DSL Slow

**cryingvalor** · 02-27-2007, 01:18 AM

- hey guys our DSL speed is nearly about 1000KBPs which according to our ISP is only good for 1 computer

but still i connect it to our network with 16 units for internet sharing 2 of them are servers used for downloading and the rest are just for web browsing (they are under a ACL) and so far there is no problem with the speed and we have been using it for how many months now. Then lately our internet speed went slow so i called our ISP and they were amazed why i used our 1000KBPs for 16 computers. Then they said that internet speed can be slow if its connected to the network and even if only 1 computer is using the internet

.
- can i have your inputs here guys....

**JamesO** · 02-27-2007, 07:47 AM

DSL speed is a function of 2 things:

1. The wire distance or signal loss between your facility and the telephone company switching office. If the signal loss is not a problem, make sure the DSL provider has the circuit configured for Fast Path and not Interleaved.

2. What level of service you are paying for. Many times you pay for a higher data rate service, however, you cannot get the speeds you are paying for due to either wire distance/signal loss or problems with inside house wiring. There a data rate limits with DSL that are directly related to the signal loss between your facility and the telephone switching office.

As for the number of computers you can connect to a DSL line or cable modem service, could be as many as you want, BUT, if all machines have users and or are passing traffic to the Internet, the overall connection will quickly become overwhelmed and no machine will have good Internet response.

The limiting factor of most Internet connections is the upload speed. Once the upload capacity is to about 75% of the expected speed, it will impact your download speed, even if you are at less than 50% of your download speed. TSF does not support torrent or P2P activity, but if you are running any of these programs, it will most likely kill your Internet connection performance as well.

The other issue is you need to check your DSL TOS (Terms Of Service) if you plan on running any sort of web server. Web servers are typically against the TOS for most residential ISP accounts.

The really simple way to solve your problem is to disconnect or turn off all but 1 machine that is not running any Web services or P2P programs and see if your Internet speed increases and performs the way you expect it to. If it does, you have no problems.

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 02-28-2007, 12:23 AM

-yesterday i connect our DSL to 1 computer only but the problem is the same. i even measure the speed of our DSL using the 2 websites our ISP given me. So i called our ISP and tell them that its the same problem and told me that a technician will be sent today. today i test again our speed from an XP2 unit and wind03 server and both have different reading. in the win03 shows a medium speed but in the XP2 it shows slow speed in the upload and 0 speed in the download which makes me more confuse. Then the technician arrived did a little ip check a little changes. and here are his analysis:
1. he first check the DSL speed in the win03 by viewing the activity of bytes sent & received in the general tab of the local area network status. byte bytes sent is about 5thousand and bytes received is about 70 thousand and in his conclusion it should be that high and said that it is cause by virus or a trojan. in which in my mind doubt because the win03 unit was just recently formatted and when he arrived i downloaded a 35 MB file in that unit to check the DSL download speed so ofcourse the received bytes are high. then he check the same website i used to the DSL speed and the result was the same as mine.
2. he questions our straight tru cable because it didnt follow the T568A/B color coding standard in which for me it should not be the problem because as long as the transmit/recieved wires are in order and was tested good using a cable tester there should no prolem at all plus the cable has been used for how many months now.
3. he check the XP2 unit and did the same thing he did in the win03 unit. he check the activity in the local area network status and showed 5 Thousand byes sent and 6 Thousand received and told me that, that is the normal setup and the unit is in good shape and is trojan/virus free. in which in my mind i doubt because the unit was just restarted so obviously the bytes sent and recieved was restarted. then he check the DSL speed using the websites that he used in the XP2 and the result is same with mine. then i aske him why is the meter showing 0 in the upload but can measure the download. and he told me that there is a problem with the installation of the flash player(the website is made out of flash) in which i doubt because i have been using perfectly yesterday.
- then i ask him why is that the reading is different from the XP2 and win03. then he talks again about the trojan/virus and sent and received bytes that he told me earlier. then i told him of my opinions and told me that he is a technician and he has been troubleshooting before, so its like that he is saying that i should not questions his troubleshooting skills.
- so i made an agreement with him that i will reformat both the XP and win03 and test the speed again and if its the same problem i will call him and he will come over and troubleshoot again along with his laptop and to see if the problem is my configurations.
- so now i am reformatting both the units.
- can i have ur inputs here guys

**JamesO** · 02-28-2007, 05:14 AM

First, I would not touch your machines yet.

The cable in question that did not match the color code could be in question? It is not the colors that is important, it is the wiring pairing that is importing. The problem is few cable testers can verify actual pairs. This is a very easy and cheap change at this point.

Who is your DSL provider?
What make and modem DSL modem do you have?
Did the DSL tech have a computer to test with?
What speeds are you getting to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest? Use the nearest physical site to your location.
Do you have microfilters on all phone devices?
Do you have any hum on your phone line when you make a call?
Do you have DirecTV in your house?
What are your ping times to the first hop that responds to a ping?

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-01-2007, 06:39 AM

Quote:

Who is your DSL provider?

- well actually im in Asia.

Quote:

What make and modem DSL modem do you have?

- well the model of the modem is ZTE, which according to our ISP its brand new.

Quote:

What speeds are you getting to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest? Use the nearest physical site to your location.

- our ISP told me to use www.speedtest.net in which the results are low. sometimes the results are high but the download speed is like a dial-up connection.

Quote:

Do you have microfilters on all phone devices?
Do you have any hum on your phone line when you make a call?

- well im not sure about our ISP but our ISP doesnt provide telephone line services just internet services.

Quote:

What are your ping times to the first hop that responds to a ping?

- sory i cant anwser this because our DSL connection is down.

**JamesO** · 03-01-2007, 06:56 AM

Ask your DSL provider to verify with you the data rate which you are paying for.

Also ask them to confirm and provide you with the signal levels for your DSL modem. Also inquire if you are configured to Fast Path or Interleave.

Unless you have a dedicated telephone drop for your DSL service, most DSL services are provided over the same phone line you use for voice whether or not the DSL provider has anything to do with your current voice service. If you do not have a dedicated phone drop for your DSL service, you will need some sort of filter network or microfilters at each phone set. If you have any sort of satellite TV service which the satellite receiver has a phone line in, this is typically the biggest source of problems I run into. Folks forget to filter the phone drop for the satellite receiver.

Assuming you do not have a dedicate phone drop for the DSL service (or if you are unsure), try this trick, run a speed test, to any site and note the speeds while the telephone is not in use. Then make a phone call and while on the telephone rerun the previous speed test and see if the result change. If they change for the better, you have phone line issue with noise on the line and or lack of proper filtering.

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-01-2007, 07:11 AM

- its confirmed our ISP is not a phone company they only provide internet connection services
- what do you mean by:

Quote:

Fast Path or Interleave

and

Quote:

signal levels for your DSL modem

**JamesO** · 03-01-2007, 07:31 AM

Yes, but does is the DSL service provided over the same voice pair as your phone service?? DSL uses phone lines. The question is do you have a dedicated phone pair for your DSL drop?

Try the test with and without the a phone call in progress.

Fast Path and Interleave is a configuration the DSL/ISP provider can make to the DSL signaling. Interleave is used when signal levels are questionable. Fast Path is used when signal levels are good and gives you greater speeds.

Some modems provide signal level information for the DSL signals. Sometimes and end user can monitor them, but almost always the DSL provider can query them. If the signal levels are out of range, this can lead to bad DSL performance.

Again, run a speed test with the phone hung up and then while on the phone to see what happens.

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-01-2007, 07:53 AM

- well yes, but with our ISP they provided us with 1 dedicated phone pair which is directly connected to our modem, like i said they dont provide phone services. our phone system is provided by a different company.
- when do ISP normally implement interleave. if our connection is slow does this mean we are using interleave and if so can i ask the ISP's to switch to fast path.
- what normally is the range of these DSL signal to know if its in good range.

**JamesO** · 03-01-2007, 09:23 AM

Signal levels are typically listed in dB of loss. Acceptable levels may be much different here in the US than other parts of the world as some telcos/DSL providers use different standards.

I would suggest you contact your DSL service provider and ask them to perform a DSL line check and look at the configuration and the signal levels.

As I originally stated, you my not have a problem! What speeds are you paying for??

If you are getting the speeds you are paying for, then you need to purchase a higher data rate.

If you are not getting the speeds you are paying for, put it back on the DSL provider, open a trouble ticket and have them fix the problem.

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-01-2007, 04:39 PM

Quote:

As I originally stated, you my not have a problem! What speeds are you paying for??

- we are paying for 1MB DSL connection its suppose to be fast enough but the highest download rate that i experienced was 30kbps and the lowest is 6kbps. our neighboring office who is paying for a 768kbps DSL have a download rate of 70kbps.
thats also one of the reasons that i think there is a problem.
- ive been calling our ISP regularly but they always say that "ok sir will check it".

**JamesO** · 03-01-2007, 04:57 PM

Run a trace route to google or yahoo and post the info back here.

We need to see if there are hops with a lot of latency or errors.

You are in Asia, where?

What speed test sites are you using? Where are the servers located?

Keep in mind if you try to get content from North America on a regular basis, it will be slow as you are half way round the world and the network latency will kill transfers.

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-01-2007, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Run a trace route to google or yahoo and post the info back here.

- here it is.

Quote:

Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
(C) Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>tracert google.com

Tracing route to google.com [64.233.187.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms [172.16.0.1]
2 24 ms 17 ms * 210.4.33.4
3 20 ms 23 ms * 202.78.97.157
4 21 ms 35 ms * gi01.gw4.rsv.bti.net.ph [202.78.97.209]
5 27 ms 26 ms * global.hgc.com.hk [218.189.12.17]
6 220 ms 225 ms 217 ms global.hgc.com.hk [218.189.8.62]
7 231 ms 219 ms 230 ms 64.213.33.117
8 * 316 ms 414 ms 72.14.197.153
9 242 ms 231 ms 232 ms 209.85.130.6
10 280 ms 273 ms 263 ms 66.249.95.212
11 278 ms 271 ms 265 ms 72.14.239.23
12 292 ms 294 ms 267 ms 216.239.49.226
13 275 ms 264 ms 269 ms jc-in-f99.google.com [64.233.187.99]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

Quote:

You are in Asia, where?

- Philippines

Quote:

What speed test sites are you using? Where are the servers located?

- Our ISP told me to use this www.speedtest.net its also the same site they used to test our connection in their office. and according to them the speed is 1MB and the lowest that they measure is 700Kbps. but in our office it it varies from 45 kbps to 900 kbps. and the download speed varies from 30kbps to 6kbps.

Vash2000 · 03-02-2007, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cryingvalor

- we are paying for 1MB DSL connection its suppose to be fast enough but the highest download rate that i experienced was 30kbps and the lowest is 6kbps. our neighboring office who is paying for a 768kbps DSL have a download rate of 70kbps.
thats also one of the reasons that i think there is a problem.
- ive been calling our ISP regularly but they always say that "ok sir will check it".

Lol!!! sorry but wow, I would change to cable if I were you.

**JamesO** · 03-02-2007, 03:26 PM

I did not spend a lot of time researching this, but the 250 ms latency in the network hop is probably what is killing your ISP performance?

If the ISP had a speed test server within their network boundary, this would allow for a proper speed test both inside the ISP network and beyond the network.

It is not clear if this 250 ms delay is a transport delay or a congestion delay??

Hop # 8 appears to be even worse.

With this kind of latency you will get substandard performance.

It is quite possible that the ISP is giving you the correct data rates on the DSL link between your facility and the DSLAM. The DSL provider should be able to confirm this by review the modem stats. Then the problem is there a way the DSL provider can clear up the 250+ ms latency.

It is possible that this is a cut rate provider that does in fact oversubscribe their network and use cheaper and more congested backbone links?

I do not know the ISP's it your area of the world so I cannot really comment?

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-02-2007, 07:28 PM

- what should be the normal latency and the abnormal latency?

**JamesO** · 03-02-2007, 08:05 PM

250 ms is 1/4 of a second or about equal to data traveling about 7500 miles on fiber as I recall?

If you are sending data across town and there is 250 ms of latency, data is being held in an interface buffer due to network congestion, high error rate or some other problem.

It is possible there are some forms of wireless networks connecting these locations as well , possibly even satellite, but the 250 ms would be really cutting it close for as satellite link. I would expect to see even higher times, 400+ ms, if a satellite link was involve, but it also depends on how the network topology is configured.

You really want to see numbers under 100 ms for most things. Under 50 ms would be nice, but again, where you are located you may see higher network latency numbers depending on what sites you frequent and where they are physically located. Caching can also reduce network transit times as well.

From my location to the TSF server, I have about 30 ms of network latency. But I am also spoiled as I am less than 4 miles from where about 50% of the worlds Internet traffic passes, so I also have a lot of content located very close to me geographically.

This might be some good reading?

http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/Latency.html

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-02-2007, 08:38 PM

-ok thanks
- 1 quick question. i tried to download a file 35 mb using our dsl and it took 30 minutes. i connected to our neighbors dsl and downloaded the same file and it took about 9 minutes. and yet they are paying for a 768kbps DSL on a different ISP. is this a ISP issue?

**JamesO** · 03-03-2007, 05:34 AM

As I see it, at least from the 1 trace route, it may be an ISP issue. If the 250 ms plus times are in the same tracert on a full time basis, then the ISP has issues.

Either they know well about this issue and they are designing down to a price and not up to a level of performance, or their technical staff is totally clueless.

If your ISP is a cut rate provider, compared to your neighbors provider, then I think you have your answer.

JamesO

**cryingvalor** · 03-03-2007, 08:47 AM

-ok
-1 last question, if the ISP is clueless is there a way for users to monitor/check/troubleshoot there DSL connection which could become a proof of good or bad connection that can be given to the ISP.

02-27-2007, 01:18 AM	#1 (permalink)
cryingvalor TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 510 OS: XP2,WIN03,UBUNTU,CentOS,Bayanihan,FEDORA 8	DSL Slow - hey guys our DSL speed is nearly about 1000KBPs which according to our ISP is only good for 1 computer but still i connect it to our network with 16 units for internet sharing 2 of them are servers used for downloading and the rest are just for web browsing (they are under a ACL) and so far there is no problem with the speed and we have been using it for how many months now. Then lately our internet speed went slow so i called our ISP and they were amazed why i used our 1000KBPs for 16 computers. Then they said that internet speed can be slow if its connected to the network and even if only 1 computer is using the internet. - can i have your inputs here guys....

02-27-2007, 07:47 AM	#2 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	DSL speed is a function of 2 things: 1. The wire distance or signal loss between your facility and the telephone company switching office. If the signal loss is not a problem, make sure the DSL provider has the circuit configured for Fast Path and not Interleaved. 2. What level of service you are paying for. Many times you pay for a higher data rate service, however, you cannot get the speeds you are paying for due to either wire distance/signal loss or problems with inside house wiring. There a data rate limits with DSL that are directly related to the signal loss between your facility and the telephone switching office. As for the number of computers you can connect to a DSL line or cable modem service, could be as many as you want, BUT, if all machines have users and or are passing traffic to the Internet, the overall connection will quickly become overwhelmed and no machine will have good Internet response. The limiting factor of most Internet connections is the upload speed. Once the upload capacity is to about 75% of the expected speed, it will impact your download speed, even if you are at less than 50% of your download speed. TSF does not support torrent or P2P activity, but if you are running any of these programs, it will most likely kill your Internet connection performance as well. The other issue is you need to check your DSL TOS (Terms Of Service) if you plan on running any sort of web server. Web servers are typically against the TOS for most residential ISP accounts. The really simple way to solve your problem is to disconnect or turn off all but 1 machine that is not running any Web services or P2P programs and see if your Internet speed increases and performs the way you expect it to. If it does, you have no problems. JamesO

02-28-2007, 12:23 AM	#3 (permalink)
cryingvalor TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 510 OS: XP2,WIN03,UBUNTU,CentOS,Bayanihan,FEDORA 8	-yesterday i connect our DSL to 1 computer only but the problem is the same. i even measure the speed of our DSL using the 2 websites our ISP given me. So i called our ISP and tell them that its the same problem and told me that a technician will be sent today. today i test again our speed from an XP2 unit and wind03 server and both have different reading. in the win03 shows a medium speed but in the XP2 it shows slow speed in the upload and 0 speed in the download which makes me more confuse. Then the technician arrived did a little ip check a little changes. and here are his analysis: 1. he first check the DSL speed in the win03 by viewing the activity of bytes sent & received in the general tab of the local area network status. byte bytes sent is about 5thousand and bytes received is about 70 thousand and in his conclusion it should be that high and said that it is cause by virus or a trojan. in which in my mind doubt because the win03 unit was just recently formatted and when he arrived i downloaded a 35 MB file in that unit to check the DSL download speed so ofcourse the received bytes are high. then he check the same website i used to the DSL speed and the result was the same as mine. 2. he questions our straight tru cable because it didnt follow the T568A/B color coding standard in which for me it should not be the problem because as long as the transmit/recieved wires are in order and was tested good using a cable tester there should no prolem at all plus the cable has been used for how many months now. 3. he check the XP2 unit and did the same thing he did in the win03 unit. he check the activity in the local area network status and showed 5 Thousand byes sent and 6 Thousand received and told me that, that is the normal setup and the unit is in good shape and is trojan/virus free. in which in my mind i doubt because the unit was just restarted so obviously the bytes sent and recieved was restarted. then he check the DSL speed using the websites that he used in the XP2 and the result is same with mine. then i aske him why is the meter showing 0 in the upload but can measure the download. and he told me that there is a problem with the installation of the flash player(the website is made out of flash) in which i doubt because i have been using perfectly yesterday. - then i ask him why is that the reading is different from the XP2 and win03. then he talks again about the trojan/virus and sent and received bytes that he told me earlier. then i told him of my opinions and told me that he is a technician and he has been troubleshooting before, so its like that he is saying that i should not questions his troubleshooting skills. - so i made an agreement with him that i will reformat both the XP and win03 and test the speed again and if its the same problem i will call him and he will come over and troubleshoot again along with his laptop and to see if the problem is my configurations. - so now i am reformatting both the units. - can i have ur inputs here guys

02-28-2007, 05:14 AM	#4 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	First, I would not touch your machines yet. The cable in question that did not match the color code could be in question? It is not the colors that is important, it is the wiring pairing that is importing. The problem is few cable testers can verify actual pairs. This is a very easy and cheap change at this point. Who is your DSL provider? What make and modem DSL modem do you have? Did the DSL tech have a computer to test with? What speeds are you getting to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest? Use the nearest physical site to your location. Do you have microfilters on all phone devices? Do you have any hum on your phone line when you make a call? Do you have DirecTV in your house? What are your ping times to the first hop that responds to a ping? JamesO

03-01-2007, 06:56 AM	#6 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	Ask your DSL provider to verify with you the data rate which you are paying for. Also ask them to confirm and provide you with the signal levels for your DSL modem. Also inquire if you are configured to Fast Path or Interleave. Unless you have a dedicated telephone drop for your DSL service, most DSL services are provided over the same phone line you use for voice whether or not the DSL provider has anything to do with your current voice service. If you do not have a dedicated phone drop for your DSL service, you will need some sort of filter network or microfilters at each phone set. If you have any sort of satellite TV service which the satellite receiver has a phone line in, this is typically the biggest source of problems I run into. Folks forget to filter the phone drop for the satellite receiver. Assuming you do not have a dedicate phone drop for the DSL service (or if you are unsure), try this trick, run a speed test, to any site and note the speeds while the telephone is not in use. Then make a phone call and while on the telephone rerun the previous speed test and see if the result change. If they change for the better, you have phone line issue with noise on the line and or lack of proper filtering. JamesO

03-01-2007, 07:31 AM	#8 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	Yes, but does is the DSL service provided over the same voice pair as your phone service?? DSL uses phone lines. The question is do you have a dedicated phone pair for your DSL drop? Try the test with and without the a phone call in progress. Fast Path and Interleave is a configuration the DSL/ISP provider can make to the DSL signaling. Interleave is used when signal levels are questionable. Fast Path is used when signal levels are good and gives you greater speeds. Some modems provide signal level information for the DSL signals. Sometimes and end user can monitor them, but almost always the DSL provider can query them. If the signal levels are out of range, this can lead to bad DSL performance. Again, run a speed test with the phone hung up and then while on the phone to see what happens. JamesO

03-01-2007, 07:53 AM	#9 (permalink)
cryingvalor TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 510 OS: XP2,WIN03,UBUNTU,CentOS,Bayanihan,FEDORA 8	- well yes, but with our ISP they provided us with 1 dedicated phone pair which is directly connected to our modem, like i said they dont provide phone services. our phone system is provided by a different company. - when do ISP normally implement interleave. if our connection is slow does this mean we are using interleave and if so can i ask the ISP's to switch to fast path. - what normally is the range of these DSL signal to know if its in good range.

03-01-2007, 09:23 AM	#10 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	Signal levels are typically listed in dB of loss. Acceptable levels may be much different here in the US than other parts of the world as some telcos/DSL providers use different standards. I would suggest you contact your DSL service provider and ask them to perform a DSL line check and look at the configuration and the signal levels. As I originally stated, you my not have a problem! What speeds are you paying for?? If you are getting the speeds you are paying for, then you need to purchase a higher data rate. If you are not getting the speeds you are paying for, put it back on the DSL provider, open a trouble ticket and have them fix the problem. JamesO

03-01-2007, 04:57 PM	#12 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	Run a trace route to google or yahoo and post the info back here. We need to see if there are hops with a lot of latency or errors. You are in Asia, where? What speed test sites are you using? Where are the servers located? Keep in mind if you try to get content from North America on a regular basis, it will be slow as you are half way round the world and the network latency will kill transfers. JamesO

03-02-2007, 03:26 PM	#15 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	I did not spend a lot of time researching this, but the 250 ms latency in the network hop is probably what is killing your ISP performance? If the ISP had a speed test server within their network boundary, this would allow for a proper speed test both inside the ISP network and beyond the network. It is not clear if this 250 ms delay is a transport delay or a congestion delay?? Hop # 8 appears to be even worse. With this kind of latency you will get substandard performance. It is quite possible that the ISP is giving you the correct data rates on the DSL link between your facility and the DSLAM. The DSL provider should be able to confirm this by review the modem stats. Then the problem is there a way the DSL provider can clear up the 250+ ms latency. It is possible that this is a cut rate provider that does in fact oversubscribe their network and use cheaper and more congested backbone links? I do not know the ISP's it your area of the world so I cannot really comment? JamesO

03-02-2007, 07:28 PM	#16 (permalink)
cryingvalor TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 510 OS: XP2,WIN03,UBUNTU,CentOS,Bayanihan,FEDORA 8	- what should be the normal latency and the abnormal latency?

03-02-2007, 08:05 PM	#17 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	250 ms is 1/4 of a second or about equal to data traveling about 7500 miles on fiber as I recall? If you are sending data across town and there is 250 ms of latency, data is being held in an interface buffer due to network congestion, high error rate or some other problem. It is possible there are some forms of wireless networks connecting these locations as well , possibly even satellite, but the 250 ms would be really cutting it close for as satellite link. I would expect to see even higher times, 400+ ms, if a satellite link was involve, but it also depends on how the network topology is configured. You really want to see numbers under 100 ms for most things. Under 50 ms would be nice, but again, where you are located you may see higher network latency numbers depending on what sites you frequent and where they are physically located. Caching can also reduce network transit times as well. From my location to the TSF server, I have about 30 ms of network latency. But I am also spoiled as I am less than 4 miles from where about 50% of the worlds Internet traffic passes, so I also have a lot of content located very close to me geographically. This might be some good reading? http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/Latency.html JamesO

03-02-2007, 08:38 PM	#18 (permalink)
cryingvalor TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 510 OS: XP2,WIN03,UBUNTU,CentOS,Bayanihan,FEDORA 8	-ok thanks - 1 quick question. i tried to download a file 35 mb using our dsl and it took 30 minutes. i connected to our neighbors dsl and downloaded the same file and it took about 9 minutes. and yet they are paying for a 768kbps DSL on a different ISP. is this a ISP issue?

03-03-2007, 05:34 AM	#19 (permalink)
JamesO Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fairfax, VA USA Posts: 2,289 OS: 98SE, W2k Pro, XP Pro	As I see it, at least from the 1 trace route, it may be an ISP issue. If the 250 ms plus times are in the same tracert on a full time basis, then the ISP has issues. Either they know well about this issue and they are designing down to a price and not up to a level of performance, or their technical staff is totally clueless. If your ISP is a cut rate provider, compared to your neighbors provider, then I think you have your answer. JamesO

03-03-2007, 08:47 AM	#20 (permalink)
cryingvalor TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 510 OS: XP2,WIN03,UBUNTU,CentOS,Bayanihan,FEDORA 8	-ok -1 last question, if the ISP is clueless is there a way for users to monitor/check/troubleshoot there DSL connection which could become a proof of good or bad connection that can be given to the ISP.