CenturyLink → [Embarq] Couple Bad Hops

So i've been noticing that my connection to youtube has been crap as most are having trouble... However, I am now having issues keeping connected to my server in NYC.

As you can tell from below the tcore Miami and where ever Ashburn is, is crashing and burning badly with the route I'm taking to go to NYC.... The max throughput I can get is probably about 1Mpbs if that... The last test I did, it was about .6Mbps...

I've sent an email to the "trouble" email that's provided when you go that particular domain and I'm awaiting reply..

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2    17 ms    16 ms    16 ms  #
  3    16 ms    17 ms    16 ms  fl-184-7-223-14.sta.centurylinkservices.net [184
.7.223.14]
  4    17 ms    16 ms    17 ms  bb-ftmyflxa-jx9-02-ae0.core.centurytel.net [208.
110.248.86]
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    20 ms    20 ms    22 ms  nap-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net [67.14.29.98]
  9    35 ms    35 ms    34 ms  63.146.26.202
 10     *      321 ms   314 ms  if-1-2.tcore1.MLN-Miami.as6453.net [63.243.152.6
1]
 11   191 ms   202 ms   208 ms  if-7-2.tcore1.AEQ-Ashburn.as6453.net [66.198.154
.177]
 12    71 ms    69 ms     *     if-2-2.tcore2.AEQ-Ashburn.as6453.net [216.6.87.1
]
 13    70 ms    70 ms    70 ms  if-11-2.tcore2.NJY-Newark.as6453.net [216.6.87.1
38]
 14    71 ms    70 ms    70 ms  if-14-14.tcore2.NTO-New-York.as6453.net [66.198.
111.126]
 15    70 ms    71 ms    71 ms  66.110.96.5
 16     *       95 ms    70 ms  66.110.96.22
 17    71 ms    87 ms    74 ms  192.241.164.242
 18    70 ms    70 ms    71 ms  #
 

So I'm curious to know how this is supposed to be fixed and who's responsible for fixing it...

Ashburn is in northern Virginia, not far from D.C. A good portion of the world's Internet traffic passes through Ashburn, and CenturyLink has a large data center there.

First: The "bad hops" belong to Tata Communications. Outside of the CenturyLink network.

Second: Your RTT to the last (mystery) hop is 70-71 ms. Maybe a bit long for Jacksonville, Florida to New York, New York; but not exactly horrible, either.

As both Tata and Qwest (per the host name) are Tier 1 backbones, this looks like a case of true, settlement free peering at the "bad hops". Hard to say who owns the problem, if there is one. But tech support for end users is usually unable to do much.

I sometimes see "laggy hops" in my trace routes; but they have never been problematic.

Yea, well I can only download at less than 1.5Mbps and there's at least 20-30% packet loss when I try to download anything.... It's not just the "laggy" part.

But that trace route is not evidence of packet loss. It shows 100% of the packets are reaching the destination, and it is responding.

Usually if there's an * in the response that means that ping was lost aka packet loss. Also, my server provider had me switch routes to a different route which during the day got me up to my 20Mbps to the NYC server, but as of now (6PM EST) my speeds have slowed down to around 5Mbps to my NYC server... I have a buddy who has comcast 15 miles from me who goes the same route(just using a couple comcast hops to get to my server route) and he can get 20Mbps easy still at this time.

Which leads me to believe there's a CL core at fault here. I know for a fact the ftmyflxa core is plenty fast, I have many routes that go threw that, but that qwest one seems to be the culprit. Any servers that use that core switch are crashing and burning....

Tracing route to speedtest-nyc2.digitalocean.com [162.243.123.82]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 17 ms 17 ms 16 ms fl-71-3-240-1.dhcp.embarqhsd.net [71.3.240.1]
3 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms fl-184-7-223-14.sta.centurylinkservices.net [184
.7.223.14]
4 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms bb-ftmyflxa-jx9-02-ae0.core.centurytel.net [208.
110.248.86]
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms nap-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net [67.14.29.102]
8 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms mai-b1-link.telia.net [80.239.195.141]
9 49 ms 48 ms 54 ms ash-bb3-link.telia.net [62.115.141.74]
10 55 ms 55 ms 56 ms nyk-bb1-link.telia.net [62.115.136.202]
11 55 ms 55 ms 55 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.130.241]
12 69 ms 71 ms 72 ms digitalocean-ic-306491-nyk-b5.c.telia.net [62.11
5.44.242]
13 68 ms 65 ms 64 ms 198.199.99.234
14 67 ms 67 ms 68 ms 162.243.123.82

Edit: An interesting thing I found out while testing youtube videos, one of the youtube video servers took a different qwest route to the same area,
The qwest switch here works somewhat better (13-15Mbps compared to the 4-5Mbps I'm getting on the other qwest switch).

Tracing route to r13.sn-p5qlsm7s.googlevideo.com [208.117.251.82]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 17 ms 17 ms 16 ms fl-71-3-240-1.dhcp.embarqhsd.net [71.3.240.1]
3 76 ms 16 ms 17 ms fl-184-7-223-14.sta.centurylinkservices.net [184
.7.223.14]
4 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms bb-ftmyflxa-jx9-02-ae0.core.centurytel.net [208.
110.248.86]
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms nap-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net [67.14.29.98]
9 49 ms 49 ms 48 ms 63.146.26.182
10 58 ms 52 ms 51 ms 207.88.14.153.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.153]
11 59 ms 51 ms 51 ms te-3-2-0.rar3.atlanta-ga.us.xo.net [207.88.12.5]

12 51 ms 50 ms 51 ms te-11-0-0.rar3.washington-dc.us.xo.net [207.88.1
2.10]
13 48 ms 57 ms 49 ms ae0d1.cir1.ashburn-va.us.xo.net [207.88.13.65]
14 48 ms 49 ms 49 ms 209.48.42.86
15 49 ms 48 ms 49 ms 208.117.251.82

Trace complete.

You do not understand how trace route works. The "*" only means the router did not respond to the (usually) ICMP packet. You cannot know why it did not respond, but, if you get no response from hops 5 and 6, yet get responses from the subsequent hops, no packets were "lost".