Why Data Takes the Long Route: Ekaterinburg to Nairobi Explained
Imagine this: you are sending data from Yekaterinburg, Russia, to Nairobi, Kenya. The direct line between these cities is only 6,807 km. However, instead of taking the shortest route, your data packet travels an additional 5,314 km, reaching the city of Praia da Vitória in Portugal before heading back south. The total latency is 259 milliseconds, which is nearly four times the physical minimum of 68 milliseconds for light traveling through fiber optics over this distance. Why does this happen? GeoCables investigates this phenomenon.
Key network providers: who carries your traffic?
On the journey from Yekaterinburg to Nairobi, major global transit operators such as Hurricane Electric (AS6939) and local operators like West Indian Ocean Cable Company (AS37662) are involved. Hurricane Electric, one of the largest global providers, boasts hundreds of points of presence and a robust peering infrastructure. Traffic from Yekaterinburg first enters the network of MIRALOGIC-AS (AS12668), a local Russian operator, and is then handed over to Hurricane Electric in Stockholm. From there, the data passes through key nodes in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Madrid and even Portugal before finally reaching Africa via submarine cables owned by West Indian Ocean Cable Company.
Why is the route so complex? The main reason is the lack of direct interconnections between Russian and African operators. Instead, data is routed through networks with economically advantageous peering agreements. Hurricane Electric acts as a transit intermediary because its infrastructure connects many regions, including Europe and Africa. The landing points of submarine cables, such as those in Cape Town and Mombasa, also influence the route selection.
Practical implications for users
For the end user, high latency can be critical. For example, during video calls on platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, a 259 ms delay results in noticeable pauses and reduced communication quality. Online games that require low round-trip time (RTT) will experience lags that degrade gameplay. Financial trading, where milliseconds matter, becomes less competitive. Cloud services like Google Drive or AWS may feel slow when uploading or syncing data.
In comparison, with an ideal route, latency would be only 68 ms, which is almost imperceptible for most applications. However, real-world infrastructure and economic considerations make achieving this ideal challenging.
Infrastructure context: why does regional traffic "go astray"?
The complex routing is caused by a combination of factors: the geography of submarine cables, economic agreements between operators and the lack of direct connections between regions. For instance, while Russia has access to several international submarine cables, they are primarily oriented toward Europe and Asia. African cables, on the other hand, often land in Southern or Eastern Africa (e.g., in Mombasa), necessitating transit through European hubs.
In this case, the data travels through Europe because it is the most economically viable route. Submarine cable landing points in Portugal and Cape Town play a significant role in routing, despite their distance from the direct line between Yekaterinburg and Nairobi.
Real-world events: context, not cause
GeoCables monitors events occurring near the route to provide context. For example, in August 2026, several earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 4.6 to 5.2 occurred near Granada and other cities in Spain. However, these natural events, located more than 500 km from the route, did not influence the path selection. Similarly, in September, a green-level flood warning was recorded in Kenya, approximately 440 km from Nairobi. Our data shows that the detour was solely caused by routing and peering, not these events.
Although natural disasters can sometimes damage cables or nodes, in this case, the delay and route deviation are linked to infrastructure and economic factors.
The Yekaterinburg-to-Nairobi route example demonstrates how the global internet infrastructure can surprise us with its complexity. GeoCables continues to monitor and explain such phenomena, making the internet more transparent for all users.
