george on 17 Sep 2017 10:37:46 -0700


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [PLUG] Internet access in Berwyn slows to a crawl as the day wears on ... 

After an off-list discussion with Brent Timothy Saner, I reached a
conclusion about the causes of my slow Internet access. One was a
"state" of my router which was resolved (per the Verizon chatperson)
by rebooting the router a couple of times. The other seems to be
simply local traffic, which became apparent after I installed wavemon
from the Trisquel repository.

Here's what I showed to Brent:
After a couple of anxious days pinging, speedtest-cli-ing, and traceroute-ing, 
the culprit seems to be my router. For what reason ? That escapes me ...

Typical ping result:

    PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.02 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=3.11 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.85 ms


Alarming ping result:

    PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=197 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=20.3 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.78 ms


Scary ping result:

    PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=456 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=296 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=173 ms
Several partial traceroutes through the router (servers speed up farther across 
the U.S.)::
1 Wireless_Broadband_Router.home (192.168.1.1) 1.722 ms 1.680 ms 6.763 ms 

...
1 Wireless_Broadband_Router.home (192.168.1.1) 28.185 ms 28.723 ms 28.714 ms 

...
1 Wireless_Broadband_Router.home (192.168.1.1) 544.407 ms 544.749 ms 545.242 ms 2 lo0-100.PHLAPA-VFTTP-301.verizon-gni.net (173.49.202.1) 546.508 ms 546.728 ms 547.723 ms 3 B3301.PHLAPA-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net (100.41.201.88) 553.721 ms 553.963 ms B3301.PHLAPA-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net (100.41.201.90) 553.084 ms 
    4  * * *
    5  * * *
6 0.ae9.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.234.13) 556.914 ms 0.ae2.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.233.5) 16.848 ms 0.ae1.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.233.3) 12.377 ms 

...
1 Wireless_Broadband_Router.home (192.168.1.1) 334.480 ms 334.454 ms 334.433 ms 2 lo0-100.PHLAPA-VFTTP-301.verizon-gni.net (173.49.202.1) 339.485 ms 340.332 ms 340.685 ms 3 B3301.PHLAPA-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net (100.41.201.88) 341.737 ms 341.968 ms B3301.PHLAPA-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net (100.41.201.90) 342.729 ms 
    4  * * *
    5  * * *
6 0.ae4.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.233.49) 346.518 ms 0.ae7.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.234.11) 12.791 ms 0.ae1.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.233.3) 12.705 ms 

...
1 Wireless_Broadband_Router.home (192.168.1.1) 710.098 ms 710.101 ms 710.578 ms 2 lo0-100.PHLAPA-VFTTP-301.verizon-gni.net (173.49.202.1) 119.907 ms 120.458 ms 121.218 ms 3 B3301.PHLAPA-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net (100.41.201.88) 122.036 ms B3301.PHLAPA-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net (100.41.201.90) 123.072 ms B3301.PHLAPA-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net (100.41.201.88) 122.269 ms 
    4  * * *
    5  * * *
6 0.ae3.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.233.47) 126.654 ms 12.548 ms 0.ae6.GW11.IAD8.ALTER.NET (140.222.234.15) 16.179 ms 

...

Then I "proved" the cause:
By opening two terminals, one running wavemon (which installed absolutely 
without the slightest hassle, by the way) and the other with "ping" set
up and poised, I tried hitting <enter> whenever the bars dropped in value 
(long response times from the router) and also whenever the bars peaked
in value (short response times).

I tried playing with the antennae on the router (with my missus's help)
and we determined that I could only make things worse; whatever was OK
for her own wireless connection was OK for mine, too. However, I did move 
the Think Penguin wireless dongle from the USB port on the back of the
laptop to another USB port on the side facing the router, and that did
help somewhat.

Conclusion: Internet access deteriorates when traffic gets heavier.
Thanks to Brent for suggesting use of the wavemon application. It was
delightfully easy to obtain & install with apt-get.

Thanks for all the constructive suggestions !

George Langford
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug