Singapore to Tostado: 417ms — How TELXIUS Routes Southeast Asia to a Small-Town Telephone Cooperative in the Argentine Pampas

The Traceroute

On April 3, 2026, a RIPE Atlas probe in Singapore traced a route to Tostado — a town of roughly 14,000 people in the Santa Fe province of Argentina, deep in the Pampas, about 600 km northwest of Buenos Aires. The packet crossed three continents and five countries.

Singapore -> Frankfurt, Germany -> Paris, France -> Ashburn, USA -> Havelock, USA -> Buenos Aires, Argentina -> Cordoba, Argentina -> Tostado, Argentina

Five countries. Three continents. 417 milliseconds.

Three things stand out immediately.

First, the packet went west from Singapore to reach Argentina — Frankfurt, Paris, across the Atlantic to Ashburn, and then south to Buenos Aires. It traveled approximately 30,000 km to reach a destination roughly 15,600 km away.

Second, the RTT sequence is unusual. Paris shows 370 ms, then Ashburn shows 237 ms — the RTT decreased by 133 ms when the packet crossed the Atlantic. This apparent time travel is a common traceroute artifact: the probes at different hops may take different paths on the return trip, and the Paris measurement may have been inflated by a slower return path.

Third, the final destination — Tostado — is served by a telephone cooperative: Cooperativa Telefonica y OSPA de Tostado (AS263777). In rural Argentina, many towns built their own telecommunications infrastructure through cooperative models, and these cooperatives remain the internet providers for thousands of small communities across the Pampas.

TELXIUS: The Cable Empire Behind Telefonica

The carrier that dominates this route — TELXIUS (AS12956) — is the submarine cable and infrastructure arm of Telefonica, one of the world s largest telecommunications companies. TELXIUS operates over 100,000 km of submarine and terrestrial fiber, including eight next-generation submarine cable systems.

In Latin America, TELXIUS operates a network that no other single carrier can match:

• SAm-1 (2001): a 25,000 km ring circumnavigating Latin America — connecting Florida, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and back to the US. The longest single-operator cable system in Latin America, recently renewed through 2051
• BRUSA (2018): 11,000 km, Virginia Beach to Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza — 160 Tbps, the highest capacity direct US-South America link
• Junior (2020): Rio de Janeiro to Santos — extending BRUSA southward
• Tannat (2021): Santos to Las Toninas (Argentina) — completing the US-Brazil-Argentina corridor
• Mistral/SPSC (2021): Pacific coast — Guatemala to Chile via Ecuador and Peru
• Firmina (2024): Google s cable, US to Brazil and Argentina — 240 Tbps across 16 fiber pairs, with TELXIUS as landing partner in Brazil

TELXIUS connects to the US at four landing points: Boca Raton, Jacksonville, Virginia Beach, and Myrtle Beach. The Virginia Beach campus provides direct backhaul to Ashburn — the worlds largest concentration of data centers — and connects to transatlantic cables Marea and Dunant, creating a global loop between South America, North America, and Europe.

Our traceroute shows this architecture in action. The packet enters TELXIUS in Frankfurt (hop 7), crosses to Paris, jumps the Atlantic to Ashburn, continues to Havelock (North Carolina — likely a TELXIUS terrestrial route), and then uses one of TELXIUS Latin American cables — SAm-1, BRUSA/Junior/Tannat, or Firmina — to reach Buenos Aires.

Why Frankfurt to Buenos Aires via Ashburn?

The obvious question: why not go directly from Europe to Argentina? There are cables from Europe to South America — EllaLink connects Portugal to Brazil, and several older cables run along the West African coast.

The answer is TELXIUS architecture. TELXIUS routes through Ashburn because that is where its network is designed to pivot between continents. The Virginia Beach campus is the junction box: transatlantic cables arrive from Europe, and Latin American cables depart southward. For TELXIUS, Ashburn is not a detour — it is the hub.

This is the same pattern we saw in our Singapore-to-Colombia traceroute, where TELXIUS routed through Madrid and Ashburn. The company builds its network around hubs, and all intercontinental traffic flows through those hubs regardless of geographic logic.

From Buenos Aires to the Pampas: Argentina s Cooperative Internet

After arriving in Buenos Aires via TELXIUS, the packet transfers to Telecom Argentina (AS7303) — one of the country s two major telecommunications companies, formed from the merger of Telecom and Cablevision.

From Buenos Aires, Telecom Argentina carries the packet to Cordoba (374 ms) and then to Tostado (375 ms). The final handoff is to Cooperativa Telefonica y OSPA de Tostado (AS263777) — a local telephone cooperative that provides internet to this small Pampas town.

Argentina has a long tradition of telephone cooperatives, especially in rural areas. In towns too small to attract commercial operators, residents formed cooperatives to build and maintain their own telephone infrastructure, dating back to the mid-20th century. When the internet era arrived, these cooperatives became ISPs — laying fiber, installing equipment, and providing broadband to communities that would otherwise have no service.

Tostado s cooperative (OSPA stands for Obras Sanitarias y Provision de Agua — it also manages water services) serves a town of approximately 14,000 people in the Santa Fe province. Its AS number (263777) identifies it in the global routing table alongside carriers thousands of times its size.

The last hop — from Tostado at 375 ms to Tostado at 417 ms — adds 42 ms within the cooperative s own network. Likely the final stretch of copper or wireless last-mile infrastructure connecting the destination.

417ms: Three Continents to the Pampas

The 417 ms breaks down roughly as follows:

• Singapore -> Frankfurt (~10,000 km): 147 ms via RETN submarine cable
• Frankfurt -> Buenos Aires via Ashburn (~18,000 km): 370 ms via TELXIUS through Paris, across the Atlantic, down to Argentina
• Buenos Aires -> Tostado (~600 km): 375 ms via Telecom Argentina terrestrial network
• Tostado last mile: 417 ms via the local cooperative

Direct distance Singapore to Tostado: approximately 15,600 km. Actual path: approximately 30,000 km. Ratio: 1.9:1.

What This Route Reveals

There is still no submarine cable between Asia and South America. We documented this in our Singapore-to-Colombia article, and this route confirms it from the other direction. A packet from Singapore must go west through Europe and the US to reach Argentina. The planned Humboldt cable (Chile to Australia) may eventually change this, but for now, all Asia-South America traffic detours through either North America or Europe.

TELXIUS is the backbone of Latin American connectivity. With SAm-1, BRUSA, Tannat, Junior, Mistral, and now Firmina, TELXIUS offers more diverse routes to Latin America than any other single operator. Its architecture — hub in Ashburn, Latin American cables fanning south — shapes how millions of packets reach the continent.

The last mile is a cooperative. At the end of a 30,000 km journey across three continents, carried by some of the world s largest carriers — RETN, TELXIUS, Telecom Argentina — the packet arrives at a telephone cooperative in a small Pampas town. A cooperative that also manages the water supply. The Internet s architecture is fractal: global at the top, intensely local at the bottom.