Slow Internet, ISP or Website?

Internet users are oft quick to blame their ISP for internet performance issues. In most cases, blame is apportioned without any consideration or investigation. For those Monty Python devotees, Shes a witch sketch comes to mind. Before passing sentence, all good judges base their decision on the evidence and facts. It helps maintain a modicum of order and justice. Lets look at some methods the humble internet user can envoke to become better informed in their judgements. Internet Basics: a) The Internet is tethered together by many computers. b) The computers act as junctions, connecting inputs & outputs like a road infrastructure. c) Like road infrastructure, capacity, flow and route are governed by standards. Sitting at your computer and typing http://www.whirlpool.net.au may at first seem as simple as getting from point A to point B, but one needs to consider that path we take to get there. Lucky for us, there are software tools to help us see the process. In this article, Im focusing on Windows as the computer operating system. Linux and Macintosh have the same tools. For Windows users, the tool of choice is evoked from a plain old DOS window. Windows 98 users can access this by <insert steps>. Windows 2000 & XP can access this by <insert steps>. At the dos or command prompt, type the following: C:\>tracert www.whirlpool.net.au Tracert is the tool we are using. By typing the above command we are instructing the computer to evoke the tool and peform a trace from our computer to the computer that hosts the website. We need to use the full website address. Having typed the command, press the enter key. You should see a response laid out in a similar format shown below. Tracing route to www.whirlpool.net.au [202.139.232.71] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 10.36.0.2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

10 ms 13 ms 26 ms 36 ms 43 ms 43 ms 40 ms 41 ms 60 ms 45 ms 47 ms 57 ms

15 ms 12 ms 24 ms 23 ms 40 ms 43 ms 44 ms 41 ms 45 ms 46 ms 49 ms 44 ms

22 ms meb2-ge4-1.gw.optusnet.com.au [198.142.0.2] 23 ms meb1-ge1.gw.optusnet.com.au [211.28.96.65] 27 ms mas4-pos8-1.gw.optusnet.com.au [211.29.129.1] 31 ms ge-wan3-4.se3.optus.net.au [61.88.136.9] 42 ms vlan101.sg4.optus.net.au [61.88.178.36] 54 ms pos7-1.bg2.optus.net.au [61.88.179.10] 44 ms ge-wan4-1.14vrc76f06.optus.net.au [202.139.124.86] 42 ms Webcentral.14vrc76f06.optus.net.au [61.88.151.10] 51 ms gi0-2-6.xr3.wic.server-web.com [203.147.255.123] 58 ms gi0-0.xr3.bne.server-web.com [203.147.255.233] 48 ms vl6.mls2.bne.server-web.com [203.147.255.62] 46 ms bne606d.server-web.com [202.139.232.71]

Now lets consider what that response actually means to us. Remember earlier that I indicated the internet is tethered together by many computers. The tracert response shows the junctions of those other computers which our request passes through. In the example provided above, our request has travelled through 14 other computers (this includes routers) to arrive at the computer that contains the whirlpool website (www.whirlpool.net.au). This indicates that what we previously thought of as going from point A to B is in fact going from Point A to N. Each computer (or router) we pass through has its own line shown in the tracert response. The first line (1) is your computer. The last line (14) is the computer containing the whirlpool website (www.whirlpool.net.au). Lines (2 to 13) are all the other computers (or routers) in between. The next line (2) is normally your Iternet Service Providers (ISP) computer (or router). By line (3) we start to see more information. This intro wont cover everything, but basically we can see some familiar names like optusnet. Lines (3-10) all have optusnet so one can assume we are passing through computers (or routers) owned by optusnet and within the optusnet network. The other important info contained on each line (1 14) is the time represented in ms (milliseconds) The smaller the number, the better the speed / response. If you start seeing timeouts or times of 1000 ms, you can be certain that the computer on the line represented is experiencing a heavey load and performance is suffering at that point. Now lets look at another tracert performed at the same time but to a different website. C:\>tracert www.bestdown.com Tracing route to www.bestdown.com [218.30.110.151]

over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms 10.36.0.2 10 ms 10 ms 12 ms meb2-ge4-1.gw.optusnet.com.au [198.142.0.2] 9 ms 16 ms 9 ms 61.88.143.33 25 ms 27 ms 25 ms gi3-1.ig6.optus.com.au [203.202.143.250] 252 ms 271 ms 255 ms 203.208.148.1 * 357 ms 318 ms 203.208.168.217 448 ms 436 ms 435 ms so-2-1-0.sngc3-cr2.ix.singtel.com [203.208.182.133] 433 ms 435 ms 431 ms p4-0.sngtp-cr3.ix.singtel.com [203.208.172.125] 429 ms 372 ms 434 ms p1-0.sngtp-cr2.ix.singtel.com [203.208.172.129] 358 ms 916 ms 917 ms 202.160.250.86 927 ms 919 ms 1731 ms 202.97.33.137 * 1097 ms * 202.97.34.109 * * * Request timed out. * 1765 ms * 218.30.25.133 907 ms 911 ms * 218.30.25.154 * * * Request timed out. * * 902 ms 218.30.25.202

Trace complete. We can see high response times and timeouts occuring from lines (11 18). This indicates heavey load and poor performance. Can we blame our ISP? Answer: No. Our ISP has no control over computers not under their control or contained in their own computer network. In the example shown above, the problems are occuring outside of the optus network. It is worthwhile keeping in mind that computers represented in the tracert response may span your suburb, state and even other countries. Welcome to the internet! But hey! My mate is with Telstra and they do not have the same problem! In many cases, you might find that a friend or associate with another ISP is not experiencing the same problem. This is generally because the points between their ISP and the end destination take a different path or route. In essence, this is no different to two people driving to work. They each take a different route to work. One gets caught in a traffic jam and yet the other has a trouble free drive. This is not to say that tomorrow the situation might be reversed. It is difficult to plan for unexpected traffic jams! In Australia, there are several pipes that feed communications to other countries. Well known ones include Telstra, Optus and Southern Cross. Since the pipe numbers are limited, most of the major ISP suppliers purchase a small portion of capacity on their

competitors pipe. They do this to ensure that there is some form of planned redundancy for their network in the event their own pipe suffers a major problem or outage. (We have all seen or heard of occasions when fishing trawlers have inadvertantly snagged more than they bargained for and broken an internet pipe. These are the types of Major outages or incidents that no-one wants to hear!) If the ISPs pipe fails, data and communication traffic can be temporarily routed via the redundant link on the alternative pipe. It is important to note that the redundant pipe only supports a fraction of the capacity of the main pipe. This means performance will be affected. Imagine your local bus broke down and all 42 passengers want to jump onboard your gogomobile as their alternative transport method. The drive would be awefully slow! Thinking back to our first tracert test, we should consider that there were 14 connection points. A breakdown at any one of these points will definitely impact performance. When dealing with an overseas ISP, the same rules apply. It might be an ISP in Europe, Asia or America that is experiencing problems which cause a decrease in performance for the site you are visiting.