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Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

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Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#191

Post by b20000 »

orojackson wrote: post #170
dboreham wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with Spectrum is that they allow a large accumulation of in-transit packets when traffic rate is near the provisioned capacity. Some people call this "buffer bloat". Some background: If you study traffic shaping, you'll discover that TCP behaves poorly if packets are simply dropped when throughput approaches the limit (congestion collapse). So traffic shaping usually _delays_ packets rather than droppin…

Why recommend RED for client-side routers? Better to use more modern AQM approaches such as fq_codel or its successor cake [1][2]. Both of them are far easier to apply to client-side routers without fussing too much with settings: setting your download/upload bandwidth limits is enough to get nearly all of the benefits. Other than that, you're 100% correct on Spectrum's ridiculously high buffer sizes on their end. [1…

ok, thanks, still wondering what to do, build a router with debian or put pfsense on it or buy mikrotik or something else that is ready to go :)

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#192

Post by russellbeattie »

I had this same exact thought, and will open fast.com once in a while to give my AT&T 1Gb fiber at home a kick.

But I never assumed malice, even if it is AT&T. I'm not a network engineer but I can see how giving whatever back end networking management system they have a nudge by requesting a fast connection improving things.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#193

Post by stepanhruda »

cpv wrote: post #161
stepanhruda wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I want privacy on a non-home network? Huge part of my traffic is over 5G/LTE.

There are some apps (like Intra) which allow you to connect to a built-in (cloudflare, google) or custom DoH server (your own or other providers which support DoH). Nextdns have their own app for this as well. For android 9 or higher there should be an option in network settings.

Right, I specifically use DoH with Cloudflare on my phone. I'm talking about the "we don't need this" reply above, which is a suggestion for tinkerers, not a good recommendation for general population.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#195

Post by parasubvert »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #183
ogurechny wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite obvious, at least from outside of USA, that “net neutrality” there is how certain group of corporations has been trying to lobby the codification of rules preferential to them to use in battle with other group of corporations. Anywhere in the world there are local and global popular services that generate high volumes of traffic. Providers naturally care about getting shortest paths to them, plan in advan…

> It is quite obvious, at least from outside of USA, that “net neutrality” there is how certain group of corporations has been trying to lobby the codification of rules preferential to them to use in battle with other group of corporations. Complete nonsense. "Net neutrality" means that there is no preferential treatment of packets based on origin or destination. > However, it is hard to imagine that some ISP would t…

> "Net neutrality" means that there is no preferential treatment of packets based on origin or destination.

Which is utter nonsense for any large service provider that requires traffic engineering to handle elephant flows.

This is the problem with blanket slogans, they constrain the network in ways that impact user experience dramatically, and is why a LOT of internet pioneers oppose net neutrality.

Encouraging open access networks seems more striking at the heart of the matter.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#196

Post by ogurechny »

jrockway wrote: post #140
mnd999 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s pretty defeatist. A cartel of corrupt politicians and large cable companies conspired to regulate against it. These regulations can just as easily be removed and replaced with proper net neutrality rules.

There is the cartel effect going on (lobbying against municipal broadband), but even in the absence of that, it's still tough to be an ISP. Think about how much money it costs to dig up a street and put cables under it, and then run them into each house along that street. People that want to use the Internet don't have enough money to do that, and that's why the business is tough. My experience from working at fiber…

> I think "attotrenching" is what I called just running cables into people's windows and not burying them.

Behold, MSU dorm LAN in early 2000s. https://medium.com/@pv.safronov/moscow-state-university-netw...

Partial “topology” shot: https://chronicles.igmsu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/topo...

Home LANs and early ISPs were built with the same equipment by the same kind of enthusiasts. Typical commieblocks have enough place for cable shafts inside, though. Then the building roofs would get connected (with any kind of cable having any properties you could find) in the same grassroot manner. All that free libertarian enterprise, and now, after a number of tech upgrades, mergers, and so on, you can get gigabit for ten bucks.

I get it's not that suitable for suburbian installations, but the idea is that it all starts small and ugly. That's why your cable corporations are never ever going to allow even a tiny bit of alternative to happen, heh.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#197

Post by FrenchDevRemote »

dataflow wrote: post #139
traceroute66 wrote: post #36

Lots of people here have already mentioned the Netflix fast.com test, which is indeed good. But also worthy of recommendation IHMO is the Cloudflare one (speed.cloudflare.com). Main reason I say that is its one of the few that measures jitter (or at least openly exposes the measurement).

CloudFlare one is giving me less than 1/3 the download speed fast.com shows, and in fact, testing by downloading a Linux ISO [1], the latter seems to be the correct one. I don't know what CloudFlare's test is doing (their server is geographically nearby) but I obviously can't trust their measurement. [1] https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/2022.04.05/arc...

That's probably due to your ISP imo, they're known to favor some routes/servers

Or the cabling to the cloudfare server is worse than to other servers

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#198

Post by jrockway »

ogurechny wrote: post #196
jrockway wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the cartel effect going on (lobbying against municipal broadband), but even in the absence of that, it's still tough to be an ISP. Think about how much money it costs to dig up a street and put cables under it, and then run them into each house along that street. People that want to use the Internet don't have enough money to do that, and that's why the business is tough. My experience from working at fiber…

> I think "attotrenching" is what I called just running cables into people's windows and not burying them. Behold, MSU dorm LAN in early 2000s. https://medium.com/@pv.safronov/moscow-state-university-netw... Partial “topology” shot: https://chronicles.igmsu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/topo... Home LANs and early ISPs were built with the same equipment by the same kind of enthusiasts. Typical commieblocks have enou…

That's beautiful and I love it.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#199

Post by kloch »

iperf is the gold standard for measuring throughput but it requires a shell on both ends.

The default TCP mode is fairly intuitive and usually gives a good idea of what is going on.

For precise independent tests of up and down speeds you need to use UDP mode with increasing bit rates until you start to see significant packet loss in that direction. Repeat in the other direction.

Another consideration is that the endpoint you are testing from (probably some cloud vm or server at work) will likely have different routing to your other endpoint (home) than other sites/services you visit. It is not unusual for eyeball ISP's to sometimes have congested peering with specific networks in specific locations while your work->home path will be clean.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#200

Post by dataflow »

FrenchDevRemote wrote: post #197
dataflow wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CloudFlare one is giving me less than 1/3 the download speed fast.com shows, and in fact, testing by downloading a Linux ISO [1], the latter seems to be the correct one. I don't know what CloudFlare's test is doing (their server is geographically nearby) but I obviously can't trust their measurement. [1] https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/2022.04.05/arc...

That's probably due to your ISP imo, they're known to favor some routes/servers Or the cabling to the cloudfare server is worse than to other servers

My ISP is unlikely to be a problem. I literally get higher speeds downloading from servers across the world in Australia [1] than from CloudFlare's benchmark. Something around CF's side is funny, not mine.

I'm looking at the network tab, it seems like they send a ton of small requests instead of a large one... which might point in the direction of the problem.

[1] https://syd.mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/iso/2022.04.05/ar...

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