Slow ADSL POP Download

I've got Pipex ADSL with a network operating behind a NAT firewall.

I've a mixture of WiFi and wired connection but for convenience mainly
WiFi.

I use Pegasus mail for my emails which downloads headers first
followed by bodies.

If I am downloading newsgroups the headers download in a flash, when
downloading my POP (Freeserve) mail it takes a little time, the
headers can be literally counted one by one as they download.

Any reason that POP mail should be much slower than newsgroups.

Freeserve do have three different addresses, .co.uk .net and .com I'm
not sure if these are aliases or mirrors but I did change from .co.uk
to .net and feel it is quicker but nowhere near as quick as
newsgroups.

Geoff Lane
Welwyn Hatfield Computer Club - Hertfordshire, UK
www.whcc.co.uk - Online facilities for non locals

On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 09:51:47 +0000, Geoff Lane
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>If I am downloading newsgroups the headers download in a flash, when
>downloading my POP (Freeserve) mail it takes a little time, the
>headers can be literally counted one by one as they download.
>
>Any reason that POP mail should be much slower than newsgroups.

It's possible that the slowdown is caused by the amount of email-borne
virus traffic at the moment, and the load that it's placing on
Freeswerve's mail servers.

>Freeserve do have three different addresses, .co.uk .net and .com I'm
>not sure if these are aliases or mirrors

They are all aliases for the same three front end machines.

Derek
--
"Hawk, we're going to die."
"Never say die... and certainly never say we."
-- M*A*S*H

On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 13:45:31 +0000, Derek <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>>If I am downloading newsgroups the headers download in a flash, when
>>downloading my POP (Freeserve) mail it takes a little time, the
>>headers can be literally counted one by one as they download.
>>
>>Any reason that POP mail should be much slower than newsgroups.
>
>It's possible that the slowdown is caused by the amount of email-borne
>virus traffic at the moment, and the load that it's placing on
>Freeswerve's mail servers.
>
>>Freeserve do have three different addresses, .co.uk .net and .com I'm
>>not sure if these are aliases or mirrors
>
>They are all aliases for the same three front end machines.

I guessed they were but strangely since changing to .net from .co.uk
it has appeared quicker.

Must be coincidence or imagination :-)))

Geoff Lane

On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 11:26:06 +0000, Geoff Lane
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 13:45:31 +0000, Derek <(E-Mail Removed)>
>wrote:
>
>>>Freeserve do have three different addresses, .co.uk .net and .com I'm
>>>not sure if these are aliases or mirrors
>>
>>They are all aliases for the same three front end machines.
>
>I guessed they were but strangely since changing to .net from .co.uk
>it has appeared quicker.
>
>Must be coincidence or imagination :-)))

Not necessarily; Freeserve's DNS appears to use "round robin" when
handing out the addresses for their pop server, in an attempt to
spread the load over the free machines evenly, by cycling through the
addresses (you can see this below).

Canonical name: pop.freeserve.com
Aliases:
pop.freeserve.co.uk
Addresses:
193.252.22.135
193.252.22.136
193.252.22.137

Canonical name: pop.freeserve.com
Aliases:
pop.freeserve.net
Addresses:
193.252.22.137
193.252.22.135
193.252.22.136

Now, this looks like a good idea, but it has some problems, caused by
other DNS servers and clients caching these addresses - for example,
your machine may have cached the addresses for pop.freeserve.co.uk and
pop.freeserve.com cached as 193.252.22.135 and 193.252.22.137,
respectively, or not, according to how it's set up.

So, depending on how your machine (and your ISP) uses DNS, when you
retrieve mail using the .co.uk, .com and .net versions of the server
name, you may be accessing the same mail server (and seeing variations
in the load on that server), or different mail servers (with differing
loads).

You just have to love problems with so many variables in them ...

Derek
--
It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that
wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing.
Terry Pratchett, "Guards! Guards!"