Data Detours: Singapore to Congo via London, Impacting Global Connectivity

Imagine this: data sent from Singapore (SG) to Kalemie in the Democratic Republic of Congo (CD), instead of taking a direct route of 8,212 km, made a massive detour, reaching London (GB) before heading back south. The final path turned out to be 6,590 km longer than the geographically optimal route, with a latency of 342 milliseconds, nearly four times higher than the theoretical minimum of 82 ms possible with ideal light transmission through fiber optics. Such routing anomalies are what GeoCables monitors, analyzes, and explains.

Why was the route so complicated?

Three key network providers were involved in the data's journey: AS36236 NetActuate, Inc in Singapore, AS30844 Liquid Telecommunications Ltd in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda, and AS37006 Liquid Telecommunication Rwanda Limited at the endpoint, Kalemie (the Liquid network itself is registered in Rwanda). These autonomous systems represent major regional and global operators. For instance, Liquid Telecommunications is a leading service provider in Africa, actively developing infrastructure to connect the continent. However, the lack of direct peering agreements between NetActuate and Liquid Telecommunications may have caused the data to first pass through London, one of the largest intercontinental traffic exchange points.

This is where transit economics come into play: to make routes economically viable, providers use existing peering points and cable systems. London, as a global hub, became an intermediate stop on the journey from Asia to Africa. Even though direct submarine cables exist between Singapore and the eastern coast of Africa, their use may have been limited due to the absence of optimized agreements between operators.

Practical implications for users

A latency of 342 ms significantly impacts the quality of internet services. For video calls, this can manifest as audio delays, making natural communication difficult. In online gaming, especially in shooters or real-time strategy games, such response times can be critical: players lose responsiveness, leading to defeat. In financial trading, even a millisecond spike in latency can result in losses during transactions.

Cloud services also suffer. For example, when using remote databases or virtual desktops, every input-output operation slows down. Considering that the latency amounts to 342 ms for a round trip, even simple file copying or data updates can take considerably longer than they should.

Infrastructure context: why does traffic take a "wrong turn"?

Routing issues are often linked to insufficient integration between regional networks and global infrastructure. In Africa, despite the active development of submarine cables like SEACOM and EASSy, which connect the eastern coast with Asia, their use is limited by provider interactions. London remains a key traffic exchange point, leading to such "detours" through Europe.

Singapore, as one of the largest internet hubs in Asia, also relies on major transit networks to connect to other regions. In this case, NetActuate, lacking a direct connection with Liquid Telecommunications, routed traffic through London. This decision was driven by technical and economic factors, but it extended the data transmission path.

Real events near the route

A few weeks before the route measurement, GeoCables recorded a series of earthquakes in the Indonesia region, near Singapore. For example, on June 8, 2026, an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.9 occurred 20 km north-northeast of Padang, approximately 443 km from Singapore. While such natural events can impact submarine cables, our data clearly show that the detour's cause lies in routing decisions, not damage from these events.

Moreover, earthquakes near Padang and other locations (e.g., a magnitude 4.7 quake 80 km west-southwest of Padang on June 21 or a magnitude 4.5 quake 143 km west of Pariaman on July 18) only add context to the region's complex infrastructure landscape. However, in this case, their impact on routing was not recorded.

GeoCables continues to investigate such cases to shed light on hidden issues within the global network. Anomalies like this demonstrate how complex and dependent on numerous factors data paths through the internet can be. We don't just monitor routes, we uncover their stories.