I see, so there's no way to eliminate hops to NY and Ashburn before Chicago?

HE would have to look into this. It is a good question though why traffic from Global Crossing in Chicago comes into HE's network via Ashburn instead of Chicago even though HE does have connectivity to Global Crossing in Chicago.

Currently I'm using Ashburn tserv. Curiosity prompted me to test the HE tunnel creation to see what tserv is recommended, and the result was Chicago. While I'm aware comcast itself is not going to peer with HE in the forseeable future, I'm curious about GBLX presence in the traceroutes shown below, the first to Chicago tserv, the latter Ashburn. If I read these traces correctly, could HE peer with GBLX in Chicago?

Global Crossing is one of HE's transit providers, not a peer and they do connect to Global Crossing in Chicago as well.

Please also look into Shaw Communications @ TorIX (AS6327) whom you already peer with in at least Ashburn, Chicago and New York and Videotron Ltd (AS5769).

Able to get in contact with anyone at the above carriers?

Thank you. Could HE also please look into peering with Cogeco Cable (AS7992) at TorIX?

Thanks. HE has turned up peering with Cogeco in Toronto.

Could HE please look into peering with Rogers (AS812) in Toronto? Currently HE is peering with Rogers in Ashburn, Chicago and New York.

Thanks. HE has turned up peering with Rogers in Toronto.

The over all reliability of HE's service as well as customer interaction is like night and day over the SixXs project.

HE provides a top notch well peered network (although not perfect) and redundant network. A single point of contact for support issues which is more or less treated as a production service. Support tends to be very good, no complaints there. The POP servers are very reliable, so is the network. If the tunnel broker POP server dies (hw) they typically replace the system within a day or so.

SixXs consists of POPs provided by partner ISPs. The service varies from POP to POP. The networks are not necessarily very well connected and especially if there is only a single transit provider it can be somewhat unreliable. The people running SixXs can be a real problem to deal with and they have a somewhat strange system for running the tunnel broker, points for doing things, wtf? So support isn't so great and it is not even close to being treated as a production service and so often replies are of the tone, who cares? If a tunnel broker POP server dies (hw) it could be weeks if not never returning, which has happened with some of the U.S. POPs.

Please also look into Shaw Communications @ TorIX (AS6327) whom you already peer with in at least Ashburn, Chicago and New York and Videotron Ltd (AS5769).

Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, Videotron, as well as Mountain Cable and Eastlink (whom you already peer with at TorIX) are the major cable co's in Canada.

Looking at the current session list HE has good coverage for the majority of the rest of the carriers, hosting providers and independent ISPs in Canada via TorIX.

Just fired off an email to them.

Thank you. Could HE also please look into peering with Cogeco Cable (AS7992) at TorIX?

Code:

$ traceroute 216.66.38.58
traceroute to 216.66.38.58 (216.66.38.58), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  2.558 ms  1.657 ms  1.603 ms
 2  10.76.0.1 (10.76.0.1)  9.988 ms  9.156 ms  10.56 ms
 3  d226-9-73.home.cgocable.net (24.226.9.73)  10.871 ms  14.803 ms  11.913 ms
 4  113-0-226-24.cgocable.net (24.226.0.113)  14.728 ms  13.568 ms  12.825 ms
 5  qix-tor-gw.peer1.net (69.28.230.245)  14.156 ms  13.102 ms  12.718 ms
 6  10ge.xe-0-0-0.tor-1yg-cor-1.peer1.net (216.187.114.133)  15.295 ms  16.882 ms  12.363 ms
 7  oc48-po5-0.chi-eqx-dis-1.peer1.net (216.187.114.141)  24.823 ms  33.333 ms  24.31 ms
 8  10gigabitethernet4-1.core1.chi1.he.net (206.223.119.37)  23.208 ms  39.683 ms  26.866 ms
 9  10gigabitethernet2-4.core1.nyc4.he.net (72.52.92.101)  38.529 ms  37.400 ms  43.389 ms
10  10gigabitethernet1-2.core1.nyc1.he.net (72.52.92.46)  38.769 ms  38.12 ms  43.20 ms
11  10gigabitethernet1-1.core1.nyc5.he.net (72.52.92.154)  37.840 ms  37.58 ms  37.855 ms
12  10gigabitethernet1-1.core1.tor1.he.net (72.52.92.166)  54.66 ms  52.145 ms  53.572 ms
13  tserv21.tor1.ipv6.he.net (216.66.38.58)  54.333 ms  53.13 ms  53.928 ms

I might also suggest looking into peering with Peer1 (AS13768) in Toronto although they don't connect to TorIX for some strange reason. They have their own PIX public exchanges in the Canadian cities with POPs that being Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver.
http://www.peer1.com/infrastructure/peering.php
http://www.peer1.com/infrastructure/pix.php
I see Peer1 is also at Switch and Data Toronto. Most likely they have PIX Toronto accessible from their Switch and Data infrastructure.

Could HE please look into peering with Rogers (AS812) in Toronto? Currently HE is peering with Rogers in Ashburn, Chicago and New York.

Code:

Host                                                                         Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. ???
 2. vl-201.gw03.wlfdle.phub.net.cable.rogers.com                               0.0%     6    8.3   8.8   7.7  11.9   1.6
 3. 64.71.241.89                                                               0.0%     6   12.0   8.9   7.8  12.0   1.7
 4. 64.71.241.85                                                               0.0%     6    8.0   8.7   7.6  10.6   1.3
 5. 66.185.83.62                                                               0.0%     6   24.2  22.1  21.4  24.2   1.1
 6. equinix-ash.he.net                                                         0.0%     6   22.9  22.8  22.2  23.5   0.4
 7. 10gigabitethernet1-2.core1.nyc4.he.net                                     0.0%     5   28.6  28.0  27.1  29.5   1.0
 8. 10gigabitethernet1-2.core1.nyc1.he.net                                     0.0%     5   38.6  31.8  27.2  38.6   5.5
 9. 10gigabitethernet1-1.core1.nyc5.he.net                                     0.0%     5   29.2  28.3  27.4  29.2   0.7
10. 10gigabitethernet1-1.core1.tor1.he.net                                     0.0%     5   48.3  45.1  43.4  48.3   2.1
11. tserv21.tor1.ipv6.he.net                                                   0.0%     5   43.7  44.0  42.8  45.5   1.0

Yes, I noticed that. My co-lo provider already has a v4 session up and at least one major DSL provider in the area that I'm aware of. At the moment I'm interested in seeing a session turned up with Primus Telecommunications -- AS 6407, currently they have a session with HE at NYIIX.

broquea, able to comment on my request for HE to also turn up a session with Primus @ TorIX?

HE now peers with Primus @ TorIX.

Note that I determined peering at the exchanges by looking at the exchange points' web sites list of participants.  Verizon wasn't listed at any of them.

Of course they won't be listed since they don't do pretty much any public peering.

Now if only those tier 1 carriers would join the exchange points, ....

What I suggested was that Verizon or alter.net join one of the two peering points in LA that HE participates with, and I would see a decrease of hops plus the traffic would stay local.  As Los Angeles is the second largest (by population) area in the U.S., proper integration of the infrastructure should produce routes that STAY in the LA area when the endpoints are both in LA.  When that doesn't happen, something is "wrong."  ;-)

Depending on the Tier 1 network they don't necessarily do much if any public peering at all. Their selective / restrictive peering policies stipulate peering at typically OC48 or OC192 speeds minimum depending whether it is in US or Europe. Because of such high speeds that implies only private peering. Also other things like minimum traffic levels, connections at multiple locations, over multiple continents where and when the networks do exist, required traffic ratios, etc. But even if you do meet the stipulated requirements there is no guarantee they will peer with you. The other option which some networks go for when they're insistent on having peering anyway and don't meet the requirement such as traffic rations or minimum traffic levels is to have paid peering. But I think the second option essentially will not happen with HE when they already have two good transit providers with interconnection with these other networks.

I find one hop name a little funny "teliasonera-test-gw". Is this one of Telia's settlement free peering links after switching from paid peering to settlement free with VZB? hrmm.

I see VZB is at Equinix LA and One Wilshire and so is TeliaSonera. I can't find a very detailed map for Global Crossing but I can pretty much guarantee they are at those two locations as well since they're very common places to interconnection with other networks and customers.

I see Global Crossing peers with VZB in LA and from Global Crossing to VZB traffic goes via LA without going back to SJC.

For ease of administration and easier hierarchical design, we want to use longer prefixes on our subnets.
For example, we want /120 subnets for small networks and so forth.

Personally I don't buy your rationalization for doing this. Yes I have read all the opinions in the world about being as conservative as possible even when implementing v6, but you're not working with some ridiculously finite resource like with v4. Plus you can't use anything longer than /64 if using RA. I do agree with the longer prefixes for PtP links, tunnels, etc. but at the same time I wouldn't be making a big deal out of using /64's either.

That isn't accurate.  There is the IPv6 Internet and the IPv4 Internet.

In the IPv6 world, Hurricane got started very early (2000), replaced our whole network to support wirespeed IPv6 in the core in 2007, and now is the largest IPv6 network as measured by number of IPv6 networks we connect (verify here: http://bgp.potaroo.net/v6/as6447/bgp-as-adj.txt ) as well as measured by number of IPv6 customer prefixes announced.

In the IPv6 world we peer with all of the top IPv6 players and many networks considered tier1 in IPv4.  IPv6 is a bit of an "global Internet routing table reset" because many former tier1 IPv4 networks haven't even started deploying IPv6 and of those that have many are still running limited tunnel networks without complete routing tables, instead of running dual stack in their core and aggressively peering enough to get a full IPv6 routing table.  Some otherwise global networks only IPv6 peer at one or just a few locations in the world, even if their network overlaps Hurricane in 20 locations.  To the extent they do peer, you can be reassured that they do care about IPv6 routing and want to ensure it works.  As they start to deploy IPv6 if you are their customer you can help improve the experience by letting them know in writing where they can improve their routing.  If you are an IP Transit customer of a legacy tier1 network, one of your challenges will be getting them to bifurcate their peering policy between the IPv4 Internet were they are dominant, and IPv6 were they may be barely extant (depending on who they are).

In the IPv4 world, Hurricane has 4000+ BGP sessions with 1100+ networks at 24+ exchange points in North America, Europe, and Asia.  However, that said, the core of the IPv4 Internet is a bit of an oligopoly with the core players largely determined around 1994 with the existing players being either those networks or the corporations that acquired those networks.  Consider this, even China Telecom with more Internet users than the US (and more mobile device users than the entire US population) is not a tier1 transit network in IPv4.

In this light, that fact that Hurricane even usually ranks (currently #8, it fluctuates week to week) in the top 10 IPv4 networks in the world according to CAIDA (verify here: http://as-rank.caida.org/ ) is a veritable miracle.  We've clawed our way up this far AND we haven't stopped growing in IPv4 (we are bringing online Stockholm and Zurich this week, we brought Tokyo online in the last few weeks), even if you ignore all the excitement happening with IPv6. 

To answer more directly, it is Hurricane's mission to provide the best Internet we can to as many people as possible.  In light of that, we read and extensively discuss internally comments to this board and feedback given to us in tickets about routing.  These comments have caused us to add circuits to shorten latency (we now have a New York to Los Angeles that doesn't show up on our network map), add tunnel servers, replace and improve the tunnel server platform, pursue peering with specific networks more aggressively, and add more peering with existing peers.

I admit I wasn't as clear as I could be. I was referring to v4 only. v6 is a completely different ball game and HE being at the top of the food chain so to speak changes things in their favor big time going forward. I also am aware of the extensive peering with various other networks.. just not the Tier 1 carriers (again, for v4). HE growing in size both in the US and abroad helps to increase the networks size, coverage and helps with added leverage when negotiating additional peering sessions. I am aware of what HE has accomplished and I'm not trying to downplay that in any way. Just curious what the situation is with HE peering with the Tier 1 carriers.

Although it is difficult to get into the official Tier 1 space it isn't impossible. SAVVIS, NTT and TeliaSonera are examples of networks that were not Tier 1 status until not that long ago in the bigger picture and either grew on their own (Telia) or purchased assets of another company to get where they are (NTT - Verio) (SAVVIS - former C&W USA -> MCI AS) now. Cogent, XO, AboveNet and a few others are pretty close to being considered in the same space though not quite there yet.

Any thoughts on peering with Verizon (any of their AS's, but 19262 preferred) anywhere, let alone Los Angeles?  Alternatively, adjusting an existing peer (Telia) to also peer in LA?

Considering the fact that HE has no peering with any of the Tier 1 providers the chances of that happening at the moment are like zero.

Also peering with VZB's overlay network AS for v6 would be good in general but woudn't help your v4 path to HE's POP.

Which makes me wonder why HE relies so heavily on their transit providers. Has HE even made any attempts to try to establish peering with any of the Tier 1 providers?