Airtel India - Europe routing issues
Since 20:08 IST / 14:38 GMT on 28 Jan 2026, the latency between Airtel India and Europe has gone up along with significant packet loss.
Here’s an example of shortlist 300+ endpoints from Airtel India with European endpoints:
Traceroutes
Airtel Haryana -> Contabo Europe
Start: 2026-01-29T03:52:33+0530
HOST: desktop Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. AS??? _gateway (172.16.0.1) 0.0% 10 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.0
2. AS??? 10.240.9.204 0.0% 10 6.2 7.7 4.6 17.7 3.7
3. AS??? 172.31.0.155 0.0% 10 12.1 8.4 5.0 12.8 3.2
4. AS9498 173.168.18.125.dhcp.anaronline.net (125.18.168.173) 0.0% 10 5.1 6.5 5.0 8.0 1.2
5. AS??? 182.79.243.34 0.0% 10 266.6 262.7 259.1 276.3 5.3
6. AS1299 lax-b22-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.162.62) 0.0% 10 259.4 258.1 256.6 259.9 1.1
7. AS1299 lax-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.140.156) 10.0% 10 256.7 257.9 256.6 259.6 1.2
8. AS1299 dls-b7-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.140.247) 20.0% 10 323.4 324.2 322.6 326.2 1.2
9. AS1299 atl-b24-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.140.32) 0.0% 10 336.4 336.5 335.4 338.0 0.9
10. AS1299 atl-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.143.236) 0.0% 10 323.1 321.7 320.2 323.4 1.0
11. AS1299 ash-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.137.132) 40.0% 10 320.9 321.1 320.6 321.7 0.4
12. AS1299 prs-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.140.106) 0.0% 10 318.8 318.3 317.2 319.5 0.9
13. AS1299 laut-b2-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.136.185) 0.0% 10 325.7 326.0 324.3 327.7 1.3
14. AS1299 contabohubeurope-ic-385701.ip.twelve99-cust.net (213.248.67.11) 0.0% 10 325.8 324.4 322.8 326.4 1.2
15. AS??? ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
16. AS??? ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
17. AS51167 eu01.anuragbhatia.com (213.199.54.67) 0.0% 10 323.1 323.5 322.4 324.9 0.9
Reading this trace: This is Ambala » Airtel MPLS » Los Angeles Arelion AS1299 handover > Arelion Dallas > Arelion Atlanta > Arelion Ashburn > Arelion Paris > Europe
Contabo Europe -> Airtel Haryana (CGNAT IP terminating in Saha (Ambala) Haryana):
Start: 2026-01-29T03:53:51+0530
HOST: eu01.anuragbhatia.com Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. AS??? 10.243.1.101 0.0% 10 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.4 0.1
2. AS??? 10.0.66.2 0.0% 10 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.0
3. AS1299 laut-b2-link.ip.twelve99.net (213.248.70.176) 0.0% 10 2.7 2.8 1.4 4.7 1.0
4. AS1299 laut-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.136.194) 0.0% 10 3.6 2.7 1.9 3.6 0.6
5. AS1299 ffm-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.136.146) 0.0% 10 2.9 3.0 2.9 3.5 0.2
6. AS1299 mei-b5-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.124.59) 0.0% 10 18.4 18.3 18.2 18.7 0.1
7. AS1299 sng-b7-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.134.229) 0.0% 10 155.1 155.2 154.9 155.6 0.3
8. AS1299 sng-b5-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.139.1) 80.0% 10 162.5 162.5 162.5 162.6 0.1
9. AS1299 bhartiairtel-ic-375944.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.49.157) 0.0% 10 238.1 236.2 233.5 252.4 5.9
10. AS9498 116.119.44.230 0.0% 10 320.7 321.0 320.5 323.2 0.8
11. AS9498 170.168.18.125.dhcp.anaronline.net (125.18.168.170) 0.0% 10 327.1 328.9 319.4 355.2 13.6
12. AS??? ???
This one is handover to Arelion AS1299 Europe locally > Arelion Frankfurt > Arelion Marseille » Arelion Singapore > Bharti Airtel AS9498 Singapore handover »> Airtel MPLS > Haryana
How to know that it’s not just me on both ends - my home connection in Haryana and my server in EU being impacted?
Let’s look for average latency to a few dozen Airtel endpoints in India from Contabo, Hetzner, hosting.de:
Impact from BGP routing table
Let’s compare Airtel AS9498 routes inside Arelion AS1299 table with BGP community tags: 1299:30000 (EU Customers) Vs 1299:37000 (APAC customers) based on routes visible from various downstreams of AS1299 across public route collectors (since Arelion’s own direct feed does not include the BGP community tag):
Within a few hours Arelion’s learning of Airtel AS9498 routes in Europe (1299:30000) went down by 7000 routes and APAC (1299:37000) went up by over 6000 routes.
What about other Indian telcos?
There seems some minor impact on Tata Comm but it is largely contained. Average latency from EU - Tata Comm Indian endpoint went up from 164ms to 180ms. In the case of Jio, it also shows the same behaviour as usual. However, on Jio, there’s a visible jump in latency every late evening for months, and this jump seems to follow the same pattern.
Trace from EU to Tata Comm AS4755 Delhi confirms largely normal routing.
Start: 2026-01-29T04:16:29+0530
HOST: eu01.anuragbhatia.com Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. AS??? 10.243.1.101 0.0% 10 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.0
2. AS??? 10.0.66.2 0.0% 10 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.0
3. AS1299 laut-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.45.148) 0.0% 10 2.5 3.1 1.6 4.7 1.0
4. AS1299 ffm-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.136.146) 0.0% 10 3.2 3.1 2.9 3.4 0.2
5. AS1299 ffm-b5-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.136.213) 0.0% 10 3.5 3.2 3.0 3.5 0.1
6. AS1299 tata-ic-378325.ip.twelve99-cust.net (213.248.78.41) 60.0% 10 4.3 4.3 3.9 4.7 0.3
7. AS6453 if-bundle-56-2.qcore2.pvu-paris.as6453.net (80.231.245.40) 60.0% 10 16.1 16.0 15.6 16.4 0.4
8. AS6453 if-bundle-12-2.qcore1.pvu-paris.as6453.net (80.231.245.12) 0.0% 10 15.4 15.8 15.4 16.8 0.4
9. AS6453 if-bundle-22-3.qcore1.pye-paris.as6453.net (80.231.154.200) 50.0% 10 15.7 15.9 15.6 16.3 0.3
10. AS6453 if-bundle-2-2.qcore2.pye-paris.as6453.net (80.231.154.27) 0.0% 10 15.5 15.9 15.4 16.4 0.4
11. AS6453 if-bundle-13-2.qcore1.ldn-london.as6453.net (80.231.196.37) 90.0% 10 20.5 20.5 20.5 20.5 0.0
12. AS6453 195.219.213.129 70.0% 10 15.4 15.5 15.4 15.7 0.2
13. AS6453 80.231.131.77 0.0% 10 123.0 125.2 123.0 144.3 6.7
14. AS??? ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
15. AS4755 115.114.73.212.static-delhi.vsnl.net.in (115.114.73.212) 0.0% 10 158.5 158.6 158.5 158.7 0.1
With hope that your packets won’t be spread at the bottom of the ocean, it’s time for me to end this post and get back to work. 😀