problems with BT broadband connection

I've noticed increasing, if occasional problems, when using broadband.
Pages which I use regularly (e.g. bbc news website) will often be hard
to load, 'looking up' for a several moments. I find that when I get a
message of 'not found' I can almost immediately connect just by
reloading. Similarly, ads that use ad servers are really frustrating at
times. I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.6, a belkin wireless point attached to a
zoom adsl modem. As the hardware didn't seem to present a problem, I'm
wondering if this is a recent problem in BT's service, or maybe even
something in my settings. For example, I never seem to have problems
with nntp or pop mail access, unless those servers have outages
themselves, such as occasionally happens with fastmail.

Anything I should check, or tweak, in my settings?

TIA

--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org

David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and
prestwich tesco 24h offy wrote:
> I've noticed increasing, if occasional problems, when using broadband.
> Pages which I use regularly (e.g. bbc news website) will often be hard
> to load, 'looking up' for a several moments. I find that when I get a
> message of 'not found' I can almost immediately connect just by
> reloading. Similarly, ads that use ad servers are really frustrating at
> times. I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.6, a belkin wireless point attached to a
> zoom adsl modem. As the hardware didn't seem to present a problem, I'm
> wondering if this is a recent problem in BT's service, or maybe even
> something in my settings. For example, I never seem to have problems
> with nntp or pop mail access, unless those servers have outages
> themselves, such as occasionally happens with fastmail.
>
> Anything I should check, or tweak, in my settings?
>
> TIA

Probably a DNS problem of some kind.

Given what you've said, speculation could point to DNS (UDP) packets
being lost over a dodgy wireless connection. Since there's no flow
control (unlike TCP, eg. nntp/pop), your PC would end up waiting a while
before re-sending the packet, which could cause the delays you're
describing.

Diagnostics - try doing a flood test from your PC to your wireless
router (that is, ping it relentlessly for a minute or so - in linux, for
router 192.168.0.1, I'd use the command 'ping -i 0.1 192.168.0.1' - YMMV
of course. Under windows, the /f switch might have a similar effect to
-i, but check the documentation), and see how many packets you drop.

If it is the problem, then you've got two solutions that immediately
spring to mind - first, improve the connection to your wireless router;
second, install a caching-only DNS server on your home PC, and set your
PC's LAN interface to use 127.0.0.1 as your primary DNS server.

Of course, it could also be a variety of other things...

xF,

....Nick

Nicholas Thomas wrote:
> David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and
> prestwich tesco 24h offy wrote:
>> I've noticed increasing, if occasional problems, when using broadband.
>> [...] I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.6, [...]

> Diagnostics - try doing a flood test from your PC to your wireless
> router (that is, ping it relentlessly for a minute or so - in linux, for
> router 192.168.0.1, I'd use the command 'ping -i 0.1 192.168.0.1' - YMMV
> of course. Under windows, the /f switch might have a similar effect to
> -i [...]

Erm, what I *meant* to say (yeah, right! ) is that Mac OS X probably
has identical terminology to Linux for the ping command. Give it a try.

xF,

....Nick