Thanks again for your insightful responses!

The case we discuss above is Chinese ISPs renting routers located outside China and the IPs belong to other ISPs.

How about the case that the IP belongs to a Chinese ISP and is located in US(from RTT result), can we say it is very likely or definitely owned/operated by the Chinese ISP? Why would some ISP try to rent routers of Chinese ISP in US? 

For example, a traceroute from Ohio to an IP in China. Hop 17 and hop 18 should be located in US based on the RTT, and yet they belong to a Chinese AS(China Telecom). Does this mean that Chinese Telecom is managing these two hops?

  HOST:                        Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  6. AS???    100.65.11.97      0.0%   100    2.0   1.0   0.4  12.6   1.3
  7. AS???    52.93.15.238      0.0%   100    2.4   2.0   1.5  11.4   1.1
  8. AS???    52.93.14.134      0.0%   100   21.9  26.3   4.2  54.4  11.3
  9. AS???    52.93.14.119      0.0%   100    2.6   2.1   1.6  10.8   1.2
 10. AS???    100.91.27.86      0.0%   100   25.8  26.2  25.6  34.9   1.2
 11. AS???    54.239.42.197     0.0%   100   25.5  25.9  25.4  35.8   1.5
 12. AS???    100.91.4.218      0.0%   100   25.9  26.2  25.1  38.3   1.6
 13. AS???    100.91.4.217      0.0%   100   25.4  26.0  25.3  41.4   2.0
 14. AS???    100.91.5.85       0.0%   100   25.3  25.8  25.2  29.1   0.9
 15. AS???    54.239.103.86     0.0%   100   25.6  30.0  25.2  49.1   3.8
 16. AS???    54.239.103.77     0.0%   100   25.3  25.6  25.2  28.1   0.5
 17. AS4134   218.30.53.1       0.0%   100   28.0  29.1  25.2  33.1   2.3
 18. AS4134   202.97.50.21      0.0%   100   32.4  29.1  25.2  33.5   2.4
 19. AS???    ???              100.0   100    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
 20. AS???    ???              100.0   100    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
 21. AS4134   202.97.94.121     0.0%   100  186.8 185.6 181.8 189.8   2.3
 22. AS4816   119.147.222.6     0.0%   100  182.6 183.5 182.4 195.8   1.8
 23. AS4816   183.2.182.130     0.0%   100  181.7 183.3 181.5 207.0   3.9
 24. AS???    ???              100.0   100    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
 25. AS45102  116.251.113.158   0.0%   100  176.7 177.9 176.5 186.7   2.1
 26. AS45102  116.251.115.141   0.0%   100  213.2 213.4 213.1 218.5   0.6


Best,
Pengxiong Zhu
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, Riverside


On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 7:37 PM Erik Sundberg <ESundberg@nitelusa.com> wrote:

May sure when you are dealing with transnational links to watch the latency so you can tell when the link goes international. Just because you are going from a US Network provider to China Telecom doesn't mean that your not connecting to them in the united states.



For example a traceroute from Denver to 27.29.128.1 which is an IP in China Telecom's network.

It's about 26ms between Denver and Los Angeles. Hop 5 to Hop 6

China Telecom connects to GTT in Los Angeles Hop7/8

On Hop 8 is in the United State and Hop 9 is across the pacific. Because the latency goes from 31 ms to 183 ms. 


Just something to keep in mind.


                                                                           Packets               Pings
 Host                                                                    Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. _gateway                                                              0.0%    14    1.0   1.2   1.0   2.8   0.5
 2. te-0-0-26.ear2.den1.us.nitelusa.net                                   0.0%    14    0.9   1.0   0.8   2.1   0.4
 3. te-0-0-26.ear1.den1.us.nitelusa.net                                   0.0%    14    1.1   1.6   1.1   2.9   0.7
 4. te-0-0-1-0.cr1.den1.us.nitelusa.net                                   0.0%    14    1.0   1.0   1.0   1.1   0.0
 5. ae1-122.cr0-den2.ip4.gtt.net                                          0.0%    14    0.5   1.2   0.3   6.9   2.0
 6. et-0-0-47.cr3-lax2.ip4.gtt.net                                        0.0%    14   26.5  26.4  26.2  26.7   0.2
 7. as4134.lax20.ip4.gtt.net                                              0.0%    14   27.7  28.7  26.8  30.1   1.1
 8. 202.97.50.29                                                          0.0%    14   31.4  30.6  26.8  34.1   2.4
 9. 202.97.41.129                                                         0.0%    14  183.3 187.1 183.3 190.8   2.4
10. 202.97.94.101                                                         0.0%    14  187.9 188.6 186.1 211.2   6.8
11. 202.97.94.141                                                         0.0%    13  177.8 180.7 177.2 184.2   2.3
12. 202.97.67.54                                                          0.0%    13  199.5 201.2 197.4 205.1   2.6
13. 111.177.110.62                                                        0.0%    13  205.9 206.3 205.9 208.2   0.7
14. 27.29.128.1                                                           0.0%    13  202.6 202.8 202.5 203.9   0.4


Erik Sundberg

Sr. Network Engineer

Nitel

350 N Orleans Street

Suite 1300N

Chicago, Il 60654

Desk: 773-661-5532

Cell: 708-710-7419

NOC: 866-892-0915

Email: esundberg@nitelusa.com

web: www.nitelusa.com


From: Zhiyun Qian <zhiyunq@cs.ucr.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2019 1:02:36 PM
To: Erik Sundberg
Cc: Pengxiong Zhu; Zhiyun Qian; Zhongjie Wang; Keyu Man
Subject: Re: Ownership of Routers on Both Ends of Transnational Links
 
Erik,

Thanks a lot for the information! This is extremely helpful. We are conducting an analysis on performance/policy-related study on transnational links. We are hoping to submit a paper soon. Will be glad to share all the details once we have a draft!

Best,
-Zhiyun


On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:35 AM Erik Sundberg <ESundberg@nitelusa.com> wrote:
CPE is usually ran by the customer. Some provider do offer managed routers for a fee. Kinda like renting a cable modem from your provider.


What are your guys trying to accomplish or find out?

Erik



Erik Sundberg
Sr. Network Engineer
Nitel
350 N Orleans Street
Suite 1300N
Chicago, Il 60654
Desk: 773-661-5532
Cell: 708-710-7419
NOC: 866-892-0915
 
From: Pengxiong Zhu <pzhu011@ucr.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2019 12:32 PM
To: Erik Sundberg
Cc: Zhiyun Qian; Zhongjie Wang; Keyu Man
Subject: Re: Ownership of Routers on Both Ends of Transnational Links
 
Thanks a lot!

Are the Customer Devices managed by Telia or the customer?

Best,
Pengxiong Zhu
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, Riverside


On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 7:43 AM Erik Sundberg <ESundberg@nitelusa.com> wrote:

I hope this helps with the breakdown for telia.




Telia i think is using /31's for there serial blocks now

62.115.170.56 (Telia Edge Rotuer)

62.115.170.57 (Customer Device)



chinaunicom-ic-341501-sjo-b21.c.telia.net.


<Customername>-<CircuitID>-<POP>-<router>.c.telia.net



Customer: ChinaUnicom

Telia Circuit ID's are: ic-123456

POP: SJO (Airport code)

Router: b21

Doamin: c.telia.net "Customer.telia.net"




Erik Sundberg

Sr. Network Engineer

Nitel

350 N Orleans Street

Suite 1300N

Chicago, Il 60654

Desk: 773-661-5532

Cell: 708-710-7419

NOC: 866-892-0915

Email: esundberg@nitelusa.com

web: www.nitelusa.com


From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> on behalf of Pengxiong Zhu <pzhu011@ucr.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2019 11:36:45 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Cc: Keyu Man; Zhiyun Qian; Zhongjie Wang
Subject: Ownership of Routers on Both Ends of Transnational Links
 
Howdy folks,

We are a group of researchers at UC Riverside conducting some measurement about transnational networks. In particular, we are interested in studying the ownership of routers on the two sides of transnational links. 

We have some concrete questions which we hope someone can shed some light on. Basically when we send packets from US/Canada to China, through traceroute and the RTT of each hop, we can locate the last hop in the US before the packets enter China (there is a large jump of RTT of 100+ms from this hop onwards). Oftentimes the ownership of such routers is ambiguous.
These hops whose IPs seem to belong to US or European ISPs (according to BGP info) but their reverse DNS names have chinaunicom in it, which is a Chinese ISP. 
AS1299 Telia Company AB
62.115.170.57    name = chinaunicom-ic-341501-sjo-b21.c.telia.net.
62.115.33.230    name = chinaunicom-ic-302366-las-bb1.c.telia.net.  
213.248.73.190  name = chinaunicom-ic-127288-sjo-b21.c.telia.net.  

AS701 Verizon Business  
152.179.103.254  name = chinaunicom-gw.customer.alter.net.

While the following routers, they don't have a reverse DNS name at all, which seem to be uncommon if they were managed by US or European ISPs but quite common for Chinese ISPs.
AS6453 TATA COMMUNICATIONS (AMERICA) INC  
63.243.205.90
66.110.59.118 

Can anyone confirm that these are indeed managed by the Chinese ISPs (even though they are physically located in the US according to the traceroute and RTT analysis)?


Best,
Pengxiong Zhu
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, Riverside


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