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Re: Myanmar Internet turned off

  • From: Marshall Eubanks
  • Date: Wed Oct 03 22:57:57 2007

Here is my BGP analysis, based on the data archived as part of

http://www.multicasttech.com/status/

I know of only one fiber landing station in Burma, in Pyapon with service from SEA-ME-WE 3 :
http://www.sintelsat.com/fibernetworks/SEAMEWE3.html . There has been discussion in Bangladesh with installing fiber to link their landing station in Cox's Bazar with Pyapon, but I don't think that that is there yet. I believe that there is also only one satellite landing station.

Here is some technical info. AFAIK there are 2 autonomous systems in Burma :

9988 MPT-AP [DS72-AP] {43, Boaung, Yangon, Myanma, MM} Myanma Post and Telecommunication
18399 BAGAN-TRANSIT-AS [KS220-AP] {Union of Myanamr, MM} Bagan Cybertech IDC & Teleport International Transit

I dump and archive all BGP data here every 6 hours, so I can go back into the past.

Before September 27, 2007, these ASN reached me via the following AS paths

 AS   9988  MPT-AP              as path   174  3491  9304  9988
 AS  18399  BAGAN-TRANSIT-AS    as path   174  2914  9988 18399

That is to say

Cogent <-> CAIS <-> Hutchison Telecom (HK) <-> MPT-AP
Cogent <-> CAIS <-> MPT-AP <-> BAGAN-TRANSIT-AS

(Note that CAIS has more than one autonomous system number.)

Both of these BGP announcements were shut off between

Sep_27_18:07:00_EDT_2007

and

Sep_28_00:07:00_EDT_2007

and have mostly remained off since.

At 0600 EDT for 2 of the days since, there has been different announcement from 18399

AS 18399 BAGAN-TRANSIT-AS as path 174 3549 9731 18399

that is

Cogent <-> Global Crossing <-> STTP-AS-SG-AP <-> BAGAN-TRANSIT-AS

where STTP-AS-SG-AP is ST Teleport Pte Ltd - Multihomed and Transit AS - Internet via Satellite Service Provider,
2B/2C Ayer Rajah Crescent, Singapore 139937.

I saw these on

Sep_28_06:07:00_EDT_2007
Oct_1_06:07:00_EDT_2007

and not since. I would guess this was a satellite link.

On

Oct_1_18:07:00_EDT_2007 only I saw

AS 9988 MPT-AP as path 174 3491 9304 9988

which is to say the original path.

Given the 6 hour sampling, I have to assume that there have been other short term re-appearances of routes to Burma.
Whether this is due to internal struggles, accidents, or urgent needs for data transfer I cannot say.

Regards
Marshall

On Oct 3, 2007, at 9:56 PM, Steve Gibbard wrote:


There have been several news stories today about Myanmar's government turning off the country's Internet connectivity to suppress news coming out of the country (for instance: http:// www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/world/asia/04info.html?ref=world). Doing some poking at it earlier today, here's what I found:

The .MM top level domain has disappeared.  It's served by three name
servers:
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
mm.                     172800  IN      NS      NS-MM.RIPE.NET.
mm.                     172800  IN      NS      NS.NET.mm.
mm.                     172800  IN      NS      NS0.MPT.NET.mm.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
NS.NET.mm.              172800  IN      A       202.153.125.17
NS0.MPT.NET.mm.         172800  IN      A       203.81.64.20
NS-MM.RIPE.NET.         172800  IN      A       193.0.12.151

ns0.mpt.net.mm is in Myanmar, part of the network of Myanma Post & Telecommunication. It's unreachable.

ns.net.mm is in address space registered to Powerbase DataCenter Services (HK) Ltd. in Hong Kong. It's also unreachable, which makes it difficult to confirm whether its physical location matches its registered location. It may also be in Myanmar.

ns-mm.ripe.net is in Amsterdam. It's reachable, but is responding to all queries with a SERVFAIL response. Presumably, this means it hasn't been able to get updates from a master server for the .MM domain for long enough that its data has expired.

Looking at the rest of Myanmar's connectivity to the outside world, Myanma Post & Telecommunication has two IP address blocks registered to it: 203.81.64.0/19 and 203.81.160.0/20. Both of those blocks were in the global Internet routing table on September 27, but but have not been since September 28 (according to daily snapshots of route-views data). It's pretty safe to say that Myanma Post & Telecommunication has completely turned off its connection to the outside world. This is no doubt following the example set by the King of Nepal during the coup there a couple years ago.

The New York Times story says there are two ISPs in Myanmar. Myanma Post & Telecommunication is the only one with IP addresses registered to a mailing address within the country, so I'm not sure who the other one is, or what its status is.

-Steve