ESNO Eastern Sierra Network Observatory

About

About the Eastern Sierra Network Observatory

Who is behind this site, how the measurements work, and what they can and cannot tell you.

The initiative

The Eastern Sierra Network Observatory (ESNO) is an independent initiative that measures the reliability of Internet connectivity in Inyo County, Mono County and the High Desert, California, and makes the results public.

Its purpose is to give residents, local agencies and network operators a shared, factual picture of how the region's networks perform: what is working now, what failed, and how often.

Organization. ESNO is not yet incorporated. It is being organized as a nonprofit and is not affiliated with any Internet provider, equipment vendor or government agency.

How the measurements work

ESNO combines two independent views of each network.

The view from outside: routing

Internet providers announce the addresses they serve to every other network. Research projects operated by the RIPE NCC and the University of Oregon collect those announcements from hundreds of vantage points worldwide and publish them. ESNO follows the announcements for the networks that serve the region. If a provider's regional addresses stop being announced, or are seen by far fewer vantage points than usual, that network has become hard or impossible to reach.

The view from inside: test points

RIPE Atlas is a global measurement network of small devices, called probes, hosted by volunteers. The status page calls them test points. Those located in the region report whether they are online and how long it takes them to reach well-known Internet services. When several in one area go offline together, or delay rises sharply, something has changed locally.

Deciding a status

  • Operating normally: no problem is visible in routing or in measurements.
  • Degraded: reachability is reduced, a provider has lost one of its upstream connections, or a serious signal has not yet been confirmed by a second source.
  • Outage: a network or area appears to be down, and a second independent signal agrees.
  • No data: there are no current measurements. The site does not assume things are fine.

Related problems are grouped into incidents, each with a type, the areas and providers involved, a start time and an end time.

What is published, and what is not

Published

  • Status of each provider and area
  • Share of a provider's regional address space that is reachable
  • Number of test points online, and response time
  • Seven days of status history
  • Incidents: type, area, providers, start and end

Never published

  • Security weaknesses found in any network
  • Individual addresses, routes or device details
  • The identity or address of any test point or its host
  • Details of shared infrastructure that could aid misuse

Responsible reporting to operators

Watching routing data sometimes reveals configuration problems that could put a network at risk. ESNO reports these privately to the operator concerned, with the evidence, and allows 90 days for a fix before saying anything in public. After that, only overall improvements are described.

Limits you should know

  • The site sees networks, not households. It cannot tell whether your own connection is working.
  • A normal status does not guarantee that every customer of a provider has service.
  • Coverage inside the region depends on how many test points are hosted there. Some areas and providers have few or none yet.
  • Measurements are automated and best effort. Short events can be missed and times are approximate.
  • For your own service, check your provider's outage information. In an emergency, call 911.

Using the data

The current status is also published as a machine-readable file that is refreshed with the page. You are welcome to use it for situational awareness, reporting and research. Please credit the Eastern Sierra Network Observatory and note the time of the data.

The measurements rest on public infrastructure run by others. ESNO is grateful to the RIPE NCC, the University of Oregon RouteViews project, CAIDA, and the volunteers who host RIPE Atlas probes. The full list of sources is at the foot of every page.

This website

This site sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising. It loads nothing from third parties. It is hosted on GitHub Pages, which, like any web host, records basic request logs.

Contact

Questions, corrections, and offers to host a probe are welcome: info@esnodata.org