Toronto location hunting for US-Canada border latency

olespete

Member OP

Trust No One

Joined:: Jun 2024
Posts:: 270
From:: Unknown

7mo ago · edited

4 #1

Need VPS that pings sweet for both US and CAN users. Contabo has New York, OVHcloud has Beauharnois. Which one wins for cross-border? Also what about Montreal from Vultr—anyone tested?

My threat model: DDoS from either side, BGP hijacks, the usual. Running WireGuard mesh so every ms counts. Already fail2ban + nftables everywhere but latency is my last weak point!

What could go wrong: Beauharnois gets congested to NYC, New York peers weird with Cogent, Montreal has better path to Chicago but worse to Seattle.

Tested from my end but only three samples. Need more data before I commit credit card (privacy coin only, obviously).

Anyone got mtr from multiple border cities?

airgapped, encrypted, faraday'd, still worried

carlos2

Member

Joined:: Jun 2024
Posts:: 158
From:: Medellín, CO

7mo ago · edited

#2

OVHcloud says "soon" for two years now

Buffalo = US jurisdiction anyway so why bother with "cross-border" fiction

not your keys, not your coins

Sven3

Member

Stockholm

Joined:: Nov 2024
Posts:: 35
From:: Stockholm, Sweden

7mo ago · edited

#3

Or you could just pick one city and accept that the internet does not care about your feelings, how do you say

Obviously Montreal is worse, clearly everyone knows this /s

No wait, actually test results show it wins, which is obviously the expected outcome /s

@olespete your threat model includes "BGP hijacks" but you post traceroutes in public forums. Brilliant.

techmei

Member

Joined:: Jun 2024
Posts:: 110
From:: Taipei, Taiwan

7mo ago · edited

1 #4

I test from three place, result will surprise

$ mtr -r -c 100 vultr.com
$ mtr -r -c 100 contabo.com
$ mtr -r -c 100 ovhcloud.com

Montreal WIN. Beauharnois okay. Buffalo LOSE.

My two server in montreal now. Latency to chicago GOOD, to new york GOOD, to vancouver DECENT.

Ping -c 10 target # always use code block XD

moebig

Member

RAID is not backup

Joined:: Jul 2024
Posts:: 115
From:: Casablanca, Morocco

7mo ago · edited

#5

Yo techmei

The server in Montreal is sweet, incha'allah uptime 99.99 %

I ran tests too : ping from Detroit, 18 ms Montreal ; 31 ms Toronto ; 44 ms Buffalo. The path to Montreal is more direct, less congested. French punctuation spacing helps nothing here but it is what it is.

@carlos2 Vultr takes XMR now, I verified last week.

RAID 1: because paranoia pays

Craig

Member

scheduled pessimist

Joined:: Jul 2024
Posts:: 33
From:: Dublin, Ireland

7mo ago · edited

#6

Montreal makes sense if you think about it—the fiber routes through—actually no, Buffalo should win on pure geography—but then you check actual paths and—Hostinger had a Buffalo node that routed through Phoenix somehow—which is just—anyone remember KnownHost's Amsterdam launch? They advertised "low latency" but—performed worse than their Dallas location for me—never trust advertised PoP—

Anyway my numbers: Montreal 22ms avg, Toronto 28ms, Buffalo 35ms. Sample size small though—need to run longer test—distracted by—does anyone else see weird routing to HostHatch lately—https://hosthatch.com

pieter_rtm

Member

Joined:: Jul 2024
Posts:: 195
From:: Rotterdam, NL

7mo ago · edited

3 #7

- Montreal: 18-24 ms to NYC, Chicago, Toronto, Boston
- Toronto: 26-34 ms to same set
- Buffalo: 32-48 ms, asymmetric return path common

As said, geography != routing. Montreal benefits from older peering agreements and less congested exchanges.

OVHcloud will add Montreal Q1 2027. No XMR yet. Best latency currently: our Newark location, 12 ms to NYC, 34 ms to Toronto.

Bullet list for specs:
- 1 vCPU / 512 MB / 10 GB
- 1 TB transfer
- $3.50/month

Dry humor: at least we are honest about Buffalo being mediocre.

Containers before it was cool

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