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Why is the Internet so Slow?

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Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#21

Post by inapis »

arlk wrote: post #14
3pt14159 wrote: post #7

If you want an easy speed up and you use a modern version of nginx, which you should for many reasons but chiefly performance and security. Add these lines to your nginx config file: # Only support HTTPS and enable http2 # which will allow you to multiplex requests. # In a separate config do a 301 from normal HTTP # for all paths / subdomains. listen 443 ssl http2 default_server; listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_ser…

Why would allowing only https result in a speedup in network? I experience that but I'm still curious about the reason.

Lots of browsers force HTTPS if you want to use HTTP/2. The speedups are because of http/2 and not solely because of https.

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#22

Post by RangerScience »

the8472 wrote: post #20
IndrekR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or any form of electromagnetic wave passing media with low dielectric constant. Like microwave communication in athmosphere. Speed of propagation in typical cable is around 66% of c. That is not too bad. More latency is probably caused by buffering. Speed of light is just too low. We should get a lobby-group working on it and the limiting laws of physics.

You really shouldn't be complaining about the speed of light. We're leaving a lot on the table by sending the data along the surface of earth instead of through it. With neutrino-based signalling you eliminate both the lower propagation speed and the suboptimal path.

You should check out "spark gap radio".

Basically, lightning causes ripples in the Earth's electromagnetic sphere. Those ripples travel across the surface of the earth at an apparent speed that's faster than light, because the actual path is through the earth.

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#23

Post by panic »

If you're thinking, "it's fast enough!" -- remember that a system's performance determines what you're able to build on top of it. If GPU designers had said "it's fast enough" ten years ago, for example, modern neural-net AI may never have happened. It's easy to imagine doing the same things faster, but it's harder to picture the new things that a lower-latency Internet would make possible.

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#24

Post by sgift »

the8472 wrote: post #20
IndrekR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or any form of electromagnetic wave passing media with low dielectric constant. Like microwave communication in athmosphere. Speed of propagation in typical cable is around 66% of c. That is not too bad. More latency is probably caused by buffering. Speed of light is just too low. We should get a lobby-group working on it and the limiting laws of physics.

You really shouldn't be complaining about the speed of light. We're leaving a lot on the table by sending the data along the surface of earth instead of through it. With neutrino-based signalling you eliminate both the lower propagation speed and the suboptimal path.

Has neutrino-based signalling been achieved or is it still a research topic? Last time I read about it it was more a case of "if we could do this it would be great, but we have no idea how to do it" and a quick Google search only brought a Forbes article from 2012 which had a similar sentiment.

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#25

Post by 3pt14159 »

zucchini_head wrote: post #10
3pt14159 wrote: post #7

If you want an easy speed up and you use a modern version of nginx, which you should for many reasons but chiefly performance and security. Add these lines to your nginx config file: # Only support HTTPS and enable http2 # which will allow you to multiplex requests. # In a separate config do a 301 from normal HTTP # for all paths / subdomains. listen 443 ssl http2 default_server; listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_ser…

I'm not very experienced with these nginx settings. Could you explain how this improves speed so much for you? It seems that you've followed [1] by the similarity of what that suggests to what you've suggested. tcp_nodelay seems to force it to not wait 0.2 seconds, which nginx does so that it doesn't send lots of really small packets. I can see this increasing speed by 200ms (a lot) but increases network traffic as a…

So I'm more of a machine learning / cyber security guy than a sys admin, but with that proviso, here is my understanding:

Of course you'll have to check your own site for your own performance issues, but while travelling from Toronto to Vilnius I found our site much slower and investigated why. We have a webapp running Ember with mix of largish assets, like images, and smallish assets, talking to a JSON API standard API written in rails and proxied through nginx (responses are usually around 1kb of JSON, but this gets compressed with HTTP2).

In reality waiting 200ms is an enormous cost and carries a hidden cost: Larger packets are easier to lose. If you're going mostly to browsers that is more and more often going through wifi or cell tower networks with at least 1% packet loss and when the resend happens you're stuck with that 200ms delay again.

That's my understanding, but the real truth is "it just works for me when testing around the world with real-world use cases, try testing it out yourself and please let me know if you learn something new".

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#27

Post by arethuza »

threepipeproblm wrote: post #18
lucozade wrote: post #8

Did I read this correctly? Is it saying that a general internet connection, without specialist low latency connectivity, is only 37x slower than its theoretical minimum? That's astonishingly good. It's great that they think they can do better but bloody hell. It's indistinguishable from magic.

You're saying that achieving 2.7% of the theoretical efficiency is good? Many car engines have an efficiency of around 20% for example, as compared to the maximum theoretical efficiency of 67%. If car engines performed only well enough to meet your standard of amazingness, your gas costs would be 7 or 8 times higher. Or if you used a modern Toyota engine for comparison, something like 14 times higher. Obviously I too…

On the other hand how well are we doing when it comes to achieving the maximum theoretical speed for interstellar spacecraft? :-)

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#28

Post by amadvance »

threepipeproblm wrote: post #18
lucozade wrote: post #8

Did I read this correctly? Is it saying that a general internet connection, without specialist low latency connectivity, is only 37x slower than its theoretical minimum? That's astonishingly good. It's great that they think they can do better but bloody hell. It's indistinguishable from magic.

You're saying that achieving 2.7% of the theoretical efficiency is good? Many car engines have an efficiency of around 20% for example, as compared to the maximum theoretical efficiency of 67%. If car engines performed only well enough to meet your standard of amazingness, your gas costs would be 7 or 8 times higher. Or if you used a modern Toyota engine for comparison, something like 14 times higher. Obviously I too…

You car is million times slower than the speed of light :)

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#29

Post by dx034 »

fredley wrote: post #3

TL;DR: TCP and DNS, which is what you would expect. If you want light-speed internet, send UDP packets with a laser.

Or soon via low orbit satellite networks. Should be able to speed up latency between continents (and not as expensive as the microwave towers that high frequency traders use).

Re: Why is the Internet so Slow?

#30

Post by the8472 »

sgift wrote: post #24
the8472 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really shouldn't be complaining about the speed of light. We're leaving a lot on the table by sending the data along the surface of earth instead of through it. With neutrino-based signalling you eliminate both the lower propagation speed and the suboptimal path.

Has neutrino-based signalling been achieved or is it still a research topic? Last time I read about it it was more a case of "if we could do this it would be great, but we have no idea how to do it" and a quick Google search only brought a Forbes article from 2012 which had a similar sentiment.

The OPERA experiment (of false FTL neutrino discovery fame) did create and detect neutrino pulses as part of their experimental setup.

It's possible as far as the physics go but also impractical given the particle accelerator and detectors needed. And the post-processing the scientists had to do to tease out the timing information also would negate any latency advantage.

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