ISP Recommendation? (was "Rogers Breaks DNS")

[Walter Dnes]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 11:40:00AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote

> My guess is that many people's ADSL will be upgraded in the next year
> or so.  Without notice.  And sales staff won't know.  Perhaps a
> question that might tell you the answer is to ask Sympatico if you can
> get ADSL2 -- they call it "Total Internet Max".

  Even "ADSL-lite" has been upgraded without advance notice.  Teksavvy's
(and and other Bell-dependant ADSL) "lite" connection is now 512 kbits
up and 512 kbits down... look Ma, we got SDSL<G>.  I switched over when
I found out about it.  5 megabits is overkill for me, and I do have
things to do with the $5/month I save (after the $25 switching fee).

  I'm listening to internet radio on Live365.com as I type this email,
so 512 knits is OK for me.  The only problem I've had with Live365.com
is ridiculous packet loss on Level3.net in the western half of the USA.

                             My traceroute  [v0.73]
d530 (0.0.0.0)                                         Sun Jul 20 19:36:10 2008
Keys:  Help   Display mode   Restart statistics   Order of fields   quit
                                       Packets               Pings
 Host                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. speedtouch.lan                    0.0%    47    6.7  44.5   1.2  97.7  37.0
 2. erx02.tor.pppoe.ca                0.0%    47   13.4  14.4  12.5  21.7   2.1
 3. ae0-2120.border1.pppoe.ca         6.4%    47   14.5  14.3  12.1  43.8   4.6
 4. 65.39.198.249                     0.0%    47   13.2  20.5  12.7  86.8  19.0
 5. oc48-po6-0.tor-1yg-cor-1.peer1.n  8.5%    47   14.3  17.1  12.9  64.1  10.2
 6. oc48-po5-0.chi-eqx-dis-1.peer1.n 10.6%    47   24.2  27.3  23.5  90.8  13.8
 7. ge-6-23.car4.Chicago1.Level3.net  8.7%    46   26.3  32.7  25.5  97.9  15.4
 8. ae-31-51.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.ne  4.3%    46   38.9  33.2  26.7  52.2   5.1
 9. ae-68.ebr3.Chicago1.Level3.net    0.0%    46   38.2  43.5  26.4 103.5  21.2
10. ae-3.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net     15.2%    46   71.8  64.0  58.3  72.7   4.6
11. ae-1-100.ebr1.Denver1.Level3.net 28.9%    46   61.4  65.4  59.3  75.4   4.4
12. ae-3.ebr2.SanJose1.Level3.net    37.0%    46   88.4  80.0  75.1  88.4   4.2
13. ae-72-72.csw2.SanJose1.Level3.ne 60.0%    46   75.1  84.2  75.1 139.1  14.2
14. ae-23-79.car3.SanJose1.Level3.ne 41.3%    46  104.4  89.4  75.5 150.1  21.2
15. LIVE365COM.car3.SanJose1.Level3. 62.2%    46   88.3  83.3  75.5  88.9   4.9
16. www.live365.com                  41.3%    46   76.2  79.6  75.9 147.1  13.6

  I find that Realplayer *ALWAYS* re-buffers.  The best performance is
with a script I cobbled together to use mpg123 as the "helper
application" for .pls streams.  No dropouts during normal listening and
surfing, including Youtube.  I only notice the slower speed when I load
a very graphics-intensive web page.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
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