Is Pipex really better than Zen ? Surely not ?

One of my hobbies is genealogy, so I spend a lot of time on the Ancestry.co.uk website, and for months now I have been cursing the erratic speeds, dropped packets and general slowness of the site. Ancestry insist that their servers have no problems., but I've always assumed the problems were theirs. Recently one of my friends signed up to Ancestry, and he finds no problems at all with the site ! His ISP ? Pipex !

Come on Zen, is your routing to the US really inferior to Pipex ? I thought I was paying for a premium service here ? Your routing via Level 3 does seem to be painfully S-L-O-W !



tracert trees.ancestry.co.uk

Tracing route to trees.ancestry.co.uk [66.43.22.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 3 ms 99 ms 99 ms 10.0.0.138
2 27 ms 26 ms 28 ms gauthier-dsl1.hq.zen.net.uk [62.3.82.17]
3 * 27 ms 28 ms lotze-ge-0-0-1-136.hq.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.137]
4 27 ms 26 ms 28 ms spinoza-ge-0-0-0-0.hq.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.65]
5 29 ms * 29 ms bolzano-ae2-0.wh.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.53]
6 27 ms 26 ms 28 ms 195.16.169.89
7 27 ms * 53 ms so-6-1-0.mp2.Manchesteruk1.Level3.net [4.68.113.
118]
8 144 ms 144 ms 145 ms ae-0-0.bbr1.Denver1.Level3.net [64.159.1.113]
9 147 ms 151 ms 152 ms ae-31-55.ebr1.Denver1.Level3.net [4.68.107.158]

10 146 ms 145 ms 158 ms ae-5-5.car2.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net [4.69.133.1
25]
11 158 ms 157 ms 158 ms ae-11-11.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net [4.69.133
.121]
12 * 158 ms 157 ms ae-11-11.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net [4.69.133
.121]
13 * 160 ms 159 ms AMERICAN-FI.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net [64.15
8.68.14]
14 158 ms 158 ms 158 ms unknown.Level3.net [64.158.69.14]
15 160 ms 160 ms 159 ms 71.4.83.18.ptr.us.xo.net [71.4.83.18]
16 * * 160 ms 66.43.22.252

Trace complete.

Not good, is it ?

Edited by deleted (Sun 15-Apr-07 12:24:56)

For what it's worth, here's a similar traceroute on Be Unlimited LLU:

$ traceroute -nI trees.ancestry.co.uk
traceroute to trees.ancestry.co.uk (66.43.22.252), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 192.168.1.254 75.702 ms 99.866 ms 99.987 ms
2 87.194.32.1 1676.291 ms 1402.055 ms 1997.384 ms
3 195.50.118.61 14.284 ms 209.718 ms 11.180 ms
4 4.68.116.126 11.578 ms 17.268 ms 18.184 ms
5 4.69.132.109 83.035 ms 76.824 ms 86.114 ms
6 4.69.132.26 79.196 ms 90.416 ms 90.394 ms
7 4.69.132.65 97.835 ms 104.105 ms 108.644 ms
8 4.69.132.61 126.565 ms 126.595 ms 126.392 ms
9 4.69.132.37 133.287 ms 126.832 ms 126.368 ms
10 4.69.133.125 132.743 ms 133.759 ms 132.984 ms
11 4.69.133.121 133.035 ms 133.966 ms 133.475 ms
12 64.158.68.14 132.884 ms 154.646 ms 133.529 ms
13 64.158.69.14 133.775 ms 134.345 ms 133.565 ms
14 71.4.83.18 133.873 ms 135.059 ms 133.751 ms
15 66.43.22.252 135.892 ms 135.071 ms 135.257 ms

Ignore the latency on the 1st and 2nd hops (speedtouch router is slow to reply to pings and Be themselves give lower priority to ICMP on their network).

No dropped packets at all, and fairly fast ping times!

Mine is:

Trace www.ancestry.co.uk (66.43.22.71) ...

 1 192.168.1.1       0ms    0ms    0ms  TTL:  0  (my.router bogus rDNS: host not found [authoritative])

 2 62.3.82.17       28ms   28ms   28ms  TTL:  0  (gauthier-dsl1.hq.zen.net.uk ok)

 3 62.3.80.137      29ms   28ms   29ms  TTL:  0  (lotze-ge-0-0-1-136.hq.zen.net.uk ok)

 4 62.3.80.65       28ms   29ms   28ms  TTL:  0  (spinoza-ge-0-0-0-0.hq.zen.net.uk ok)

 5 62.3.80.53       29ms   30ms   65ms  TTL:  0  (bolzano-ae2-0.wh.zen.net.uk ok)

 6 195.16.169.89    30ms   28ms   29ms  TTL:  0  (No rDNS)

 7 4.68.113.118     29ms   28ms   29ms  TTL:  0  (so-6-1-0.mp2.Manchesteruk1.Level3.net ok)

 8 64.159.1.113    145ms  145ms  147ms  TTL:  0  (ae-0-0.bbr1.Denver1.Level3.net ok)

 9 4.68.107.190    146ms  160ms  150ms  TTL:  0  (ae-32-56.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net ok)

10 4.69.132.37     154ms  151ms  149ms  TTL:  0  (ae-1-100.ebr1.Denver1.Level3.net ok)

11 4.69.133.121    159ms  159ms  158ms  TTL:  0  (ae-11-11.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net ok)

12 4.69.133.121    159ms  159ms  159ms  TTL:  0  (ae-11-11.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net ok)

13 64.158.69.14    159ms  162ms  160ms  TTL:  0  (unknown.Level3.net fraudulent rDNS)

14 71.4.83.18      160ms  160ms  159ms  TTL:  0  (71.4.83.18.ptr.us.xo.net ok)

15 71.4.83.18      161ms  160ms  160ms  TTL:  0  (71.4.83.18.ptr.us.xo.net ok)

16 66.43.22.71     160ms  161ms  160ms  TTL:237  (ancestry.co.uk ok)

No problems here:

Tracing route to ancestry.co.uk [66.43.22.71]

over a maximum of 30 hops:



  1    27 ms     1 ms     2 ms  192.168.1.1

  2    32 ms    47 ms    33 ms  gandhi-dsl1.wh.zen.net.uk [62.3.83.5]

  3    34 ms    33 ms    37 ms  bolzano-ge-0-0-1-3.wh.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.229]

  4    33 ms    32 ms    33 ms  195.16.169.89

  5    34 ms    33 ms    33 ms  so-6-0-0.mp2.Manchesteruk1.Level3.net [4.68.113.114]

  6   150 ms   149 ms   150 ms  as-0-0.bbr2.Denver1.Level3.net [64.159.4.226]

  7   150 ms   160 ms   160 ms  ae-32-52.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net [4.68.107.62]

  8   163 ms   167 ms   156 ms  ae-1-100.ebr1.Denver1.Level3.net [4.69.132.37]

  9   166 ms   164 ms   164 ms  ae-5-5.car2.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net [4.69.133.125]

 10   164 ms   165 ms   163 ms  AMERICAN-FI.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net [64.158.68.14]

 11   164 ms   163 ms   164 ms  unknown.Level3.net [64.158.69.14]

 12   164 ms   164 ms   164 ms  71.4.83.18.ptr.us.xo.net [71.4.83.18]

 13   164 ms   164 ms   164 ms  ancestry.co.uk [66.43.22.71]



Trace complete.

Remember, ping != throughput.

2 questions:

a) Do you block incoming ICMP traffics at all on a firewall (on your router/PC etc)?

b) What is your MTU/MRU set to?

Thanks for your interest.

Answers:

1. Yes, I block(ed) ICMP traffic. My Load Balancing Router was set to block: Echo Request, Timestamp Request, Information Request & Address Mask Request.

Now turned off. Seems better. Which one was it likely to be, and why was it causing a problem ?

2. MTU & MRU both set to 1500.

I know the basics of TCP, but (as you can tell) I'm no expert

It always helps to ask first if other people with Zen are having the same problem before you declare it's them. For what it's worth, I had no problem getting to the site. Have you considered it might be specific to your connection or computer?

Hi Zebedy

I am on Enta and Here are my tracert results..i am also getting slow times:

Tracing route to trees.ancestry.co.uk [66.43.22.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms home [192.168.1.254]
2 31 ms 32 ms 44 ms elm.dsl.enta.net [87.127.229.34]
3 31 ms 33 ms 30 ms vlan4003.telehouse-east2.dsl.enta.net [87.127.22
9.33]
4 228 ms 198 ms 32 ms gi3-8.global-switch.dsl.enta.net [84.45.242.58]

5 31 ms 34 ms 33 ms te5-1.global-switch.core.enta.net [84.45.242.45]

6 37 ms 32 ms 34 ms 213.161.65.58.enta.net [213.161.65.58]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 105 ms 105 ms 105 ms so-6-0-0.mpr2.iad1.us.above.net [64.125.28.130]

9 103 ms 105 ms 103 ms so-3-0-0.mpr1.iad2.us.above.net [64.125.29.134]

10 1683 ms 105 ms 103 ms so-3-0-0.mpr1.iad10.us.above.net [64.125.30.117]

11 105 ms 107 ms 105 ms p5-2.IR1.Ashburn-VA.us.xo.net [64.125.12.82]
12 107 ms 105 ms 107 ms p5-0-0.rar2.washington-dc.us.xo.net [65.106.3.13
7]
13 125 ms 125 ms 127 ms p6-0-0.rar1.chicago-il.us.xo.net [65.106.0.45]
14 150 ms 151 ms 151 ms p6-0-0.RAR2.Denver-CO.us.xo.net [65.106.0.25]
15 148 ms 153 ms 150 ms p0-0-0d0.rar1.denver-co.us.xo.net [65.106.1.73]

16 173 ms 174 ms 174 ms 65.106.6.82.ptr.us.xo.net [65.106.6.82]
17 173 ms 172 ms 174 ms 207.88.83.102.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.83.102]
18 172 ms 174 ms 174 ms 67.110.119.70.ptr.us.xo.net [67.110.119.70]
19 172 ms 174 ms 174 ms 71.4.83.22.ptr.us.xo.net [71.4.83.22]
20 174 ms 174 ms 174 ms 66.43.22.252

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Shahid Anwar>

Edited by deleted (Sun 15-Apr-07 21:19:49)

Everyone seems to be pinging to it at over 160 or so even the people from other isp's.
So its obviasly hosted in the US which wont help matters.

For me it does seem a tad slower to load when i clicked a few random links on it than other US sites i visit alot but i wouldn't call it painfully slow.

Blackmesa8

I too found it slow to load but not hugely. Pings around 215 ms.