Belarus to Japan: 273ms via Tallinn and NTT's Transpacific Highway
Based on real RIPE Atlas measurements from GeoCables monitoring infrastructure, March 2026
273ms from Minsk to Osaka reveals one of the more elegant routing paths in our database: north to Tallinn, west to Frankfurt, then NTT's backbone carries the packet all the way through Paris, across the Atlantic to Ashburn, across the US to San Jose, and finally across the Pacific to Osaka. Three oceans, five cities, one carrier — NTT America handles everything from Frankfurt to Japan.
The Traceroute
| Hop | Location | Network | RTT |
|---|
| 1–6 | Minsk, BY | A1 / Business Network / NTEC | 2ms |
| 7 | Tallinn, EE | RETN Limited (AS9002) | 6ms |
| 9–10 | Frankfurt, DE | NTT America (AS2914) | 24ms |
| 11 | Paris, FR | NTT America (AS2914) | 218ms |
| 12 | Ashburn, US | NTT America (AS2914) | 111ms |
| 13 | San Jose, US | NTT America (AS2914) | 169ms |
| 15–16 | Osaka, JP | NTT America (AS2914) | 268ms |
| 17–18 | Tokyo/Osaka, JP | Japan Registry (AS23774) | 273ms |
The Tallinn Detour
The route goes north to Tallinn before heading west — an unusual choice.
RETN Limited (AS9002) is a carrier specializing in Eastern European and CIS connectivity. Belarus's NTEC hands off to RETN in Tallinn rather than routing directly to Frankfurt because RETN offers better peering terms for Baltic/Belarusian traffic entering Western Europe.
From Tallinn, RETN connects to NTT in Frankfurt — and from that point, NTT America carries the packet exclusively all the way to Osaka.
NTT: A Carrier That Crosses Three Oceans Alone
NTT America (AS2914) is the international arm of Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone — the world's fourth-largest telecommunications company by revenue. What makes this traceroute remarkable is that
NTT carries the packet uninterrupted from Frankfurt to Osaka — through Paris, across the Atlantic, across the US, across the Pacific. No handoffs, no peering points, just NTT's own infrastructure.
This is possible because NTT operates:
-
Transatlantic: NTT's own cables between Europe and the US East Coast
-
Transcontinental: NTT's US backbone (formerly Genuity/Verio infrastructure)
-
Transpacific:
FASTER,
PC-1,
Unity/EAJ cables landing in Japan
NTT built this global infrastructure specifically to serve Japanese enterprises operating internationally — and it shows in the routing efficiency.
The Paris Anomaly Again
Notice Paris (hop 11) shows
218ms — higher than Ashburn (111ms) which is geographically farther from Frankfurt. This is the same artifact we saw in the Georgia→Philippines route: Paris routers process ICMP with lower priority than data packets, causing them to appear slower. The actual forwarding path bypasses Paris's processing delay.
Frankfurt to Osaka: The Transpacific Math
- Frankfurt → San Jose: ~170ms (9,000km Atlantic + 4,500km US continental)
- San Jose → Osaka via FASTER cable: ~100ms (8,800km Pacific)
- Total Frankfurt → Osaka: ~270ms
The theoretical minimum for Frankfurt → Osaka is approximately 60ms (direct fiber ~12,000km). The actual 244ms (Frankfurt to Osaka hop) is 4× the theoretical minimum — reflecting the non-direct routing via the US.
A direct Frankfurt → Osaka route via
FLAG FEA or
SEA-ME-WE cables through the Middle East would theoretically achieve ~130ms. But NTT routes its own traffic via the US rather than third-party Middle Eastern infrastructure.
Monitoring Status
-
Current RTT: 273ms |
Single carrier Frankfurt → Osaka: NTT America
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Path: Minsk → Tallinn (RETN) → Frankfurt → Paris → Ashburn → San Jose → Osaka
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Key insight: NTT's vertically integrated global network routes Japan-bound traffic via the US rather than via the shorter Middle East path