Very high ping to Steam(Valve) India servers

I get very high latency to all Steam(Valve servers) located in India. I use Steam, and I get very high latency to the servers located in India. I live in Kerala, and I'm talking about 230ms+ latency to servers located in Chennai and Mumbai. Can't believe this is happening on a fiber internet connection. I did some research on my side and I've already contacted the local exchange about this issue a week ago, They called me once, I explained the issue and they told me to send them an email explaining the issue. I did as they said, But I haven't got a single reply from them.

I should be getting around 20-30ms to Chennai and around 50ms to Mumbai servers. But as of now, I'm getting around 230ms latency to both of these locations. Tthese latency issues only happen when I get an IP address which starts with 117.208.X.X and I get good latency numbers when I'm on an IP in the range of 61.X.X.X or 103.X.X.X(As of now, I've only got IP from these ranges). I'm almost always getting an IP which starts with 117.208.X.X and I have to use a paid VPN to route my traffic through Mumbai servers so I can get around 50ms to Mumbai servers.

tracert results are showing me that it's just the bad routing to these servers.

The servers that I used to test the latency and packet-loss are below.

Located in Chennai: 155.133.232.98 (Should be getting around 20-30ms to this server)
Located in Mumbai: 155.133.233.99 (Should be getting around 40-50ms to this server)
Located in Dubai: 185.25.183.162 (Should be getting around 50-70ms to this server)

Below is the tracert results to 155.133.232.98(Located in Chennai) when I have an IP which starts with 117.208.X.X

C:\Users\xxxx>tracert 155.133.232.98

Tracing route to 155.133.232.98 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms 117.208.208.1
3 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms 218.248.171.22
4 * * 7 ms 218.248.255.5
5 7 ms * * 218.248.255.6
6 77 ms 35 ms 36 ms 218.248.178.42
7 236 ms 237 ms 250 ms 218.100.48.143
8 239 ms 237 ms 237 ms 182.79.203.130
9 237 ms 238 ms 252 ms 125.18.249.238
10 258 ms 258 ms 261 ms 192.168.164.3
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Below is the ping test to 155.133.232.98(Located in Chennai) when I have an IP which starts with 117.208.X.X

C:\Users\xxxx>ping 155.133.232.98

Pinging 155.133.232.98 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=236ms TTL=50
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=243ms TTL=50
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=238ms TTL=50
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=242ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 155.133.232.98:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 236ms, Maximum = 243ms, Average = 239ms

Below is the tracert to 155.133.232.98(Located in Chennai) when I have an IP which starts with 61.X.X.X

C:\Users\xxxx>tracert 155.133.232.98

Tracing route to 155.133.232.98 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 3 ms 3 ms 1 ms 61.3.76.1
3 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms static.ill.218.248.61.78/24.bsnl.in [218.248.61.78]
4 * 6 ms * 218.248.255.5
5 5 ms * 5 ms 218.248.255.6
6 33 ms * 20 ms 218.248.178.42
7 38 ms 37 ms 37 ms 218.100.48.143
8 48 ms 48 ms 52 ms 182.79.175.185
9 35 ms 36 ms 35 ms 125.18.249.238
10 73 ms 83 ms 64 ms 192.168.164.3
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Below is the ping test to 155.133.232.98(Located in Chennai) when I have an IP which starts with 61.X.X.X

C:\Users\xxxx>ping 155.133.232.98

Pinging 155.133.232.98 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=51
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=51
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=51
Reply from 155.133.232.98: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 155.133.232.98:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 34ms, Maximum = 47ms, Average = 38ms

It would be really helpful if you guys know any fix.
Thanks in advance 🙂

@5trange , bsnl ping changes are a very long story with lots of threads here. To summarize, i was earlier getting about 50 - 70 ping to maa. ( Cs go server). It later became an unplayably high 100+ for about 3 months. For now its 30. So patience may be a virtue in this regard 😅

Fellow malayali, Bsnl Ftth from tvm. My ip ranges are 117.205. and 59.95. Till recently, the latter range was twice the ping of the former.

you could use free community servers for 5vs5. My friend (idlegaming) has hosted on DigitalOcean in bglore, which always used to give me ping ~40, even when the same valve servers were >100 🤷‍♂️. PM me for the details if interested.

@eriek_halenx This is funny because I'm using a VPN to play these days, and I get ~50ms to bom and ~60ms to maa with a VPN and if I turn it back off, The ping shoots up to 200ms+. I've contacted the local exchange already about this routing issue, It looks like they have zero idea on whats happening.
Normally I get IPs from 117.208.X.X, 59.9.X.X, and 61.3.X.X. 61.3.X.X delivers 30ms to maa and about 50ms to bom. I have to be really lucky to get an IP from that range. It looks like the only thing I can do is just wait. 🙂

@5trange , During the bad days i had to restart between 2- upto 10 times to get desired ip range of 117.205. But once you get that ip range, do not restart the ont. The range usually sticks for 3-4 days... #proTip 😛

@5trange Hi - which VPN service are you using for gaming? Thanks.

eriek_halenx said:

@5trange , During the bad days i had to restart between 2- upto 10 times to get desired ip range of 117.205. But once you get that ip range, do not restart the ont. The range usually sticks for 3-4 days... #proTip 😛

Click to expand...

this is false in my Case, cause my ONT renews IP twice a day during night time ( 12AM - 3 AM )
only god knows why the guys at BSNL want to do that 🙄

@5trange I am able to reproduce the latency to a certain extent. From certain part of AS9829, I am seeing latency to 155.133.232.98 ~150ms while from some other parts < 50ms.

Now looking at this in more detail, AS9829 peers with NIXI and doesn't peer with any other private IX. Based on this prior information, I can see that AS9829 peers with NIXI at Chennai. Valve Corporation(AS32590) also peers with AS9498(Airtel). This means AS9498 is the transit for AS9829 for the traffic towards AS32590. Also, jump in latency in your first traceroute output (7th hop) is 218.100.48.143(NIXI).There is a high probability that the issue is due to an asymmetric reverse path. i.e you have to take into account the fundamental limitation of traceroute - the reverse path is almost invisible as it's mostly asymmetric. I will update this thread if there is a possibility to see a return path.

@swapneelp Looking up the route through the lookglass of AS9498 the path taken from 9498 to BSNL endpoint would give a fair idea right ?
Just curious. I'm no expert in setting up routing.

@vignesh_venkatesan You are absolutely correct except that I gave up trying on the LG of AS9498 when I was writing my initial response. 😛 Will try again after sometime.

Yeah, Airtel's Lookglass is not working. I tried to look myself but it's giving an error.
System could not execute the specified Command

dhirubhai said:

@5trange Hi - which VPN service are you using for gaming? Thanks.

Click to expand...

I am using ProtonVPN for now. It works fine, I'm getting ~50ms to Mumbai servers.

swapneelp said:

@vignesh_venkatesan You are absolutely correct except that I gave up trying on the LG of AS9498 when I was writing my initial response. 😛 Will try again after sometime.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the valuable information! I've already contacted BSNL Kerala through twitter and told them about this. 🙂

@5trange I tried again using the looking glass of Airtel to get the return path, but it's still broken. I've already reported this issue. Hope your issue gets resolved. Good luck!


cc: @vignesh_venkatesan

@swapneelp Thanks a lot man, and I'm hoping this gets fixed soon. Thanks again for the valuable information!

Edit: I saw your comment on the a thread posted by a YOU Broadband user and the person said YOU broadband peers with Airtel and Vodafone. So, Is AS9829 the root of my problem?

I am just curious to know - How do we know that the servers are in India?

Regards,

R