Google.com now local…for some

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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It is common knowledge, for some time already, that Google has set up Google Global Cache (GGC) servers in South Africa.  According to one source Google currently have numerous sets of GGC servers in South Africa, which includes servers on the Internet Solutions, TENET, Vodacom Business and SAIX/Telkom networks.

To date calls to Google.com/Google.co.za were typically routed to international servers first, but some Internet users have now started to report that they are seeing local pings when accessing Google.com and Google.co.za.

Well known tech journalist Simon Dingle posted in his Twitter feed that ‘Pings to Google.com are local this morning! 11 – 13ms on ADSL” (screenshot here).  Other ADSL users confirmed Dingle’s observation.

Some users with only local access (hence local bandwidth only) have gone so far as to change their host file DNS (196.23.168.147) to ensure that they always make use of the locally hosted Google servers. 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that ADSL users making use of Internet Solutions’ network are accessing a locally hosted Google.co.za website.  This makes sense as Internet Solutions is one of the South African service providers with locally hosted Google Global Cache servers on its network.

According to Sean Nourse, Executive for Connectivity at Internet Solutions, they do get some of the Google content locally but it changes constantly as the Google engine decides how and from where this content is served.

Google South Africa would not elaborate on the local Google.com/Google.co.za access reported by some users, merely saying that they always try to ensure the best possible performance of Google services for users in local regions.

“Like many internet companies, Google has network presence in many countries around the world, including in South Africa, to try and ensure the best possible performance of Google services for users in local regions,” said Google South Africa spokesperson Julie Taylor.

“Search, YouTube, Gmail and Google’s other services are however hosted on Google’s global infrastructure, which can be delivered from multiple locations around the world, and we don’t have any changes to announce at this time. We work hard to provide the best possible experience for users, whatever ISP they use, and wherever they are in the world.”

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