Sify

This post covers how routing is being manipulated across Indian IXPs resulting in free IP transit

After my last post about home networking, I am jumping back into global routing. More specifically how Indian traffic is hitting the globe when it does not need to. This is an old discussion across senior management folks in telcos, policymakers, and more. It’s about “Does Indian internet traffic routes from outside of India?” and if the answer is yes then “Why?” and “How much?”

It became a hot topic, especially after the Snowden leaks. There was even an advisory back in 2018 from Deputy National Security Advisor to ensure Indian internet traffic stays local (news here). Over time this has come up a few dozen times in my discussion with senior members from the Indian ISP community, individuals, and even latency-sensitive gamers. So I am going to document some of that part here. I am going to put whatever can be verified publically and going to avoid putting any private discussions I had with friends in these respective networks. The data specially traceroutes will have measurement IDs from RIPE Atlas so they can be independently verified by other network engineers.

A friend of mine buzzed me yesterday about his missing route objects. Later multiple other ISPs told the same story which triggered me to put this as a question on INNOG Mailing list. Many folks replied of missing route objects there and it seems to be limited to IRINN members only. I also asked the same question on APNIC mailing list and it was again confirmed about the issue.
Before I proceed further, here’s what it is all about.

Sify is one of really interesting companies. One time pioneer of Indian internet market via chain of cyber cafes. Good old days. Present situation of Sify in consumer market is not significant. Latest earing figures clearly state company is moving towards enterprise segment.

Company is quite aggressive in enterprise segment offerings specially datacenters & corporate leased lines.
Is consumer market really over for Sify or there’s still some hope?

Well, consumer broadband market isn’t really over! Infact this is the main market which is yet to explode in India!