Re: [LUG] Router question

One trick I have found is using encryption. Often the ISP's watch what data flows through their network, by encrypting your connections they have no idea what is in those packets, if they don't know what it is they can't throttle it.

Another trick I like to use is use open DNS servers, I know they can be busy too but I highly doubt that everyone in the world is using them, I use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

I know this will not affect your connection speed but it may help you jump from site to site a fraction faster.

It's all well and good waving fingers at BT, ALL OF US have done it for years and years but it never ever helps a situation.

Does anyone else have little tricks to make the web feel faster?

On 24 October 2013 10:07, Gordon Henderson <gordon+lug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013, Neil Winchurst wrote:

On 24/10/13 09:19, Neil Winchurst wrote:

On 21 October 2013 15:33, Neil Winchurst <barnaby@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have had my router, Netgear D634G, since May 2010. Recently I have
experienced some odd problems. Sometimes, as tested on speedtest.net, it
will show up as very slow download rates. Most of the time the speed is
around 12 Mb/s, but sometimes it suddenly drops as low as 3 Mb/s.
There does
not seem to be much of a pattern but it is usually low in the early
afternoon, but not every day.

This shows up as a failure to run a Youtube video for example which will
give a message that 'an error has occurred'. Sometimes, perhaps an hour
later, it will all run fine. Yes, I have reset the router, that is I
have
switched it off for 30 minutes or so and then turned it on again.
This has
not made any difference.

So my question is, do routers sometimes just start to wear out? There
are no
moving parts in it so I can't think why, but what do I know? I also
have a
laptop, obviously using the same router, and the symptoms are the
same, so I
think that I can rule out desktop computer problems.

If the advice is to replace it then any recommendations would be
gratefully
received.

Thanks

Neil

I don't know if it is relevant, but recently I noticed there was a BT van parked by our nearest cabinet, so I guessed that they were working on it.

However, today I happened to be there (our nearest post box is very close to it) and I noticed that in fact there is a brand new green cabinet near to the original one. So something is happening to our phone system.

Holsworthy is supposed to be one of the towns getting new faster broadband by the end of the year. Perhaps this is something to do with that.

*shrug*

It seems to me that you've not listened to much of what we've said - or maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. Who knows. I've been using, installing, selling Internet for about 20 years now, what do I know...

I'll put it in simple terms: You're using a rubbish ISP. Your slowdowns are nothing to do with the physical line (14Mb/sec sync rate that doesn't change when your data speed is slow), so it's either everything to do with your modem/router (highly unlikely, but go & buy a new one if you think it will help), or to do with the BT wholesale network (and as BT are about to 10x the data capacity via that exchange it's highly unlikely), or it's to do with your ISP and how it connects to BT and the rest of the world.

The Internet is CONTENDED - you are experiencing congestion due to that contention.

Some Internet providers are better than others - you get what you pay for. I pay more for my connection, get the same speed as you, but I get it all the time. My bet is that your ISP is the cause of the slow-downs. Have you tried contacting them?

Gordon

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