Looking for Latency
Clusters in Africa’s
Internet
AfPIF 2017
Agustín Formoso
LACNIC
Amreesh Phokeer
AFRINIC
Josiah Chavula
AFRINIC
Gareth Tyson
Queen Mary University
London
Arjuna Sathiaseelan
University of Cambridge
1
What We Know
Circuitous routes and high end-to-end latencies across the continent 2
Research Questions
Which countries are better
inter-connected, which ones
are not?
– Key clusters of
connectivity in the
region
– How are inter-country
latencies impacted by
topology and
interconnection
strategies?
3
AXIS Project
Measurement Platform
Two platforms for launching measurements
● 229 RIPE Atlas probes in Africa
○ 36 African countries
○ Hardware-based
● However:
○ mostly in university networks
and ISPs?
○ about 50% of Atlas probes in
Africa are in ZA
● 850 probes in Africa
○ 52 African countries
○ Software-based (Windows
PCs)
○ Include edge networks /
home users
● However:
– No IPv6
– Unreliability (based on
hosts’ availability)
4
● Speedchecker Probes
(www.speedchecker.xyz )
– 850 software
probes
– 319 ASes
– 52 countries
● 50% of the countries
had at least 20% of
their ASes probed.
5
Vantage points
Speedtest.net Targets
6
42
African
countries
213
SpeedTest
servers
42
African
countries
Data Collection
• Pingfrom each probe:
– select random African Speedtest server as target
– launch 10 consecutive pings (one second apart) to their randomly
chosen Speedtest server
– return the minimum delay (RTT) observed at that time period
• Traceroutefrom each probe:
– launch a Traceroute to randomly selected Speedtest server
– for each router hop
• determine the ASN using the RIPE Routing Information Service
• attach the geolocation using MaxMind GeoLite2-City
7
Data Collection
8
4 times a
day
Pings and
traceroute
3
months
42 200
RTT
samples
31 500
traces
captured
319
ASNs
Country-level Latencies
9
Africa
~78ms
North
America
~45ms
Europe
~30ms
LAC
~76ms
Mean in-country
Country-level Latencies
10
Under 30ms
● Mauritius
● Reunion
● Cote D’Ivoire
CI->CI
<30ms
Mean in-country
Under 40ms
● South Africa
● Egypt
● Benin
CD->CD
~300ms
LOOKING FOR CLUSTERS
11
● Northern
● Southern
● Eastern
● Western
12
Africa Latency Clusters
● Northern
● Southern
● Eastern
● Western
13
Africa Latency Clusters
EXPECTED
Unusual Cases in Latency Clusters
● Senegal, Liberia
and Benin on the
West coast, in
Northern cluster
● Madagascar,
Seychelles, islands
of the Indian
Ocean, clustered
alongside countries
in the North
● Somalia, on the
East coast, is
clustered with
countries on the
West coast.
14
Unusual Cases in Latency Clusters
● Senegal, Liberia
and Benin on the
West coast, in
Northern cluster
● Madagascar,
Seychelles, islands
of the Indian
Ocean, clustered
alongside countries
in the North
● Somalia, on the
East coast, is
clustered with
countries on the
West coast.
15
Unusual Cases in Latency Clusters
● Senegal, Liberia
and Benin on the
West coast, in
Northern cluster
● Madagascar,
Seychelles, islands
of the Indian
Ocean, clustered
alongside countries
in the North
● Somalia, on the
East coast, is
clustered with
countries on the
West coast.
16
Angola & Ethiopia unclustered
Ethiopia Upstream
100% Overseas
Angola Upstream
50% Overseas*
*16% Southern ->
Europe
17
EU
354ms
144ms
N.America
Inter-cluster Latencies
inter-cluster median RTTs
Southern and Eastern
○ Lowest inter-cluster
delay ~ 92ms
○ Lowest intra-cluster
RTTs individually
18
Inter-cluster delays are
mostly exceeding 200ms
Western cluster
has the highest
intra-cluster
RTTs
EXPLORING THE UPSTREAM
19
Africa’s upstream providers
● 37.8% of traceroute paths first hop outside of Africa
● 6.6% through SA and 4.5% through Mauritius (WIOCC)
20
Africa’s Top 10 upstream
providers
21
Africa’s Top 10 upstream
providers
22
France Telecom (Orange) accounts for 17% for French speaking countries in
West Africa
Utilisation of upstream providers
by cluster
23
50%
have
overseas
hops
(Europe)
14%
with 4+
hops before
Africa
Latency to Upstream providers
1. Same cluster 203ms
2. Other African Cluster 243ms
3. Overseas 268ms
Northern North
America: 71ms
Southern North
America: 227ms
24CDF of RTTs grouped by location of upstream providers
RTT to the first AS hop
Take-aways
25
Below 40ms
Benin
Egypt
Mauritius
Ivory Coast
Reunion
South Africa
Cluster w/
high
delays
(Western)
Due to higher
usage of
international
transit
providers
Africa’s Interdomain
communications highly reliant
on inter-continental transit
Future work
• Correlation with Physical
infrastructure, IXP presence in
African countries and Peering
relationships
• Investigating delays between
countries and popular web/content
infrastructure
• Linking the findings to regional
Internet development strategies
(e.g., deployment of regional IXPs)
26
THANK YOU!
Questions?
27
Chavula J., Phokeer A., and Formoso A. "Looking for latency
clusters in Africa’s Internet." AFRICON, 2017. 13th Edition of
IEEE AFRICON Conference in Africa. Cape Town, 18-20
September 2017.
Preview:
http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~tysong/files/africa-internet.pdf
Upcoming Internet Measurements
Workshops
Internet
Measurement/RIPE Atlas
Workshop
NOV 27 - DEC 02, 2017
LAGOS, NIGERIA
International Workshop on Internet
Measurements Research in Africa
DEC 11– 12, 2017
LAGOS, NIGERIA
!!CALL FOR PAPERS UNTIL 17 SEPT 2017!!
28
• Central location (IXP,
main ISP)
• 10 Mbps dedicated
• IPv4 (unfiltered)
• IPv6 highly
recommended
(dual-stack)
29
Host an anchor
!! Sponsored by AFRINIC !!
atlas@afrinic.net
References
1. Blondel, V. D., Guillaume, J.-L., Lambiotte, R., and Lefebvre, E. Fast unfolding of
communities in large networks. Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment,
10 (2008).
2. Chavula, J., Feamster, N., Bagula, A., and Suleman, H. Quantifying the Effects of Circuitous
Routes on the Latency of Intra-Africa Internet Traffic: A Study of Research and Education
Networks. 2015, pp. 64–73.
3. Fanou, R., Tyson, G., Francois, P., and Sathiaseelan, A. Pushing the frontier: Exploring the
african web ecosystem. In World Wide Web Conference (WWW) (2016).
4. Formoso, A., and Casas, P. Looking for network latency clusters in the lac region. In
Workshop on Fostering Latin American Research in Data Communication Networks (2016).
5. Fanou, R., Francois, P., and Aben, E. On the Diversity of Interdomain Routing in Africa.
2015, pp. 41–54.
6. Gilmore, J., Huysamen, N., and Krzesinski, A. Mapping the african internet. In Proceedings
Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC),
Mauritius (2007).
7. Gupta, A., Calder, M., Feamster, N., Chetty, M., Calandro, E., and Katz-Bassett, E. Peering at
the internet’s frontier: A first look at isp interconnectivity in Africa. Passive Active
Measurement Conference (PAM) (2014), 204–213.
30

Latency clustering AfPIF2017

  • 1.
    Looking for Latency Clustersin Africa’s Internet AfPIF 2017 Agustín Formoso LACNIC Amreesh Phokeer AFRINIC Josiah Chavula AFRINIC Gareth Tyson Queen Mary University London Arjuna Sathiaseelan University of Cambridge 1
  • 2.
    What We Know Circuitousroutes and high end-to-end latencies across the continent 2
  • 3.
    Research Questions Which countriesare better inter-connected, which ones are not? – Key clusters of connectivity in the region – How are inter-country latencies impacted by topology and interconnection strategies? 3 AXIS Project
  • 4.
    Measurement Platform Two platformsfor launching measurements ● 229 RIPE Atlas probes in Africa ○ 36 African countries ○ Hardware-based ● However: ○ mostly in university networks and ISPs? ○ about 50% of Atlas probes in Africa are in ZA ● 850 probes in Africa ○ 52 African countries ○ Software-based (Windows PCs) ○ Include edge networks / home users ● However: – No IPv6 – Unreliability (based on hosts’ availability) 4
  • 5.
    ● Speedchecker Probes (www.speedchecker.xyz) – 850 software probes – 319 ASes – 52 countries ● 50% of the countries had at least 20% of their ASes probed. 5 Vantage points
  • 6.
  • 7.
    Data Collection • Pingfromeach probe: – select random African Speedtest server as target – launch 10 consecutive pings (one second apart) to their randomly chosen Speedtest server – return the minimum delay (RTT) observed at that time period • Traceroutefrom each probe: – launch a Traceroute to randomly selected Speedtest server – for each router hop • determine the ASN using the RIPE Routing Information Service • attach the geolocation using MaxMind GeoLite2-City 7
  • 8.
    Data Collection 8 4 timesa day Pings and traceroute 3 months 42 200 RTT samples 31 500 traces captured 319 ASNs
  • 9.
  • 10.
    Country-level Latencies 10 Under 30ms ●Mauritius ● Reunion ● Cote D’Ivoire CI->CI <30ms Mean in-country Under 40ms ● South Africa ● Egypt ● Benin CD->CD ~300ms
  • 11.
  • 12.
    ● Northern ● Southern ●Eastern ● Western 12 Africa Latency Clusters
  • 13.
    ● Northern ● Southern ●Eastern ● Western 13 Africa Latency Clusters EXPECTED
  • 14.
    Unusual Cases inLatency Clusters ● Senegal, Liberia and Benin on the West coast, in Northern cluster ● Madagascar, Seychelles, islands of the Indian Ocean, clustered alongside countries in the North ● Somalia, on the East coast, is clustered with countries on the West coast. 14
  • 15.
    Unusual Cases inLatency Clusters ● Senegal, Liberia and Benin on the West coast, in Northern cluster ● Madagascar, Seychelles, islands of the Indian Ocean, clustered alongside countries in the North ● Somalia, on the East coast, is clustered with countries on the West coast. 15
  • 16.
    Unusual Cases inLatency Clusters ● Senegal, Liberia and Benin on the West coast, in Northern cluster ● Madagascar, Seychelles, islands of the Indian Ocean, clustered alongside countries in the North ● Somalia, on the East coast, is clustered with countries on the West coast. 16
  • 17.
    Angola & Ethiopiaunclustered Ethiopia Upstream 100% Overseas Angola Upstream 50% Overseas* *16% Southern -> Europe 17 EU 354ms 144ms N.America
  • 18.
    Inter-cluster Latencies inter-cluster medianRTTs Southern and Eastern ○ Lowest inter-cluster delay ~ 92ms ○ Lowest intra-cluster RTTs individually 18 Inter-cluster delays are mostly exceeding 200ms Western cluster has the highest intra-cluster RTTs
  • 19.
  • 20.
    Africa’s upstream providers ●37.8% of traceroute paths first hop outside of Africa ● 6.6% through SA and 4.5% through Mauritius (WIOCC) 20
  • 21.
    Africa’s Top 10upstream providers 21
  • 22.
    Africa’s Top 10upstream providers 22 France Telecom (Orange) accounts for 17% for French speaking countries in West Africa
  • 23.
    Utilisation of upstreamproviders by cluster 23 50% have overseas hops (Europe) 14% with 4+ hops before Africa
  • 24.
    Latency to Upstreamproviders 1. Same cluster 203ms 2. Other African Cluster 243ms 3. Overseas 268ms Northern North America: 71ms Southern North America: 227ms 24CDF of RTTs grouped by location of upstream providers RTT to the first AS hop
  • 25.
    Take-aways 25 Below 40ms Benin Egypt Mauritius Ivory Coast Reunion SouthAfrica Cluster w/ high delays (Western) Due to higher usage of international transit providers Africa’s Interdomain communications highly reliant on inter-continental transit
  • 26.
    Future work • Correlationwith Physical infrastructure, IXP presence in African countries and Peering relationships • Investigating delays between countries and popular web/content infrastructure • Linking the findings to regional Internet development strategies (e.g., deployment of regional IXPs) 26
  • 27.
    THANK YOU! Questions? 27 Chavula J.,Phokeer A., and Formoso A. "Looking for latency clusters in Africa’s Internet." AFRICON, 2017. 13th Edition of IEEE AFRICON Conference in Africa. Cape Town, 18-20 September 2017. Preview: http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~tysong/files/africa-internet.pdf
  • 28.
    Upcoming Internet Measurements Workshops Internet Measurement/RIPEAtlas Workshop NOV 27 - DEC 02, 2017 LAGOS, NIGERIA International Workshop on Internet Measurements Research in Africa DEC 11– 12, 2017 LAGOS, NIGERIA !!CALL FOR PAPERS UNTIL 17 SEPT 2017!! 28
  • 29.
    • Central location(IXP, main ISP) • 10 Mbps dedicated • IPv4 (unfiltered) • IPv6 highly recommended (dual-stack) 29 Host an anchor !! Sponsored by AFRINIC !! [email protected]
  • 30.
    References 1. Blondel, V.D., Guillaume, J.-L., Lambiotte, R., and Lefebvre, E. Fast unfolding of communities in large networks. Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, 10 (2008). 2. Chavula, J., Feamster, N., Bagula, A., and Suleman, H. Quantifying the Effects of Circuitous Routes on the Latency of Intra-Africa Internet Traffic: A Study of Research and Education Networks. 2015, pp. 64–73. 3. Fanou, R., Tyson, G., Francois, P., and Sathiaseelan, A. Pushing the frontier: Exploring the african web ecosystem. In World Wide Web Conference (WWW) (2016). 4. Formoso, A., and Casas, P. Looking for network latency clusters in the lac region. In Workshop on Fostering Latin American Research in Data Communication Networks (2016). 5. Fanou, R., Francois, P., and Aben, E. On the Diversity of Interdomain Routing in Africa. 2015, pp. 41–54. 6. Gilmore, J., Huysamen, N., and Krzesinski, A. Mapping the african internet. In Proceedings Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC), Mauritius (2007). 7. Gupta, A., Calder, M., Feamster, N., Chetty, M., Calandro, E., and Katz-Bassett, E. Peering at the internet’s frontier: A first look at isp interconnectivity in Africa. Passive Active Measurement Conference (PAM) (2014), 204–213. 30