally you'll be contending with every other VPS for bandwidth.

    Japan/Korea to China as far as I understand, same problem with US to China, not willing to pay CT/CU = best effort routes. That explains the ups and downs for the routes. Japan and Korea have enough local traffic to keep things local, they have no major reason to pay CT/CU for China traffic.

    Taiwan is really the holy grail, I've been there so many times and I barely see a lot of providers for webhosting, let alone VPS or dedicated servers. It's a pretty closed market from what I understand, but on a network level they are ridiculously successful due to location. Right smack between Japan, China, Hong Kong, a LOT of submarine cables terminate there. Chunghwa is well known globally for open peering everywhere around the world, resulting in very good routes to one major Taiwan ISP. As for servers there, I saw a promo by boxcore for US$100/month server with 4mbps international bandwidth.

    End of the day, it really depends what you intend to do and for how much. Taiwan is expensive but works the best for you if you're looking at something that's a close proxy, Hong Kong you need a provider who has committed international bandwidth, otherwise your non-HK traffic is going to be a problem (of course if you are willing to pay then problem solved). Singapore like you said, too far from China if low latency is required, only difference between SG and HK is that in SG, international bandwidth is cheaper than local bandwidth (thanks to the monopoly), so while most Singapore providers advertise very conservative bandwidth, local or international traffic won't be an issue since we assume the highest costs (local).

  • Excellently researched post, @Kenshin :)

  • bakoubakou Member

    Thanks for the input kenshin. I'm fairly used to Internet monopolies as I'm from Canada haha. I don't think HK is all that bad there are actually many competing ISPs. Chunghwa telecom are just so much betterr than anything else in Taiwan, but no situation is worse than china with its two state owned dinosaurs. In HK I'm not sure exactly how to tell which provider really has good connectivity to the us but I would be willing to pay above LEB prices for an LEB with the best networking possible in HK.

  • @bakou said: SunnyVision which I think 36cloud and edis are using is actually looking pretty good, despite what others on the board have been saying about it.

    Indeed, i get 3MB/s from the Chinese Debian repo and a solid ping of 50ms from our HK location - You can ping/trace 158.255.208.4

    @bakou said: edis.at looks really good but when will it be out?

    This week :)

  • roronarorona Member

    I had some friends doing tracerts and I find that in most of the case, China Telecom all the way to LA, then branch out via peering/transit.

    That is an interesting fact(?) that I found that China to USA's pipe isn't congested. It is at the peering/transit point which the congestion occur. You just have to find out which peering/transit is less congested and get a VPS there.

    Hong Kong is physically close to China but some of the routes have serious bandwidth throttling in place. It should be fine for gaming.

    Ping and transfer speed isn't very related. Testing from residential ISP in Hong Kong, HE routes can reach 140Mbps single threaded with ping of 180-240ms.

  • bakoubakou Member
    edited July 2012

    yes, the cable is sort of ok. but the ping and be of all exit points into the US are highly variable. my ping to a good server in Fremont varies between 140ms and 350ms, but there is always the chance of massive packet loss. it is getting better but far from what I would call reliable

    I would also like to have good connectivity to all game servers in Asia which neither china Telecom nor an American vps can provide.

  • klikliklikli Member
    edited July 2012

    Yep, all the way LAX/SJC/SEA if you want excellent Chinese connection.

    Avoid nlayer if you want high speed. You might want to try a speedtest with Comcast, I noticed that they have a pretty awesome speed to China.

    @bakou said: (probably being routed through America, hell yeah!)

    I don't think so, kddi peers with both CN ISP as I recalls...

    @Kenshin said: (when broadband was first introduced)

    Maybe dial-up, probably not broadband..

    @rorona said: some of the routes have serious bandwidth throttling in place

    Even inter-Hongkong, in the case of HGC/PCCW<->HKBN :/

  • @bakou said: In HK I'm not sure exactly how to tell which provider really has good connectivity to the us but I would be willing to pay above LEB prices for an LEB with the best networking possible in HK.

    If you want the best network in HK, make a list of the LEBs you are willing to pay for. Cross reference their IP/ASN against http://bgp.he.net/country/HK, the one with the most/nicest IPv4 links wins. But you'll also notice that most providers, for example SunnyVision, only has PacNet + HE + HKIX (local).

    @rorona said: That is an interesting fact(?) that I found that China to USA's pipe isn't congested. It is at the peering/transit point which the congestion occur. You just have to find out which peering/transit is less congested and get a VPS there.

    Very true, CN has plenty of capacity to US, it's CT/CU that choose to control the amount of bandwidth that they peer and refuse to upgrade if it's full because like I said, it'll be a never ending upgrade for them due to the amount of traffic that their users are pushing. Problem is though, finding the right peer is nearly impossible because of how traffic patterns shift so quickly, one minute they have the lowest latency and highest bandwidth, a week later it may be the worst because another carrier is using that provider as well.

    @rorona said: Ping and transfer speed isn't very related. Testing from residential ISP in Hong Kong, HE routes can reach 140Mbps single threaded with ping of 180-240ms.

    HE has too much capacity in HK back to US, and due to HKIX peering they basically can reach any HK provider at high bandwidth. Fiber latency HK to US 200ms or so is pretty normal. Only problem is HE's reach within Asia is heavily limited, and they have no west bound cable so all EU traffic goes back to US. That's probably why not many provider use HE in Asia even though they terminate in HK/SG.

    @bakou said: I would also like to have good connectivity to all game servers in Asia which neither china Telecom nor an American vps can provide.

    "All game servers in Asia" is going to be tough as hell, even on my end I know there are limits to what I can do on my end in terms of route optimization from Singapore. Asia has too many providers, and every one of them is too protective of their home base so boomerang routing to US is way too common in this region. You really need to get hold of a few target IPs and test with the various LEBs that are within your budget, then make your decision based on that. Eg. 5 LEB x 5 Game Servers ping latency table

  • KenshinKenshin Member
    edited July 2012

    @klikli said: Avoid nlayer if you want high speed. You might want to try a speedtest with Comcast, I noticed that they have a pretty awesome speed to China.

    FDCservers uses Comcast, traceroute from Shanghai to their denver looking glass about 280m, worth a shot if you need something in US.

  • bakoubakou Member

    Yeah Japan is quite flukey these days, last night it was routing directly with very nice latency, then I noticed at around 10:30 AM this morning it started routing through America again, but only for China Telecom in Shanghai and Fujian (the rest of China was ok). It also only seems to happen for some Japanese servers but not all. I would be quite tempted by a VPS in Japan if not for the totally random routing as it is quite a direct route to the US and they have awesome capacity and ping times to most of the world. It's just the Shanghai->Japan side that I can't trust.

    BTW if anyone wants very detailed analysis of Chinese connectivity for any reason try this site: http://ping.chinaz.com/

    It shows ping times from both major ISPs from several major cities, as well as a few servers in America, a couple in HK and one or two in Europe (I saw one in England but I don't understand all of the names).

    I suppose Google Translate could help :)

  • @Kenshin said: Only problem is HE's reach within Asia is heavily limited

    HE gets more and more peers & transit customers in Asia - so it constantly improves.

  • Translation here

    "请输入IP或域名"===="Please input IP or Domain"
    "查询"==="Ping"
    "请选择检测点"==="Please select the Location"
    "全选"==="ALL"
    "电信"==="China Telecom"
    "多线"==="Multihomed Network"
    "联通"==="China Unicom"
    "移动"==="China Mobile"
    "海外"==="Overseas"


    "Ping的地点"==="Location"
    "响应时间"==="Response times"
    "毫秒"==="ms"
    "最快"==="min. rrt"
    "最慢"==="max. rrt"
    "平均"==="avg. rrt"

    "江苏扬州[电信] " means " Province,Ciry[Operators] "

    "香港"==="Hong Kong"
    "德国"==="Germany"
    "英国"==="England"
    "美国迈阿密"==="Miami, USA"
    "美国圣何塞"==="San Jose, USA"
    "美国圣安娜"==="Santa Ana,USA"
    "美国凤凰城"==="Phoenix, USA"
    "美国洛杉矶"==="Los Angeles, USA"
    "美国堪萨斯"==="Kansas, USA"
    "美国芝加哥"==="Chicago, USA"

  • @William said: HE gets more and more peers & transit customers in Asia - so it constantly improves.

    It's getting better, but quite a bit of routes peer at US instead of SG/HK so it's pretty iffy. Either way they are already on my purchase list for this year so I'll find out soon enough.

  • bakoubakou Member
    edited July 2012

    William, where is HK edis?? the week is almost over~
    I got a HK Host virtual VPS already and I gotta say I'm pretty pleased, but I'm still curious how edis will be. I do have a few complaints about VR like its too expensive and has no direct route to korea.. but overall it is pretty damn good. If edis gets good reviews here I may try it eventually! SunnyVision still peers with pacnet which could give some routes NTT doesn't have, as well as HE going directly to America rather than through Japan.

  • @bakou said: William, where is HK edis?? the week is almost over~

    Already released....

  • wuhaowuhao Member
    edited July 2012

    @William Already released....

    But when will your ipv6 range for my hk edis VPS be available?

  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited July 2012

    @wuhao said: But when will your ipv6 range for my hk edis VPS be available?

    It is already, just not in the panel currently.
    If you tell me your IPv4 i generate you the v6.
    (Note: v6 tunneled - not native)

    root@nocAT:~# traceroute6 2a03:f80:852::1
    traceroute to 2a03:f80:852::1 (2a03:f80:852::1), 30 hops max, 80 byte packets
     1  2a03:f80:ed15::1 (2a03:f80:ed15::1)  5.299 ms  4.532 ms  4.477 ms
     2  2a01:100:1027:47::1 (2a01:100:1027:47::1)  4.428 ms  4.411 ms  4.395 ms
     3  c76-3.ix1.vie.at.as39912.net (2a01:f8:1:2:1:1:100:2)  5.529 ms  5.522 ms  5.502 ms
     4  c76-1.ix2.ffm.de.as39912.net (2a01:f8:1:2:1:1:4:3)  17.579 ms  17.577 ms  17.570 ms
     5  jm7-1.th2.par.fr.as39912.net (2a01:f8:1:2:1:1:105:2)  27.905 ms  27.955 ms  28.684 ms
     6  10gigabitethernet-2-2.par2.he.net (2001:7f8:43::6939:1)  27.844 ms  37.856 ms  38.482 ms
     7  10gigabitethernet6-2.core1.lon1.he.net (2001:470:0:21e::1)  37.283 ms  37.248 ms  37.241 ms
     8  10gigabitethernet7-4.core1.nyc4.he.net (2001:470:0:128::1)  106.300 ms  103.735 ms  103.238 ms
     9  10gigabitethernet5-3.core1.lax1.he.net (2001:470:0:10e::1)  189.368 ms  186.272 ms  185.825 ms
    10  10gigabitethernet1-4.core1.hkg1.he.net (2001:470:0:269::2)  344.668 ms  335.294 ms  334.672 ms
    11  tserv1.hkg1.he.net (2001:470:0:b8::2)  336.321 ms  332.965 ms  328.210 ms
    12  2a03:f80:852::1 (2a03:f80:852::1)  327.948 ms  327.727 ms  335.808 ms
    
  • wuhaowuhao Member

    @William
    I've sent you a PM.

  • Sent :)

  • bakoubakou Member

    I still don't see HK available on the EIDS signup page.. Any clues?

    Hong Kong July 2012

  • if you really wanna test .tw bandwidths ... their universities are so insecure that a 16y.o. kid could get in.

  • This needs updating.

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