Internet routing problems
At this moment some of my traffic is not working at all, other traffic is fine. Definitely a characteristic of a routing issue. Some traceroute work is showing that the traffic that’s not working has it’s last hop at IP address 152.63.0.130, named “0.so-6-0-0.xl4.iad8.alter.net”. That’s a Verizon IP address (they bought alternet).
Either that router at alternet is not working, or the one it’s attempting to connect to isn’t working. Probably the latter. Or possibly there’s an actual wiring problem. In any case, it’s not being worked around.
The story goes that the internet routes around problems. Like a lot of stories, it’s only partially true. In many cases due to economics, geography, and rights-of-way, there aren’t that many alternative connections to use. Certainly not of the required bandwidth. And depending on router protocols used, the “routing around” part can be more manual than automatic.
The ultimate answer is to use a mesh network. But there are technical problems in making those protocols work well, and idea meshes don’t fit with the population densities and geographical constraints of where network demand is and how cables can be run.