Internet slowdowns?

[whoisgregg]

Anyone else experiencing some sites not being available and a general slowdown of sites that are working? I'm also getting disconnected from AIM periodically.

I normally go to the ISC at SANS, but that's one of the sites I can't access. Any other "health of the internet"
type sites I could check? If they are not appropriate to post the URL, please sticky them to me.

<crosses fingers> hopefully WebmasterWorld will continue to be accessible </crosses fingers>

I'm in Florida, perhaps it's just a local thing?

[youfoundjake]

I have had problems with Flordia connections for about a month. Some of my clients have complained of slow speed. I at one point did a tracert to one of my servers and it was getting upto 250 ms reply, then of course, the router after that timed out. Try a tracert and see where the packets are getting dropped.

[whoisgregg]

Problem only started in the last hour or so. Typically this connection is rock-solid reliable.

I'm not seeing any pattern emerge from the failed traceroutes.

The intensity of the problems fluctuate, so I can't help but think it's a network traffic problem. (The last time I remember experiencing this there was some major virus thing that was making it's rounds.) Gonna head home and check it from there... maybe it's just the internet's way of telling me to stop working? :)

[youfoundjake]

Gonna head home and check it from there... maybe it's just the internet's way of telling me to stop working? :)

lol, have you thought that maybe the Internet itself could be tired and wants to take a little break? I don't know, maybe some one didn't pay the Internet bill. Or it could be just only little router refusing to route traffic because its tired of having to always route class c traffic through Eth0 when it would rather route class a traffic. It could be that it thought you needed to go to other sites that it felt were more suited for your needs. Sometimes I get that.

[zCat]

Sometimes subsidence or settling of the ground can exert unexpected pressure on the Internet pipes, compressing them and causing bit congestion. External factors such as heavy trucks parking directly above the pipes can cause this phenomenon to occur sporadically. Installing a bit expander, which pumps extra zero bits into the pipe, can help relieve congestion.

[youfoundjake]

zCat, I've heard of that as well. But in order to speed up the connection, why not just optimize the data, and take out all the 0's? It's considered the "off" bit, so does it really need to be transmitted? If all these companies can offer faster surfing, up to 25 times faster then dial-up, then the potential for a faster Internet is there. I think if we were to somehow get Livermore Labratories particle accelerator and put one on the west coast and east coast and point them at each other, I think the bits would travel faster, but then of course it comes down to what medium they are being transported through. Fiber-optics is nice, wireless...eh I don't know, seems like there would be too much of a drag co-efficent, especially during hurricane and tornado seasons, plus snow and rain might reflect it and then who knows where the data would land and into whose hands it would fall.

[zCat]

Zeros are necessary to stop the ones coagulating, therefore adding more to the mix will help improve the flow. At least in my experience, though I'm on the European Internet so our bits might have different properties to yours.

[youfoundjake]

Are you sure about that? I thought the Europeans transmitted the 1's first. Especially since its alternating current over there isn't it, which would mean I would need some kind of bitwise operator on my NIC right? And I don't know how the particle accelarator would work through the ocean, salt messes with transmissions I think.

[whoisgregg]

We'll never know... the problem fixed itself about two hours ago according to a co-worker who came in early this morning. :/