[Starlink] Re: Multiday connectivity issues in Kenya.

[Jianping Pan <pan@uvic.ca>]

yes, a common mismatch between sat-based access networks and ground-centric cdn, as reported in https://www.arxiv.org/pdf/2510.13710 as well

Hi Ben: can you figure out your pop (likely nairobi) and service points of problematic websites through their dns providers (i.e., the actual location of servers fulfilling your dns, http and https requests) using the techniques reported in the above paper, or host a vm for me to figure it out for you? we did observe oscillating behaviors for kenya users before with service points jumping around in mombasa and johannesburg. hope it helps. cheers.  -j
--
J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan

________________________________________
From: Inemesit Affia via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2026 12:52 AM
To: Ben Eastvold; Dave Taht via Starlink
Subject: [Starlink] Re: Multiday connectivity issues in Kenya.

Thanks for your insight Ben.

I believe a VPN may help your users (has its own issues).

One of the issues with diagnosing these issues generally is a lack of an eye from the inside. Running an RIPE Atlas and/or Globalping probe would help.

Of course SpaceX staff would have better tools.

Ciao

Jul 13, 2026 8:30:30 AM Ben Eastvold via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>:

> Confirming this from Nakuru County, Kenya, with data. I run a residential
> technology training program on Starlink (sole connectivity, ~20 students),
> and we have had this exact issue for 5+ days, surviving a dish firmware
> update (~July 8) and full power cycles of dish and router.
>
> Symptoms: specific destination prefixes are blackholed or unstable while
> everything else performs excellently (100+ Mbps down, ~23ms latency).
> Affected destinations include Fastly and Akamai ranges, including
> https://www.google.com/url?q=http://starlink.com&source=gmail&ust=1784012243268000&sa=E
> itself. The affected set shifts over time -- sites work for a period, then
> fail.
>
> TCP connect tests (curl, port 443), same terminal, same minute, against
> https://www.google.com/url?q=http://bbc.com&source=gmail&ust=1784012243268000&sa=E's
> four published Fastly addresses:
>
> 151.101.0.81 -- TIMEOUT, no TCP handshake (8s)
> 151.101.64.81 -- TIMEOUT, no TCP handshake (8s)
> 151.101.128.81 -- connected 0.28s, HTTP 301
> 151.101.192.81 -- connected 0.30s, HTTP 301
>
> Minutes later, all four of
> https://www.google.com/url?q=http://starlink.com&source=gmail&ust=1784012243268000&sa=E's
> addresses (151.101.1.143, 151.101.65.143, 151.101.129.143, 151.101.193.143)
> timed out with no handshake -- including addresses in the same ranges that
> had just worked for
> https://www.google.com/url?q=http://bbc.com&source=gmail&ust=1784012243268000&sa=E.
> The reachable prefix set is moving under our feet, which reads as route
> instability rather than a static misroute.
>
> Akamai similarly affected:
> https://www.google.com/url?q=http://ichef.bbci.co.uk&source=gmail&ust=1784012243268000&sa=E
> (23.56.162.175) fails TCP entirely, so BBC pages currently render text
> without images.
>
> Traceroutes: local hops (terminal -> 100.64.0.1 -> SpaceX 206.224.x) are
> consistently healthy at 20-30ms. Traffic then enters Liquid Telecom and
> takes inconsistent paths to the same destination set -- some traces via
> Johannesburg (lza-p2-tdn, lza-p3-jhb hops), one via Marseille
> (lfr-p1/p2-mrs), with latency spiking 80-265ms and heavy loss beyond hop 7.
> A trace toward the Akamai destination exits via a different upstream (
> https://www.google.com/url?q=http://twelve99.net/Arelion&source=gmail&ust=1784012243268000&sa=E)
> and dies similarly, so this spans multiple transit paths out of the Kenya
> gateway, not a single peer.
>
> Full timestamped traceroute and curl output available if useful, and I can
> run tests on demand from this terminal. Ticket filed with Starlink support
> (maintained via workaround, since their portal is unreachable from the
> affected connection).
>
> Ben Eastvold
> GLAD Technology, Nakuru County, Kenya
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