Why Internet Traffic Takes Unexpected Routes: The Case of Kyiv to Washington

Imagine this: you are in Kyiv and sending a request to a server in Washington, USA. The "as-the-crow-flies" distance between these two points is 7,832 km. However, instead of taking the shortest route across the Atlantic Ocean, your internet traffic makes a sudden "detour" to the south, reaching the city of Paraná in Brazil, deviating a full 6,480 km from the direct line, and then returns to the USA. The resulting round-trip time (RTT) is 289 milliseconds (ms), which is approximately four times the theoretically possible minimum of 78 ms. What happened? Let’s figure it out.

Why does the traffic go through Brazil?

First, it’s important to understand how the internet works. Our data shows that requests on this route passed through three main autonomous systems (AS): AS43145 (RNC Ltd., a local Ukrainian provider), AS174 (Cogent Communications, an international transit operator), and AS32934 (Facebook, Inc., an American network serving the destination). Ideally, the route should have used a direct transatlantic cable connecting Europe and the USA, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, the traffic first passed through Kyiv, Munich, and London, which makes sense for a route to the USA. However, it then unexpectedly veered south, reaching Paraná, Brazil, before returning to North America via Denver and Atlanta. Why? The answer lies in the specifics of peering and the economics of transit traffic.

Facebook, as the owner of AS32934, actively builds its own cable networks to minimize dependence on third-party providers. Their routes are optimized for their own data centers and connection points, but not always for the shortest latency. In this case, the traffic went through Brazil likely due to Facebook's internal network architecture, where Paraná serves as a key node for processing data before it returns to the USA.

How does this affect the user?

For the average user, such a delay might not seem critical when browsing web pages. However, for applications that are more sensitive to latency, this could become a serious issue:

• Video calls: A 289 ms delay creates a noticeable pause in conversations, which can make communication challenging, especially during group calls.
• Online gaming: In most games, a delay of more than 100 ms is already considered inconvenient. A 289 ms RTT makes gameplay nearly impossible, particularly in competitive modes.
• Financial transactions: Trading requires minimal delays. Additional milliseconds can cost significant amounts of money in high-frequency trading.
• Cloud services: When using remote servers or cloud applications, such delays can slow down operations and impact performance.

Infrastructure context: why does regional traffic "go astray"?

The current routing of traffic from Kyiv to Washington via Brazil is not a coincidence but the result of complex factors. One key reason is the lack of sufficient direct peering connections between major providers and networks in Europe and the USA. For example, Facebook, as a major content provider, prefers to route traffic through its own networks rather than through third-party transit operators like Cogent or Arelion. This reduces their costs but can lengthen routes for end users.

Additionally, routing can be influenced by congestion on certain parts of the network or temporary outages of submarine cables. For instance, if one of the main transatlantic cables is congested or unavailable, traffic may be rerouted through alternative paths, even if they are significantly longer.

Real events affecting the route

GeoCables actively monitors events that could impact traffic routing. For example, on September 26, 2026, a green-level flood was recorded near Ukraine, and on August 11, 2026, a 4.6 magnitude earthquake occurred 641 km from the route. However, our data clearly shows that the current detour through Brazil is not related to these events. The reasons lie solely in the specifics of network operations and their interactions.

This case is yet another example of how the complex and multilayered structure of the internet can affect user experience. GeoCables continues to monitor the global network, identifying such deviations and helping specialists address bottlenecks in routing. After all, in the world of the internet, every millisecond matters.