Islands face unique challenges in Internet connectivity due to their geographic isolation, geopolitical factors, and economic limitations. In this study, we present the first analysis of the Internet performance on the major Mediterranean islands, focusing on latency and traversed paths. By systematically comparing measurements from insular and mainland regions, we show that insular Internet connections exhibit higher latency and follow routing paths that are longer, more circuitous, and traverse sets of autonomous systems with different characteristics. We believe our results highlight performance gaps and can contribute to a better understanding of the Internet characteristics and limitations of insular regions.

Open Research

Data Availability Statement

The measurements used in this study are publicly available at the RIPE Atlas website. The latency dataset is based on the results collected by Atlas in the 14-21 February 2022 week. The measurements specifically created for this work, namely the traceroutes, can be selected with the tags “insularity,” “continental,” “unipi,” “iit-cnr.” All the datasets used for the enrichment are open.

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Volume8, Issue5

September/October 2025

e70084

The Cost of Insularity on Network Latency: A Case Study in the Mediterranean

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The Cost of Insularity on Network Latency: A Case Study in the Mediterranean

ABSTRACT

Open Research

Data Availability Statement

References

References

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