Abstract
When an African Internet user sends a message to a friend in another country in the continent, the data travels around the world (mostly Europe and USA) before coming back to the continent. This phenomenon is called boomerang routing at the continent level. The implications of boomerang routing include: higher cost, increased delay and increased information exposure. In this paper, we use active measurement data (ICMP traceroute) from 2015 and 2016 to empirically study the prevalence of boomerang routing in Africa by focusing on the implications on cost and delay. We also discussed possible improvements of the current African connectivity map to reduce boomerang routing, which will eventually translate into reduced cost and lower delays for end-users.
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Acknowledgements
This work was partially accomplished under NIST Cooperative Agreement No. 70NANB16H024 with the University of Maryland. The authors thank Dr. Peter Mell (CSD/NIST) for his support (time and advice). The authors would like to thank Christopher Schanzle (ACMD/NIST) for his help in gathering the data.
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© 2018 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
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Gueye, A., Mbaye, B. (2018). On the Prevalence of Boomerang Routing in Africa: Analysis and Potential Solutions. In: Kebe, C., Gueye, A., Ndiaye, A., Garba, A. (eds) Innovations and Interdisciplinary Solutions for Underserved Areas. InterSol 2018. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 249. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98878-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98878-8_1
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