Week in Review: One Second to Taiwan, 724ms to an Island, and a Packet That Crossed Three Continents to Reach Colombia

The Week the Internet Took the Scenic Route

Every week, GeoCables runs thousands of traceroutes from our measurement servers in Jerusalem, Tbilisi, Almaty, and Minsk — plus hundreds more via RIPE Atlas probes worldwide. Most routes are boring. Data goes where it should. But some weeks, the Internet decides to take the scenic route.

This was one of those weeks.

Between March 24 and 29, 2026, our monitoring system flagged 37 interesting routes in a single day. Here are the five most extreme.

#1: Tbilisi to Taiwan — 1,021ms Through 10 Countries

Route: Georgia -> Serbia -> Hungary -> Austria -> Germany -> France -> UK -> USA -> Taiwan
RTT: 1,021 ms | Hops: 30 | Countries: 10

This is the slowest route we recorded all week — and possibly one of the slowest legitimate traceroutes we have ever seen.

The packet left Tbilisi and entered Cogent's network (AS174) in Belgrade. From there, Cogent carried it through Budapest, Vienna, Frankfurt, Munich, back to Frankfurt, Paris, London, Liverpool — and then across the Atlantic to the United States. In the US, the packet bounced between Chicago and Carter Lake (Iowa) twice before finally heading to San Francisco.

In San Jose, Cogent handed the packet to HiNet (AS9680), Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom subsidiary in the US. HiNet then carried it across the Pacific from Los Angeles to Taoyuan City, Taiwan.

Total distance: approximately 35,000 km — to reach a destination that is roughly 8,000 km east of Tbilisi.

The most remarkable detail: the packet traveled entirely westward. It crossed Europe, the Atlantic, and the Pacific — circumnavigating most of the Northern Hemisphere — rather than going east through Turkey, the Middle East, and Asia. The business relationships between Georgian ISPs, Cogent, and HiNet simply do not include an eastward path.

#2: Jerusalem to Cook Islands — 793ms Across the Pacific

Route: Israel -> Germany -> USA -> French Polynesia -> Cook Islands
RTT: 793 ms | Countries: 5

The Cook Islands — population 15,000, located in the middle of the South Pacific — are among the most isolated places on Earth with Internet access. They connect to the world via the Manatua cable to Tahiti (French Polynesia), and from there onward to the US West Coast.

Our Jerusalem probe measured 793 ms to reach them. The packet traveled from Israel to Frankfurt (Arelion/Telia), across the Atlantic and US to Los Angeles (GTT Communications), across the Pacific to Papeete in French Polynesia, and finally to the Cook Islands via the Manatua submarine cable.

The Cook Islands are 16,000 km from Jerusalem. The packet traveled over 30,000 km.

#3: Singapore to Colombia — 548ms via Paris and Virginia

Route: Singapore -> France -> USA -> Spain -> Colombia
RTT: 548 ms | Hops: 13 | Countries: 5

A RIPE Atlas probe in Singapore traced a route to Quibdo, Colombia — a city on Colombia's Pacific coast, closer to Singapore than to any of the cities the packet actually visited.

The packet flew west from Singapore to Paris via Level 3, was handed to TELXIUS (Telefonica's cable arm), crossed the Atlantic to Ashburn, Virginia, then went back across the Atlantic to Madrid, and only then continued to Medellin and Quibdo.

Why the backtrack? TELXIUS's network is designed around two hubs: Madrid and the US East Coast. Its Latin American cables (SAm-1, BRUSA) originate from Spain. So for TELXIUS, routing through Madrid is not a detour — it is the architecture.

The fundamental problem: there is no submarine cable connecting Asia to South America directly. Zero.

#4: Tbilisi to Mauritius — 724ms via Johannesburg

Route: Georgia -> Bulgaria -> France -> South Africa -> Kenya -> Mauritius
RTT: 724 ms | Hops: 22 | Countries: 7

A packet from the Caucasus to a small Indian Ocean island traveled through the SEACOM submarine cable — Marseille, down the east coast of Africa to Johannesburg and Mombasa, then across to Mauritius via the SAFE or LION cable.

But the real story was the last mile: the packet reached Mauritius at 205 ms (hop 15), then spent an additional 519 ms inside EMTEL's local network on the island. The international journey — 25,000 km through seven countries — was faster than what happened after the packet arrived.

#5: Almaty to Japan — 710ms the Wrong Way Around

Route: Kazakhstan -> UK -> Germany -> France -> USA -> Japan
RTT: 710 ms | Hops: 19 | Countries: 6

Almaty, Kazakhstan is roughly 5,600 km from Tokyo. The most direct submarine cable route would go east through China or south through Southeast Asia.

Instead, the packet went west: Almaty to Astana (Transtelecom), then to London via RETN, handed to NTT in Frankfurt, carried through Paris and Ashburn to San Jose, and finally across the Pacific to Osaka.

NTT America — one of the world's largest Tier-1 carriers — operates primarily on US-Europe-Japan routes. When it receives traffic in Europe destined for Japan, it sends it west across the Atlantic and then across the Pacific, rather than east across the Eurasian landmass. For NTT, the westward path is shorter in network terms, even though it is longer in geography.

The last hop is suspicious: Osaka at 340 ms (hop 17), then Osaka again at 710 ms (hop 19). The Japan Registry Service destination added another 370 ms — suggesting severe congestion or rate limiting at the destination.

What These Routes Tell Us

Five routes. Five different stories. But one common theme: the Internet does not follow geography. It follows cables, contracts, and business relationships.

A packet goes west from Georgia to reach Taiwan in the east — because Cogent's network runs westward. Traffic from Singapore to Colombia crosses the Atlantic twice — because TELXIUS's cables originate in Spain. Data from the Caucasus to Mauritius passes through South Africa — because SEACOM's cable runs along the African coast.

None of these routes are bugs. They are the architecture of the global Internet, shaped by where companies laid cables decades ago and which carriers signed peering agreements with which other carriers.

GeoCables tracks 695 submarine cable systems and 1,920 landing points. We run continuous measurements from four of our own probes plus hundreds of RIPE Atlas probes worldwide. Every week, we find routes that look impossible on a map but make perfect sense when you follow the cables.

The Internet is not a cloud. It is cables on the ocean floor. And sometimes, those cables take the scenic route.