Browsing speed "acceleration"?

[vebk]

Airtel Home 999 plus is an awesome plan, especially with the new speeds that many people are reporting... even I get 50KB/s sometimes.....

The only thing is that surfing sites is still not as fast as it should be at that speed....... don't know what's going on, but it seems like it almost has to accelerate to that speed or something like that..... basically it starts by accessing a site at say 56kbps and then become faster to about 128kbps, then a little faster and then a little faster.... never really seems to reach 400kbps because the site usually is loaded before that......

The end result is that sites load slow..... I have used 512kbps connections in the States before, and at that speed it's basically click on a link and before you really even know it, the page is loaded..... not so out here......

Does anyone know what's going on? :huh:

 

[yogi]

maybe use a better browser like opera or firefox 😉

 

[Ryan]

It's with the latency on the website and with the way the routing is done. I know, I have also experienced speeds of 512kbps and higher and at those speeds you don't really wait for anything. Online games, you get pings of

 

[max]

the problem you are facing is because of name resolution. Try setting up a local DNS server. You will definitely notice a HUGE change. I have a 64Kbps connection but the pages on my connection load up pretty fast 😉 the difference is all due to the name resolution!

 

[cyberwiz]

well most of us wud be using the ISP's DNS server, i dont know know how to get it more local than that. The ping to this server would be the lowest than any other DNS server that u set up. DNS is important only as far as resolving the domain name to ipaddress is concerned, once that is done u are directly connected to the website and how fast the page loads depends on the followinga) The upload capacity (speed) of the server hosting the website.B) Current traffic on that websitec) Current traffic on ur ISP's gateway..ie no of users onlined) Routing..whether ur packets to that website are goin over any under performing, slow, packet losing routers.I feel, DNS has only a small part to play and changing it will not really increase the browsing speed unless ofcourse the DNS server u r currently using is grossly under performing or is not updated regularly.

 

[blr_p]

Hmm...ping time to a Airtel's DNS servers ~ 30msWith a local DNS server it would be < 10msIt does'nt necessarily follow that load times whould be as slow, since all the DNS server does is give an IP address, the rest of the display comes form the URL requested. I would wager a guess that the time involved in name resolution < 1% of the time it takes to completely display the requested URL.i find the same what vebmetal has said, the speed seems like its coming in fits & starts. Not constant as what i was used to. The only reason i can give for this is that Airtel is giving a fractional 256K as opposed to a dedicated 256k. I noticed the speeds stayed constant with my previous ISP, but they charged through the nose for anything faster than 48k. Though there were times when they would misconfigure things and i would get 128k or 256k, unfortunately those occurences were few & far in between. Rectified the next morning when the network manager checked his daily bandwidth usuage graphs. But the speed stayed pegged at the max.It's the reason i suspect Sify is so tight with bandwidth. Most ppl that i know using Sify have no complaints at all but then these ppl don't download that much, just surf & email.Best would be if a former Sify user could comment on what using Airtel is like.

 

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[sachin214]

I have usd 4 different ISPs local, Sify, hotwire and now airtel in last 9 months.Here is my experiance from each of them1. Sify- Initially when on 256kbps line(limited D/Ls) d/ling speed was avg 30 kbps most of time using IDM,but surfing speeds were very bad and i cud say that cos my previous loacl ISp on 64 kbps line gave me musch better surfing speeds.Later after repeated compliants and also when i changed to 128 kbps line(unlimited) they changed something at their end and surfing speeds increased dramatically,but still slower then expected by me and my previuos local ISp.2.Hotwire-as far as surfing speeds was concerned it was the best I always had 128 kbps unlimited and surfing speeds best of all the ISPs.3.Airtel- D/Ling speeds best of all 4 ISps and actually more then expected most of the time ,but surfing speed on 256 kbps line not impressive ,atbest mediocre ,wud say equal to sify 128 kbps line i had.In the end i wud say that Isps Definately have some settings at there end which makes the difference, be it DNS servers or some thing different.And yes surfing speds are best with firefox.Oh i forgot to mention that Hotwire was the only ISP giving static Ips ,so probably that made the difference.

 

[blr_p]

Static or Dynamic IP wont make any difference.MTU settings might, ideally it shouls match that of the ISP. WHen i spoke to Airtel about this they told me to use 1468. The default with windows is 1500. This made the difference that sites like yahoo or hotmail started to work whereas when i jsut switched to Airtel did not. The Router has the saem MTU set as well via its settings.

 

[sachin214]

I dont really trust these CC(especially the women,airtel has lots of them)so wont follow any of their advices ,regarding MTU settings i have already done that as suggested by dslreports.com,dont remember now but they really helped.

 

[vebk]

Originally posted by yogi@Oct 27 2005, 11:38 AM
maybe use a better browser like opera or firefox 😉
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[/quote]
I am using both. Mainly firefox, as it is much faster than Opera for whatever reason.... I have hidden IE totally, so no average user can access it even accidentally.

Originally posted by max@Oct 27 2005, 12:20 PM
the problem you are facing is because of name resolution. Try setting up a local DNS server. You will definitely notice a HUGE change. I have a 64Kbps connection but the pages on my connection load up pretty fast 😉 the difference is all due to the name resolution!
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[/quote]
What DNS server are you using? Give us an example.

Originally posted by blr_p@Oct 27 2005, 01:50 PM
Hmm...ping time to a Airtel's DNS servers ~ 30ms

With a local DNS server it would be < 10ms
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[/quote]
What exact address are you pinging?

 

[ArcanaOccult]

Originally posted by max@Oct 27 2005, 12:20 PM
the problem you are facing is because of name resolution. Try setting up a local DNS server. You will definitely notice a HUGE change. I have a 64Kbps connection but the pages on my connection load up pretty fast 😉 the difference is all due to the name resolution!
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[/quote]

Could you please tell us how to do that?

 

[power]

instead of hosting dns server use outpost firewall with dns plugin .. it caches ip address of websites on first access and speeds up access the next time u connect to that site as ip is already stoerd .. it automatically uppdates ip address if changed 😉

 

[Anand_Sharma]

WELL CAN ANYBODY TEME WHN AIRTEL IZ COMIN 2 MUMBAI?

 

[max]

Anand_Sharma, airtel is partially working in Mumbai. Check out other threads.

amogh_gulwady, vebmetal: I use bind DNS server on my debian router. It is a caching DNS server. The configuration is pretty simple and given on the debian website (www.debian.org). The only catch is that you need to have a good linux install. It's not necessary to use debian you can use other distros as well - eg. Redhat, SuSE, Yellow dog ....

Well, most of you guys want to know how a local DNS server speeds up name resolution. Well, obviously by caching. If I use my ISP's DNS server at any given point of time, it requires anywhere between 200 to 5000ms to resolve a name which is normal. While if I use a local DNS server, it requires less than 10ms to resolve. Now, when a page is loading up, it has to fetch images and stuff. Every request may or may not require a DNS lookup. But majority of the times, it requires a DNS lookup. Hence the slow loading of pages. I notice that my pages load up dramatically fast because the DNS requests are extremely fast plus my bandwidth is conserved. No need to ask my ISP's DNS server all the time...

 

[blr_p]

Good point, i forgot that densely packed pages might require several DNS lookups. My solution with the hosts list is partial only.I guess the Q now is to find a caching DNS server that works with windows. Outpost is one example..any others ?Not everypone has a linux box to dedicate just for this.