Why Does Your Cross-Border Proxy Always Take Detours?

<p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">People doing </span><a href="https://www.b2proxy.com/use-case/e-commerce" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(9, 109, 217); font-size: 16px;">cross-border business</span></a><span style="font-size: 16px;"> often encounter a confusion: they bought a proxy node in the target country, but why is the access speed still slow? Sometimes accessing a European website from a US West Coast node has higher latency than from a Tokyo node; sometimes within the same country, nodes in different cities perform very differently. The problem is often not the proxy itself, but the actual physical path the data packets take.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The "detour" in cross-border access is not your illusion. The Internet does not have a straight line from Beijing to New York. Data packets must go through submarine cables, routing hops, and autonomous system interconnections to reach the target server. Understanding these links is necessary to choose the right proxy node, rather than just looking at the country label.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><strong>Why Does Cross-Border Access Feel Like a Detour?</strong></span></h2><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Let's look at a common phenomenon: when accessing a US website from China, data packets usually first go to Japan or Hong Kong, then cross the Pacific to the US West Coast, and then may cross the US to the East Coast. The physical distance could obviously be shorter, so why the detour?</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">There are three reasons. First, submarine cable landing points are limited; not every city has a direct cable. Second, routing selection is determined by the BGP protocol, which does not choose the "shortest path" but the "strategically optimal path," involving commercial peering, bandwidth costs, and interconnection relationships. Third, the interconnection quality between different network operators varies greatly; data packets may detour through a congested exchange point simply because the two operators have free peering there.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Therefore, the latency of cross-border access depends not only on geographical distance but also on the cables, routes, and interconnection points the data packets actually traverse.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><strong>Submarine Cables Determine the Physical Path of Cross-Border Traffic</strong></span></h2><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The backbone of the global Internet is submarine cables. Traffic across the Pacific, Atlantic, and Asia-Europe almost all relies on these cables. The layout of cables determines the basic direction of cross-border traffic.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">For example, from Asia to the US, major cable systems include the Pacific Express and Asia-America Gateway, with landing points concentrated in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guam, and the US West Coast. From Asia to Europe, traffic usually goes through Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and then to Europe, or through China, Central Asia, and Russia to Europe. Different cables have different capacities, route lengths, and congestion levels, directly affecting latency.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Cable failures can also cause detours. When a cable breaks, traffic is switched to other cables, possibly taking a longer path. This is why cross-border access sometimes suddenly slows down and recovers a few days later.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">For proxy node selection, cable layout means: nodes located near cable landing points often get shorter international routes. For example, choosing nodes in Japan, Singapore, or the US West Coast is usually faster to access the international backbone than choosing inland city nodes.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><strong>How Does BGP Decide Which Path Data Packets Take?</strong></span></h2><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Data packets travel from your computer to the target server through multiple routers, and each hop is an autonomous system. The BGP protocol is responsible for exchanging routing information between autonomous systems and deciding which path data packets take.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">BGP does not look at geographical distance but at a series of attributes: AS path length, local preference, MED, peering relationships, etc. As a result, data packets may detour through a third country, or even go around the globe, simply because that path is "better" in BGP's view.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">For example, when accessing Asia from Europe, data packets may go through the US because two operators have peering in the US but no direct interconnection locally in Europe. This is a typical "routing detour."</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">If the operator a proxy node connects to has good peering with the target network, data packets can take a shorter, more direct path. Conversely, even if the node is in the target country, if the upstream operator needs to detour through other countries to reach the target, latency will be high.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><strong>Proxy Node Location Does Not Equal Access Speed</strong></span></h2><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Many people only look at the country, or even just the city, when choosing a proxy node. But "node in the target country" does not equal "fast access to the target website." The reason is that the route from the proxy node to the target website may not be ideal.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">A typical example: you choose a proxy node in Frankfurt, Germany, and the target website server is also in Frankfurt. Logically, latency should be low. But if the operator the proxy node connects to has no direct interconnection with the operator where the target website is located, data packets may need to detour to Amsterdam or London and then back to Frankfurt. The actual latency may be higher than accessing from a Paris node.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Therefore, when choosing a proxy node, besides geographical location, you should also look at its upstream network, </span><a href="https://www.b2proxy.com/product/residential-proxies" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(9, 109, 217); font-size: 16px;">ASN attribution</span></a><span style="font-size: 16px;">, and interconnection quality with the target network. This information can usually be evaluated through route tracing and latency testing.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><strong>How to Judge and Choose a Better Proxy Node</strong></span></h2><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">In actual selection, you can judge from the following angles.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">First, do latency testing. Send multiple requests to the target website and record average latency and jitter. Do not test only once, and do not test during peak hours of your local network. It is best to test from the server where the actual business runs.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Second, do route tracing. Use traceroute or mtr tools to observe the number of hops and the latency of each hop. If you find that data packets detour through a third country, or latency suddenly increases at certain hops, it means the route from that node to the target is not ideal.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Third, compare different nodes. For the same target, test with nodes from different countries and cities, and observe differences in latency and success rate. Sometimes, nodes in neighboring countries are faster than nodes in the target country because the route is more direct.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Fourth, pay attention to cables and interconnection points. Prioritize nodes connected to the international backbone and close to cable landing points. If the provider offers ASN targeting or city-level targeting, you can choose network paths more precisely.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Fifth, consider time factors. Congestion on cross-border links is most obvious during the evening peak hours of the target market. If your business requires stable latency, it is recommended to re-test during peak hours to avoid choosing nodes that perform poorly during peak times.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><br></p><h2 style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><strong>Conclusion</strong></span></h2><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Cross-border access detours are essentially the result of physical cables, BGP routing, and commercial interconnection working together. Proxy node selection cannot rely solely on country labels; it also requires looking at the network the node connects to, the route to the target, and actual latency performance.</span></p><p style="line-height: 2;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">For teams that need stable cross-border access, understanding submarine cable layout, routing hop principles, and proxy node selection logic is more valuable than blindly switching nodes. Choose the right node, and data packets take a more direct path, so latency naturally drops. Choose the wrong node, and even if geographically close, data may travel around the globe to arrive.</span></p>