Emtel Airbox
When Emtel announced their Airbox, I was initially thrilled, like many other Internet Users. A number of people who were very annoyed with Orange, decided to switch, causing Emtel to struggle to cope with the demand.
Orange to Emtel latency test
I asked a friend to give me his Emtel AirBox IP address to test the latency from my ISP to him, and also the other way round.
PING 154.71.9.70 (154.71.9.70) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 154.71.9.70: icmp_seq=7 ttl=54 time=31.8 ms
64 bytes from 154.71.9.70: icmp_seq=8 ttl=54 time=12.0 ms
64 bytes from 154.71.9.70: icmp_seq=13 ttl=54 time=18.5 ms
64 bytes from 154.71.9.70: icmp_seq=16 ttl=54 time=10.6 ms
64 bytes from 154.71.9.70: icmp_seq=17 ttl=54 time=16.5 ms
64 bytes from 154.71.9.70: icmp_seq=19 ttl=54 time=13.5 ms
^C
--- 154.71.9.70 ping statistics ---
19 packets transmitted, 6 received, 68% packet loss, time 18037ms
Wohoo ! It looks like Emtel and Orange are finally moving to correct the peering issues that I identified earlier. We now moved from 78ms to an average of 13ms from Orange to Emtel Airbox.
From Emtel to Orange
Nishal advised to also test the other way: from Emtel to Orange. I asked my friend to ping my Myt30MB/s IP address. The results are:
ping 41.136.241.246
ping 41.136.241.246 with 32 bytes of data:
ly from 41.136.241.246: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=54
ly from 41.136.241.246: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=54
ly from 41.136.241.246: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=54
statistics for 41.136.241.246:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
roximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 12ms, Maximum = 17ms, Average = 13ms
Awesome ! We are also getting an average of 13ms from Emtel Airbox to Orange.
Wait a second !
How come we are observing 68% packet loss from Orange to Emtel ? That means that on average, more than 3/5 of the traffic is lost, and eventually re-transmitted. That's bad ! It's killing performance for my friend's Internet Connection. In other words: high loss together can slow down TCP to a crawl.
High latency, and Packet loss is one of the major problems of Internet Users in Mauritius. Emtel should look into improving its wireless coverage to reduce packet loss to at most one tenth for the Emtel Airbox customers to enjoy a decent Internet Connection. I'm also happy to see some action from Emtel and Orange to fix the peering. However, there's still a lot of work ahead of us.