Hello,

I've got a client who recently started having problem with the download speeds on their website. The server hosting the site is on the west coast, and their offices are on the east coast. They have a T-1 connection into their office, but are getting speeds that appear to be slower then an average 56k modem. And this slowness factor seems to only effect their website, and none of the others they use on a regular basis. On the flip side, I've had people in different parts of the country look at the site, both on broadband connections, and modem connections, and it seems they are getting as fast a connection as always. I'm also not seeing any major drops in web traffic, or unusal reports of slowness.

I've done ping tests, traceroutes, and several online tests from multiple locations, and I'm not seeing anything stick out as a problem. I've also had upstream bandwidth providers from both ends look at the situation and not see anything that sticks out.

My main thoughts at this point, are that somewhere along the route their is a misconfiguration, or some type of accidental or intentional filtering taking place that's slowing down packet transfers from specific ip's.

I have also not seen any major spikes in processor or bandwidth usage, since the problem started, that would explain what's happening.

If anyone has suggestions as to thing to look at, let me know.

Thanks!

Welcome to LQ.

In the subject you have mentioned that it may be a DNS issue - have you tried with just the IP address?

David,

Thanks for the IP suggestion. I had them try it out this A.M. and it didn't seem to make a difference. Any other ideas of things to look at.

Thanks!

This client needs to contact his/her ISP. This doesn't sound like it is your problem.

Edit: Could this problem reside in the application layer? What browser are they using? Is the site plain html or is it some fancy web-dev bobble that uses some proprietary viewer.

Have you spoke with their SysAdmin? I have remote users in PA (I am in NC) and literally slashed there bandwidth in half with respect to them making any sort of network connection to our local (bellsouth) WAN subnet. We host their sites and this was close to what they experienced. Could it be something along these lines?

The only thing the site uses that one might classify as "unusual" is SSI's, and as a policy we try to stick as close to HTML conventions as possible on the sites we build.

They've even tried looking at the site from home using AOL dial-up, and get a faster connection to the site, then through the t-1 in the office.

As far as browsers, to my knowledge, they are using some flavor of the latest IE browser, but I don't know the exact version.

WeNdeL,

Could you send me a traceroute between where you are and the websites in PA, I'm curious if any of the intermediate bandwidth providers are the same, even though I don't think bellsouth and worldcom are affiliated...but you never know.

Thanks.

hang on man...

edit: shite, dealing with end-user bs man, gotta get back to you...

voila!

# traceroute 4.67.7.17
traceroute to 4.67.7.17 (4.67.7.17), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 66.21.56.65 (66.21.56.65) 1.333 ms 1.606 ms 3.550 ms
2 * * *
3 207.203.139.184 (207.203.139.184) 6.808 ms 6.247 ms 3.635 ms
4 207.203.139.49 (207.203.139.49) 21.901 ms 24.559 ms 21.867 ms
5 axr00asm-7-2-0-0.bellsouth.net (65.83.237.56) 43.774 ms 35.184 ms 32.808 ms
6 pxr00asm-2-0-0.bellsouth.net (65.83.236.2) 32.832 ms 31.569 ms 32.805 ms
7 so-1-0-0.gar1.Atlanta1.Level3.net (67.72.8.5) 32.830 ms 35.322 ms 32.805 ms
8 so-6-0-0.gar2.Atlanta1.Level3.net (209.247.9.161) 32.829 ms 35.288 ms 32.832 ms
9 so-0-3-0.bbr2.Atlanta1.Level3.net (209.247.11.225) 32.831 ms 35.733 ms 32.802 ms
10 so-0-1-0.mpls2.Cleveland1.Level3.net (209.247.11.138) 54.709 ms 53.901 ms 54.682 ms
11 ge-6-0.hsa2.Cleveland1.Level3.net (209.244.22.102) 55.027 ms 53.548 ms 54.699 ms
12 s5-0-0.mcomp.bbnplanet.net (4.24.212.30) 72.945 ms 71.652 ms 72.926 ms
13 s4-1-0.core-2.ipoutlet.net (69.1.195.129) 72.923 ms 70.661 ms 72.913 ms
14 gi4-0.border-1.ipoutlet.net (69.1.192.1) 72.943 ms 70.621 ms 72.914 ms
15 chcgil1wcx1-atm.wcg.net (64.200.228.177) 69.366 ms 68.470 ms 69.177 ms
16 * * *
17 chcgil9lch1-pos7-1.wcg.net (64.200.210.118) 70.013 ms 86.004 ms 79.775 ms
18 chcgil9lcx1-pos9-0-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.103.109) 69.977 ms 68.308 ms 69.180 ms
19 interconnect-eng.Chicago1.Level3.net (209.0.225.17) 69.150 ms 68.110 ms 69.061 ms
20 so-2-1-0.bbr2.Chicago1.Level3.net (209.244.8.13) 69.125 ms 68.059 ms 69.173 ms
21 so-0-0-0.mpls2.Cleveland1.Level3.net (209.247.11.141) 72.783 ms 75.463 ms 72.823 ms
22 ge-6-0.hsa2.Cleveland1.Level3.net (209.244.22.102) 76.408 ms 75.193 ms 72.828 ms
23 s5-0-0.mcomp.bbnplanet.net (4.24.212.30) 90.995 ms 93.432 ms 91.026 ms
24 s4-1-0.core-2.ipoutlet.net (69.1.195.129) 91.002 ms 93.386 ms 91.060 ms
25 gi4-0.border-1.ipoutlet.net (69.1.192.1) 90.983 ms 93.419 ms 91.044 ms
26 chcgil1wcx1-atm.wcg.net (64.200.228.177) 90.996 ms 89.879 ms 91.060 ms
27 * * *
28 chcgil9lch1-pos7-1.wcg.net (64.200.210.118) 89.718 ms 89.770 ms 87.453 ms
29 chcgil9lcx1-pos9-0-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.103.109) 91.052 ms 89.844 ms 91.094 ms
30 interconnect-eng.Chicago1.Level3.net (209.0.225.17) 91.049 ms 90.120 ms 89.550 ms