[TriLUG] Request for help: residential internet service provider options.

[Roger via TriLUG]

Try using Google's DNS servers,

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/

READ about how to do correctly. My recollection is that edits to resolv.conf, commonly recommended, get over written when rebooting and one needs to edit another file which is the source of the settings. The name escapes my feeble mind at the moment. I probably have the name /method at home.

This approach helped me when Verizon's DNS servers were balky. Good luck.
--
Roger Broseus

(Please excuse tiepos induzed by the droided predictive text tool.)

On May 25, 2016 9:31:42 AM EDT, Steve Holton via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>Hi all-
>
>I'm in a monopoly-provider location (Windstream DSL on the Hwy 42-side
>of
>Harris Lake) and for the past two weeks I've been seeing 20-30% packet
>loss
>(for pings to their DNS server).
>
>I'm looking for feedback/ideas from the TriLUG community.
>
>1) What are the alternative service providers such as satellite and 4G?
>How
>are they generally regarded? What are they good for/not good for?
>
>2) Are there adjustments I can make to my gateway (OpenWRT/barrier
>breaker)
>which might provide relief, or better monitoring?
>
>3) Is this level of packet loss considered normal for a DSL connection?
>Is
>there something I'm missing or not considering? Is there information I
>can
>gather to aid diagnostics?
>
>I've seen something similar years ago when the Macs were all trying to
>download a critical update (in the background) over a dial-up link. Is
>there something going-on in the Windows world I'm not aware of which
>could
>be causing all my neighbors to unintentionally overload the link?
>Something which might correct itself with time?
>
>More about the problem:
>I run a continuous ping test from my gateway (OpenWRT/barrier breaker)
>to
>their DNS server. 100 packet test at 10 minute intervals.
>
>I see 0% to 5% packet loss during bankers hours (8:30am to about
>4:15pm)
>and between 20% and 40% on evenings and weekends. This is a broadly
>consistent pattern over several weeks of monitoring.
>
>This loss is consistent even if every other device in my house is
>disconnected from service.
>
>When the packets get through, I generally see acceptable (50ms) round
>trip
>times. It's just that a third of them never return.
>
>I can't reliably load speedtest.net, or even Windstreams home page, but
>fast.com generally reports 25-90 Kbps in the evenings.
>
>This particularly affects web browsing as each advertisement seems to
>want
>to be served by a different domain. I'm running local caching to reduce
>this, but one of every three external lookups fails to the secondary
>name
>server after timeout. Has ad blocking changed the way we use DNS
>recently?
>Would employing it on my boxes the problem?
>
>Has anyone had luck resolving broadband service problems by going
>through
>the NC Public Utilities Commission? Last time I checked, they indicated
>broadband was not a regulated utility and they had no jurisdiction.
>
>Are there any other options or strategies I haven't considered? I've
>been
>told by Windstream that they don't consider these problems to be
>unusual.
>I've opened 3 tickets and the pattern is consistent: they claim they'll
>test it the next business day, don't see a problem when they test, and
>close the ticket without contacting me. They also say because I'm on a
>copper service some packet loss is to be expected, and that my choices
>amount to "...take it or leave it..." (their words, not mine.)
>
>Any suggestions?
>
>-- 
>Steve Holton
>sph0lt0n at gmail.com
>-- 
>This message was sent to: Roger <rogerb at bronord.com>
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