Best DNS setting to be used with BSNL broadband connection in India.

I have been using BSNL Dataone connection for over 4 years. After couple of months I noticed that some of the sites were not available because the BNSL DNS server was not resolving them (especially torrent site). By a simple change in the router, I moved to OpenDNS and have been happy ever since.

However recently, I have started using CDN (Content Delivery Network) using AWS Cloudfront for my new shopping solution for schools and parents. On doing a trace-route, I noticed that my CDN network was getting resolved in Europe or Seattle. This was sad as AWS has data centers in Singapore and Hong-Kong which would be much closer to India that US or western Europe. I contemplated on moving back to BSNL DNS as the location of the server is crucial in resolving the CDN.

That is when I discovered about Google Public DNS. I was sure Google DNS would be fast in resolving the DNS query due to their distributed architecture but would it be able to help me with the CDN as it also had a gloabl IP address.

So I did a show down between the 3 DNS servers
  • OpenDNS server (208.67.220.220)
  • Google DNS Sever (8.8.8.8)
  • BSNL DNS server (61.1.96.69)

First test was just to see the round trip time (RTT) for each of these servers.
  • OpenDNS:     tracert 208.67.220.220 
    •  Hops
  • Google DNS:  tracert 8.8.8.8     
    • Hops: 8 hops, 
    • RTT: Max 116ms  
  • BSNL DNS:   tracert 61.1.96.69
    • Hops: 4 hops, 
    • RTT: Max 75ms
There was no surprise that BNSL DNS server had fastest RTT but what surprised me was that Google routed the packets from VSNL Mumbai directly into its own network and had a significantly low RTT. I suspect that these servers are actually in India or some other Asian country as I doubt I would get this kind of RTT if the packet traveled half way round the world to US.

Then I did a resolution for my CDN server for each of these:

  • OpenDNS:     nslookup -debug img.koolskool.info 208.67.220.220 
    •  Resolved IP Address: 216.137.63.25, 216.137.63.86, 216.137.63.107, etc
  • Google DNS:  nslookup -debug img.koolskool.info tracert 8.8.8.8     
    • Resolved IP Address:  204.246.165.173, 204.246.165.37, 204.246.165.28, etc
  • BSNL DNS:   nslookup -debug img.koolskool.info tracert 61.1.96.69
    • Resolved IP Address: 204.246.165.198, 204.246.165.55, 204.246.165.137, etc

I did not have any measurement method but I found BSNL server taking more time in resolving the IP server including a 2 second timeout. Both OpenDNS and Google Public DNS were much faster.

Another thing to note was that both Google DNS and BSNL DNS got the servers on the same network while OpenDNS seem to have another network.

But now when I tried to do a IP location lookup the only resolution I got for these were to the ISP which was Amazon, Seattle, Washington, US. I was still not sure where these servers were actaually located in the world.

So the final test was yet another trace-route to see if I could get the location where the resolved CDN was.
  • OpenDNS:     tracert 216.137.63.25
    • Hop = 17
    • RTT = 277 ms
    • Second Last server: AMAZON.COM.car2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.193.2]
  • Google DNS:  tracert 204.246.165.173     
    • Hop = 16
    • RTT = 177 ms
    • Second Last server: 203.83.223.85 [Japan - Amazon tech telecom]
  • BSNL DNS:  tracert 204.246.165.198
    • Hop = 16
    • RTT = 182 ms
    • Second Last server: 203.83.223.85 [Japan - Amazon tech telecom]
In this test it was clear that the Google DNS did a better job being able to resolve to a Asian server just like the local ISP DNS server. (However it was a revelation to me that that data was being served out of Japan.) But OpenDNS did a much worse job as it would resolve to London servers.

In conclusion, it was best to use Google Public DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) for BSNL broadband. I do not have Airtel broadband but I am fairly sure the concusions will be simillar.

Comments

Maninder Singh said…
from my pc
for bsnl dns time is 30ms
while for google dns it is 78ms
so i think bsnl is better.
January 23, 2013 at 1:51 PM
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