Router / subscriber line issue, occasional very slow browsing.

A small irritating issue I seem to be unable to find an explanation and possible solution.

Background:
The issue occurs at seemingly random intervals. When it occurs, it is the same using any of the household computers and / or browsers (Windows 7 & 8 using IE10 & 11 and Maxthon 3.5.2, Macs with 10.8 Mountain Lion and Safari, OpenSUSE Linux with Firefox) both with wired and wireless connection, clearly indicating that the issue has something to do either with the broadband subscription line or the router rather than an individual browser or computer. This is the reason I am posting here and not at Browsers & Mail section.

Problem description:
Occasionally all web pages open very slowly. It can take up to 10 even 15 seconds for the page to be found, and then again about 10 seconds for the page to open.

Sometimes this can last a day or two, sometimes just an hour. Now since last night everything OK, web and browsers fast. Yesterday when the issue was extremely bad this website took 36 seconds to fully load, now it takes 8 seconds.

VDSL 100 / 20 line, half dedicated to IPTV, computers thus sharing a 50 / 10 line. Router is Belkin AC 1200 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band AC+ Gigabit.

Notice that when the issue occurs and the opening of various pages takes ages, all speedtests are still showing PINGs under 30 ms, DL over 40 Mbps and UL close to 10 Mbps. Ironically, for instance the Speedtest.net site can take over 40 seconds first to fully load, but then gives totally normal values.

Additional information:
Rebooting / resetting the router and / or computers does not help. When the site is first very slowly found and opened everything works well but again clicking a link to open a subpage, the same happens: to find the page and open it takes ages.

The issue occurs both when obtaining DNS automatically or using for instance Google's 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 IPv4 and respective IPv6 servers.

As occasionally as this sometimes occurs, it also disappears suddenly and browsing will become fast (normal) again.

Any ideas welcome.

Kari

Make sure there isn't a sneaky guy stealing your wireless to torrent japanese tentacle porn or whatever. This article gives various possible ways to check.

Don't feel safe just because you don't see anyone around your home, good directional wireless equipment (or even decently-assembled makeshift one) can easily connect from a km or more from the access point/router/extender/whatever.

Other than that, for me similar stuff is relatively common as I live in a crappy place and my ISP serves a lot of people in my area (being the only one offering DSL), and sometimes there is simply too much traffic for them to handle. Or so they told me when I called them to know why.

Thanks for your thoughts, Bob.

I am relatively sure it's not a free rider. Not only have I a very strong WPA2-PSK key, as well as router control panel password, but I am using static internal IPs and have limited the available IP range to exact number of devices, only expanding it to allow occasional overnight guests to use the net.

I guess the only explanation is the "traffic jams" on our exchange?

Have you thought about running tracert? It may help narrow down where the problem lies, I would suggest running a base line trace to domains you have had problems with in the past, and then when the lag occurs.

With the Worlds various government agencies doing all this damn snooping my first thought was some type of re-direction to obtain a record of a users internet usage. But, lets not jump to conclusions.

• You can use either the domain name or if you know the numerical address of the domain, you can use that.
• There are five switches that can be used, one that can force a trace through a specific router, and one that can trace back to your router.
• You don't have to use an elevated command prompt like I did, its just a habit I developed.

~~~ ~~~~ ~~~

A trace of your link to thelocal.de through my location, and a ping test for comparison.

• The first hop is the starting point of my router.
• Hop 2 to, and including 6 are my ISP with 5 and 6 their business servers.
• Hop 7 Alter.Net is being handed over to tinet.net, an ISP in Ireland.
• Hop 8 is going through the Isle of Man.
• Hop 9 is a hand-off to melbourne ISP
• Hop 10 is melbourne's network infrastructure.
• Hop 11 arrives at thelocal.de

You can find all this out by using: Domain Name Server records | host.robtex.com Copy/paste all or any part of the domain name into the search box in the upper left corner and either click on Lucky or Search.

   Information

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>tracert thelocal.de

Tracing route to thelocal.de [46.20.229.5]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [xxx.xxx.x.x]
2 6 ms 3 ms 4 ms Verizon Global Network Infrastructure - verizon-gni.net [xx.xxx.xxx.x]
3 7 ms 6 ms 8 ms Verizon Global Network Infrastructure - verizon-gni.net [xxx.xx.xxx.xxx]
4 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms Verizon Global Network Infrastructure - verizon-gni.net [xxx.xx.xxx.xx]
5 13 ms 11 ms 12 ms 0.xe-3-0-1.XL3.IAD8.ALTER.NET [xxx.xx.x.xx]
6 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms GigabitEthernet4-0-0.GW8.IAD8.ALTER.NET [xxx.xx.xx.xx]
7 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms tinet-gw.customer.alter.net [xxx.xxx.xx.xx]
8 90 ms 90 ms 89 ms xe-2-2-0.man11.ip4.tinet.net [xx.xxx.xxx.xx]
9 90 ms 90 ms 89 ms melbourne-network-solutions-gw.ip4.tinet.net [xx.xx.xx.xxx]
10 90 ms 90 ms 91 ms custfw3a.tur.melbourne.co.uk [xx.xxx.x.xxx]
11 130 ms 127 ms 123 ms 46-20-229-5.rdns.melbourne.co.uk [46.20.229.5]

Trace complete.

C:\Windows\system32>


C:\Windows\system32>ping 46.20.229.5 (thelocal.de)

Pinging 46.20.229.5 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 46.20.229.5: bytes=32 time=91ms TTL=56
Reply from 46.20.229.5: bytes=32 time=91ms TTL=56
Reply from 46.20.229.5: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=56
Reply from 46.20.229.5: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 46.20.229.5:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 91ms, Maximum = 92ms, Average = 91ms

C:\Windows\system32>

There are opensource, intensive monitoring tools available like remOcular for traceroute, and Smokeping at this site: Tobi Oetiker - Tobi Oetiker's Toolbox Scroll down a bit until you see Monitoring.

More:
A Practical Guide to (Correctly) Troubleshooting with Traceroute
Richard A Steenbergen <ras@nlayer.net> nLayer Communications, Inc. | Powerpoint .pdf

Traceroute Troubleshooting Tutorial

Cable Modem Troubleshooting Tips: Traceroute

traceroute - a very useful troubleshooting tool which reveals the bottlenecks on the Internet. | All about Linux

Tracing the route is a good idea, one I should have thought myself. Thanks Anak, will do when the issue occurs again.