Network communication using the Internet Protocol (IP) is a pillar of modern Internet applications. IP allows data packets to travel the world through a complex set of interconnected computer networks managed by different operators. How IP-based data communication changes over time can be interesting from an end-system's perspective without relying on underlying network providers. This article presents an extensive, trace-driven analysis of user data traffic (covering five years of observations, six large Internet service providers (covering research, business and consumer category type), twenty autonomous systems, and fourteen countries. Our three primary findings are: i users data packet transmission paths are not deterministic and does not always select the geographically shortest path; ii) user packets take different routes that cover many countries and detour between two fixed points. Even after changing the types of Internet service provider type (e.g., from commercial to research), the routing can differ significantly between two locations. iii) Packet transmission delay can be influenced by changing the Internet service provider and IP protocol versions (i.e., from IPv4 to IPv6).

翻译：使用互联网协议（IP）进行网络通信是现代互联网应用的基石。IP允许数据包通过由不同运营商管理的复杂互联计算机网络在全球范围内传输。从终端系统的视角出发，不依赖底层网络提供商，观察基于IP的数据通信如何随时间变化具有研究价值。本文对用户数据流量进行了广泛的、基于追踪驱动的分析（涵盖五年的观测数据、六家大型互联网服务提供商（覆盖研究、商业和消费类别）、二十个自治系统以及十四个国家）。我们的三个主要发现是：i) 用户数据包传输路径并非确定性的，且并非总是选择地理上的最短路径；ii) 用户数据包会采取覆盖多国并在两个固定点间绕行的不同路由。即使改变互联网服务提供商的类型（例如从商业型转为研究型），两个位置间的路由仍可能存在显著差异；iii) 数据包传输延迟可能受互联网服务提供商和IP协议版本（即从IPv4到IPv6）变更的影响。