up vote 1 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I was on the Internet before and my web viewing experience was just shocking. I could barely load the pics on facebook and news paper sites had trouble rendering as the CSS file couldn't load up.

It felt like I was 56k again but I did a speed test and "apparently" my internet connection was going at about 1.3Mbits with a latency of 200ms.

Are there any other factors other than latency or speed that influences your web experience?

link|improve this question
59% accept rate
feedback

4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Yes. There is throughput (what your connection is capable of moving, minus protocol overhead) goodput (what actually gets through), and latency (overhead plus dropped or damaged packets). There are many, many hops between you and your target server and many routers handling your traffic. There is the load on the target server itself and its ability to respond to your requests quickly enough. There is your router's ability to handle incoming packets. There is your computer's ability to get those packets to the correct application/s. There is the possibility that your machine is running tons of other applications or is compromised. There may be other machines on you LAN using bandwidth.

200ms is pretty high. If you're still having these symptoms, I'd recommend rebooting all the affected hardware: computer, router, modem.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

The DNS server could be an issue. In case of some providers there DNS servers are heavily loaded and therefore affecting the internet experience. Try using google DNS and see if that helps/

link|improve this answer
@Sameer: "Try using google DNS and see if that helps" can you explain what you mean by this? Google doesn't provide DNS outside their own domain... So while I agree DNS could be part of the problem I don't understand your proposed solution. – hotei Nov 28 '10 at 3:22
You wouldn't experience slow ping times if your ISP's DNS servers were overloaded. Typically, frequently-visited sites are stored locally anyway. – goblinbox Nov 28 '10 at 5:59
OpenDNS is another popular alternative with low pings – Force Flow Nov 28 '10 at 6:38
2  
@hotei, in fact they do. 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are their public recursive DNS servers. – whitequark Nov 28 '10 at 15:32
@Whitequark: I stand corrected. Now I've got to decide if this is a bug or a feature. Google already knows too much about me from the search info they keep, do I really want them to know EVERY website I visit too? – hotei Nov 29 '10 at 20:08
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

The internet is composed of millions of parts which - USUALLY - work. What you are experiencing could be a problem that's local (to your house) or in a server 8 thousand miles away.

Maybe I'm old school but my web experience is dominated by 'content', with latency and speed as icing on the cake.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

as said by someone else, set your DNS to google DNS (I cant comment..)

use the DNS servers

8.8.8.8

8.8.4.4

Also, perhaps the route to the server where you are testing is not congested, but some of the other paths are congested..

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.