When an L3VPN ping or trace is transmitted, the TTL value on the inner (VPN) label is set to 1 by default. This value causes the TTL to expire on the egress PE of the L3VPN LSP and an echo reply can be sent back to the source. However, in an inter-AS topology, this behavior might result in premature termination of the ping or trace. You can use the bottom-label-ttl keyword to avoid this problem.