Connectivity problem from Verizon to Asia

tifan

I installed Verizon FiOS yesterday and I'm seriously considering to terminate it and return to Time Warner Cable.

Immediately after installing FiOS, I noticed something's wrong -- my SSH session to China is laggy. First thing I thought of was there might be something wrong with the router, since ISP's are pretty good at using cheap and unstable routers. So I switched to my own router (a Linksys one). Same problem.

So, here's the MTR report:

2.|-- l100.lsanca-vfttp-75.verizon-gni.net 0.0% 100 7.7 7.9 4.9 27.5 2.6
3.|-- g0-9-0-6.lsanca-lcr-22.verizon-gni.net 1.0% 100 14.4 12.3 8.7 21.3 2.2
4.|-- ae4-0.lax01-bb-rtr2.verizon-gni.net 0.0% 100 11.8 16.0 8.4 140.6 18.7
5.|-- 0.xe-7-1-2.xl4.sjc7.alter.net 0.0% 100 21.9 24.5 19.4 76.9 9.8
6.|-- tengige0-7-0-1.gw6.sjc7.alter.net 0.0% 100 27.1 25.3 19.4 35.4 3.5
| `|-- 152.63.49.242
| |-- 152.63.52.62
| |-- 152.63.49.226
| |-- 152.63.50.158
| |-- 152.63.52.58
| |-- 152.63.49.194
| |-- 152.63.50.198
7.|-- china-netcom-gw.customer.alter.net 7.0% 100 207.3 221.9 204.5 350.0 43.0
8.|-- 219.158.25.25 6.0% 100 203.7 223.9 202.0 364.1 47.6
9.|-- 219.158.97.113 8.0% 100 258.0 271.9 239.6 403.8 42.9
10.|-- 219.158.97.93 10.0% 100 262.3 271.2 213.2 406.1 37.2
11.|-- 219.158.21.250 5.0% 100 208.5 226.2 205.0 352.3 45.8

<snip>

Apparently, packet loss occurs at china-netcom-gw.customer.alter.net (152.179.48.34). So tried to contact:

$ whois 152.179.48.34 | grep Tech

OrgTechHandle: SWIPP-ARIN
OrgTechName: swipper
OrgTechPhone: +1-800-900-0241
OrgTechEmail: swipper@verizonbusiness.com
OrgTechRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/SWIPP-ARIN
OrgNOCName: UUnet Technologies, Inc., Technologies
RTechHandle: ANS-NOC-ARIN
RTechName: ANS CORE Systems Inc
RTechPhone: +1-800-456-6300
RTechEmail: noc@ans.net
RTechRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ANS-NOC-ARIN

Emailed noc@ans.net. Email bounced. Emailed cnc noc (for China Unicom, formerly known as China Netcom). Email bounced. Tried to contact CNC NOC via personal channels. Talked with some guy working in CNC NOC. They cannot touch devices of their customers and cannot even help to troubleshoot since they have no access to those boxes. Don't borther to talk to level 1 support from Verizon since they'll talk about Internet Explorer or restart your router nonsense.

Please fix. I work at home for a company based in China, so generally speaking, having such a bad connectivity means I'll never be able to work.

By the way, the interesting part is when I tried to call ANS-NOC-ARIN, which is actually UUnet which is Verizon Global Wholesale, a tier 1 network provider (if you don't know what's tier 1, this wikipedia article would explain that to you), I got "Welcome to the America's hottest chatline!". Trying to fool angry customers with a bad taste joke in whois record? That's not how things worked. Phone number is 8004566300, in RTechPhone part.

smith6612

UUNet hasn't been around for years. You'll want to call Verizon Business/Verizon Online, or e-mail their Network Operations if you wish to reach someone for a UUNet range. It wouldn't hurt to inform them about their out of date WHOIS records either 🙂

There have been some problems connecting to resources that route over China Telecom as of late, but if you're getting in touch with people responsible for maintaining connectivity between China Telecom and Verizon Business, they should know what's up and should help to get that fixed. Don't expect help right away, though.

Just to get something straight, did someone with China Unicom state that the china-netcom-gw.customer.alter.net is actually Verizon's gear, which Verizon is 100% responsible for maintaining performance of? I usually see these associated with a provider who is buying connectivity from Verizon, and problems at these gateways are the result of them not paying for enough capacity. It's either that or there's a problem that the person paying for the bandwidth needs to address with Verizon, or they jump ship to another Tier 1 like Level3. Given the latency is at 200ms, that router's already in China and is very likely with the next provider upstream.

By the way, it is well known that phone hotlines tend to buy up numbers that were previously used by other companies. So what you called is not a surprise to be honest.