Sporadic Web Connection Issue

I seem to have an intermittent fault affecting my browsing, now and again connections to a particular webpage fail. A single refresh typically resolves the problem and the correct webpage displays correctly.

For the avoidance of doubt; the browser can't seem to find the servers and all websites are affected so this is not a problem with the servers. Neither does this appear to be a local problem with the browsers, firewall or router.

I have a VM ADSL 8+ connection, in the last few month the down speed has improved significantly from mid 4Mbs to 6Mbs+. This evening's results are a bit rubbish but acceptable (IP profile usually 7000kbps, and line is stable):

Download speedachieved during the test was - 4867 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :8128 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 6500 Kbps

So my question is what could be causing my computers from intermittently not connecting to various web servers?
Could this be a problem with the DNS servers (I don't really know what these are, resolve IP addresses?) or garbled packets?
What tests can I run to identify the problem?

In reply to a post by eastanglian:

Could this be a problem with the DNS servers (I don't really know what these are, resolve IP addresses?) or garbled packets?

That is possible..
Try setting alternative DNS servers such as those from Open DNS (http://www.opendns.com/) for 24 hours to see if that improves things.

Matt

Thanks Matt, as advised I'm using OpenDNS now. Getting onto their website proved somewhat of a chore for the reasons I mentioned above. Things seem much better now and here's hoping the problem is resolved.

Do ISP's DNS servers often go awry?

In reply to a post by eastanglian:

Do ISP's DNS servers often go awry?

Yes, just like any service.. they can sometimes have problems.

Keep with OpenDNS for 24 hours or so.. if that fixes the problem, you can just leave them within your network settings without any worry.

Matt