Mauritius is connected to the Internet through various submarine communications cables. Few of which I know are SAFE, EASSy, LION and SAT-3/WASC – all connected to Africa. The best server to test against would therefore be any one hosted in the African continent. Well, NO. It turns out we are not directly connected to any African destination. Proof:

PS C:UsersKooshal> tracert -d speedtest.cpt.mweb.co.za

Tracing route to speedtest.cpt.mweb.co.za [41.86.121.228]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  41.136.208.1
  3    40 ms    24 ms    11 ms  196.27.70.121
  4    15 ms    11 ms    12 ms  196.192.102.182
  5   239 ms   235 ms   317 ms  80.231.76.101 <-- NOTICE HERE
  6     *      327 ms   249 ms  80.231.76.73
  7   241 ms   242 ms   238 ms  130.117.14.5
  8   247 ms   250 ms   252 ms  154.54.57.101
  9   236 ms   235 ms   239 ms  154.54.36.166
 10   292 ms   300 ms   236 ms  149.6.98.6
 11   394 ms   391 ms   433 ms  196.22.164.1
 12   393 ms   389 ms   388 ms  196.28.178.99
 13   394 ms   394 ms   389 ms  196.28.178.34
 14   407 ms   450 ms   404 ms  196.41.133.166
 15   405 ms   403 ms   405 ms  41.86.121.228

Trace complete.

I did the above traceroute to the speedtest.net server hosted in Cape Town after noticing a relatively high ping latency reported by a speed test against same server (I grabbed the host name from Chrome’s network inspector). Interestingly you will find above that instead of hopping directly to Africa, the packets are routed to the United Kingdom (see IP 80.231.76.101) and from there, they make their way to the speedtest.net server. I was like o.O after finding this, but it explained the high latency.

To confirm, I did a series of test to different destinations.

Paris, France

PS C:UsersKooshal> tracert -d speedtest.mediactive.fr

Tracing route to tmp01.mediactive.fr [83.167.35.96]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  41.136.208.1
  3    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  196.27.70.121
  4    13 ms    12 ms    29 ms  196.192.102.57
  5   287 ms   289 ms   667 ms  193.251.150.197
  6   395 ms   478 ms   494 ms  193.251.240.2
  7   399 ms   318 ms   756 ms  193.251.129.125
  8   612 ms   663 ms   604 ms  81.52.179.194
  9   245 ms   247 ms   245 ms  83.167.55.66
 10   327 ms   338 ms   328 ms  83.167.40.254
...

Here, we are directly connected to France.

London, UK

PS C:UsersKooshal> tracert -d speedtest.trancefm.co.uk

Tracing route to speedtest.trancefm.co.uk [85.133.85.170]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2   451 ms   205 ms   240 ms  41.136.208.1
  3    76 ms    19 ms    10 ms  196.27.70.121
  4    21 ms    13 ms    13 ms  196.192.102.86
  5   239 ms   235 ms   317 ms  80.231.76.101
  6   257 ms     *      245 ms  80.231.76.73
  7   325 ms   321 ms   321 ms  195.219.83.102
  8   323 ms   370 ms   326 ms  4.69.139.88
  9   522 ms   322 ms   321 ms  4.69.153.117
 10   337 ms   332 ms   324 ms  4.69.141.190
 11     *      327 ms     *     4.68.117.111
 12   360 ms   321 ms   321 ms  212.187.196.82
 13   343 ms   323 ms   324 ms  85.133.16.1
 14   331 ms   322 ms   323 ms  85.133.21.210
 15   321 ms   322 ms   340 ms  85.133.85.170

Trace complete.

Here as well.

Cyberjaya, Malaysia

PS C:UsersKooshal> tracert -d 202.71.105.233

Tracing route to 202.71.105.233 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2    12 ms    10 ms    12 ms  41.136.208.1
  3    11 ms    11 ms    10 ms  196.27.70.121
  4    12 ms    14 ms    12 ms  196.192.102.202
  5    84 ms    83 ms    82 ms  58.27.14.61
  6    85 ms    84 ms    84 ms  10.55.36.114
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8     *        *        *     Request timed out.
...

These were some of the best results I got, out of the 9 servers I tested. I’d therefore recommend these servers to accurately determine your international connection speed:

1. Paris, France
2. London, UK
3. Cyberjaya, Malaysia

Don’t try to these African host servers, they are not reliable, even if they are closer to us.

Additionally, it’s more reasonable to test to some European or US server since all sites we access are hosted in these destinations.