[NCLUG] testing internet connection

[Aaron D. Johnson]

> BTW-I'm using the basic Qwest/Qwest DSL/ISP service, and for the
> cheaper AT&T @home will probably suffice for most people...  Dealing
> with the dynamic IP and buggy NAT is troublesome at best... :-(

Just to counter some oft-heard misconceptions, AT&T's @home service
provides a static IP and does not do NAT (at least in my neighborhood
(Stuart and Shields in Fort Collins)).  They do set up their Windoze
customers with DHCP, but it always assigns the same address.  The
installation paperwork has a field labelled "CIP" that tells you what
your IP address is.  I've never seen @home's DHCP servers hand out an
address other than what's on the paperwork.  And with a routeable,
static IP address, there's not much use for NAT unless you've got
another network behind the cable modem.

As for it being slow, I have to disagree.  I'm fairly certain my
neighborhood sees pretty light use, but I often see download rates in
excess of 150Kbytes/sec.  And the occasional 300 to 400Kbytes/sec
transfer.  Upstream rate does seem to be capped at 128Kbits/sec,
though.  So average download rates are on par with 1Mbit DSL service.

Getting large quantities of bits from CSU quickly isn't high on my
priority list, but there's an issue at hop 6 here:

    $ /usr/sbin/traceroute www.colostate.edu
    traceroute to yuma.acns.ColoState.EDU (129.82.100.64), 30 hops max,
    38 byte packets
     1  10.67.12.1 (10.67.12.1)  9.493 ms  26.342 ms  13.688 ms
     2  bb1-fe1-0.greley1.co.home.net (24.5.66.1)  12.425 ms  10.065 ms
        10.097 ms
     3  c2-pos6-3.snjsca1.home.net (24.7.75.33)  13.367 ms 
        c1-se6-0.dnvrco1.home.net (24.7.72.193)  11.207 ms
        c2-pos6-3.snjsca1.home.net (24.7.75.33)  18.203 ms
     4  c1-pos6-0.lnmtco1.home.net (24.7.64.93)  11.187 ms  14.040 ms
        16.131 ms
     5  c1-pos3-0.snjsca1.home.net (24.7.65.141)  35.172 ms  33.470 ms
        35.090 ms
     6  206.24.241.9 (206.24.241.9)  608.701 ms  653.226 ms  663.450 ms
     7  * acr2-loopback.SanFranciscosfd.cw.net (206.24.210.62)  
        602.438 ms  657.045 ms
     8  * acr2.Denverden.cw.net (208.172.162.62)  654.447 ms  716.101 ms
     9  ucar.Denverden.cw.net (208.172.161.206)  646.594 ms  677.716 ms
        650.623 ms
    10  csu-frgp-gw.colostate.edu (129.82.10.5)  424.819 ms  468.769 ms
        432.636 ms
    11  129.82.2.10 (129.82.2.10)  433.319 ms  461.143 ms *
    12  yuma.acns.colostate.edu (129.82.100.64)  661.570 ms
        686.893 ms *

Looks like the Cable and Wireless/home.net peering point is really
congested.  It might look better tomorrow or it might not.  Such is
life on the net.  If it's a huge issue, go ahead and switch.  I'd
recommend first trying out your other prospective IPSs and see if
they're any better, though.  (Just tried the same thing from a machine
with a DSL connection to FRII.  It does look _much_ better.)

I'm not trying to imply that @home is perfect.  They do scan their
customers for servers running on port 119.  They have had the
occasional outage.  I've got a friend who was turned on on Friday that
they don't have an in-addr.arpa mapping for yet.  Their AUP is vague.
Their support folks won't talk to you if you don't run Windows or
MacOS.  Getting an answer about when service will be available in your
neighborhood is impossible.  But on the whole, they're not too much
worse than your average large scale ISP.  To me, it's a whole lot
better the alternatives (dialup for $20/month or ISDN for more than
twice what I'm paying AT&T (if Qworst ever decided to get the line
installed.))

Aaron
--
MTS, tummy.com, ltd.
Linux and UNIX Consulting and Software