They claim that they store user data on different servers in different jurisdictions so it becomes more difficult for authorities to gain access [1]. Maybe that's true and it has something to do with these DCs that seem to be unused.
DC2 is the first connection point of all MTProto clients.
Any DC may refuse a request and force the client to switch DC.
Profile URL doesn't show where messages/chats/channels are stored, as telegram has two dedicated DCs mostly for media. The rest DCs allow media with bandwidth being throttled.
DC in Miami, explains why Telegram app is snappy fast for me. I notice similar speed improvement with Meta and other big tech apps when I'm on the west coast. I guess latency matters when your app is making tons of requests.
It makes sense: European users are assigned to EU data center, and Chinese to the one closer to them. The "custom code" should not be complicated, just a map of country to DC.
You are suggesting to develop a compicated solution (spend money) when current simple one is working ok without any elections.
idk, they probably tried to get people on DC's as close to their location as possible. Using your phone number's country code might seem like a good way to do this at first, and they probably didn't give it much more thought before building the whole thing on this idea.
They claim that they store user data on different servers in different jurisdictions so it becomes more difficult for authorities to gain access [1]. Maybe that's true and it has something to do with these DCs that seem to be unused.
[1] - https://telegram.org/privacy
DC2 is the first connection point of all MTProto clients.
Any DC may refuse a request and force the client to switch DC.
Profile URL doesn't show where messages/chats/channels are stored, as telegram has two dedicated DCs mostly for media. The rest DCs allow media with bandwidth being throttled.
DC in Miami, explains why Telegram app is snappy fast for me. I notice similar speed improvement with Meta and other big tech apps when I'm on the west coast. I guess latency matters when your app is making tons of requests.
This strikes me as a huge amount of custom code and technical debt. Every new software dev probably has to learn this.
Why not a sticky master election per user, and have no special data centers?
It makes sense: European users are assigned to EU data center, and Chinese to the one closer to them. The "custom code" should not be complicated, just a map of country to DC.
You are suggesting to develop a compicated solution (spend money) when current simple one is working ok without any elections.
From what I have read, they only have ~30 employees. They're not exactly onboarding a lot of new people here.
I'm on DC5 since I lived in Korea when signing up, but I cannot say I've noticed many outages.
https://archive.is/VHlJH
More mysteries of Telegram Data Centres: https://istories.media/en/stories/2025/06/10/telegram-fsb/
(and a follow-up: https://istories.media/en/news/2025/06/10/telegram-responds-... )
i'm far from an authority on content delivery or whatever, but the first thing I thought of was what a bizarre way to setup your infrastructure!
idk, they probably tried to get people on DC's as close to their location as possible. Using your phone number's country code might seem like a good way to do this at first, and they probably didn't give it much more thought before building the whole thing on this idea.
something smells suspicious about this kind of data routing