*BSD News Article 73514


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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.mathworks.com!hunter.premier.net!news1.erols.com!newsmaster@erols.com
From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com>
Newsgroups: demon.ip.support,demon.tech.unix,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Batch FTP and Web Pages
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 20:13:49 -0700
Organization: Erols Internet Services
Lines: 64
Message-ID: <31E7146D.2FCE@www.play-hookey.com>
References: <31D4AA3A.BC0@www.play-hookey.com> <4rjrkt$ih@anorak.coverform.lan> <4rphs7$158@avondale.demon.co.uk> <4rr0us$fj@anorak.coverform.lan> <4rtrbh$2s8@avondale.demon.co.uk>
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John F Hall wrote:
> 
> demon-du.demon.co.uk is nothing to do with routing to the US.
> 
>     traceroute to compuserve.com (149.174.216.15)
>      1  finch-145.access.demon.net (194.159.253.145)
>      2  trude-access.router.demon.net (194.159.253.99)
>      3  core-a.router.demon.net (194.159.252.252)
>      4  204.6.105.1 (204.6.105.1)
>      5  t16.sc.psi.net (38.1.3.26)
>      6  mae-west.sf.compuserve.net (198.32.136.59)
>      7  hssi3-core.sf.compuserve.net (205.156.223.233)
>      8  atm1-03-core.arl.compuserve.net (205.156.223.45)
>      9  205.156.223.53 (205.156.223.53)
>     10  arl-gw-5.compuserve.com (149.174.216.15)
> 
> You can call finch-145.access.demon.net demon-du.demon.co.uk if it makes
> you happy, but that only applies to that particular login.
> 
> The roundabout way to Columbus Ohio via psi.net, mae-west, and San
> Fransisco makes me think that that route went down the new line.  :-)
> 

Just to check time lags, I did a reverse hop check to 
demon-du.demon.co.uk, and came up with the following (at about 7:30 PM 
EDT):

 1. 206.161.179.129www.play-hookey.com           (13 ms) 
 2. 205.252.116.183asxxx.erols.com               (159 ms) 
 3. 205.252.116.164rtprime.erols.net             (148 ms) 
 4. 206.161.76.62  mae-east-h0/0.erols.net       (178 ms) 
 5. 192.41.177.245 mae-east.psi.net              (171 ms) 
 6. 38.1.3.1       ne.sc.psi.net                 (226 ms) 
 7. 38.1.3.1       ne.sc.psi.net                 (244 ms) 
 8. 204.6.105.2    <unknown>                     (418 ms) 
 9. 194.159.252.98 ermin-router.router.demon.net (354 ms) 
10. 158.152.1.222  demon-du.demon.co.uk          (359 ms) 

I'm sure there are minor variations at different times of day and with 
changes in demand, but this about says it. The problem of slow 
connections is not within the US itself, and (according to a number of 
posts in this excessively long and deep thread), not in the UK itself. 
The bottleneck, as I and several others have said, is the bandwidth of 
the <virtual> cable crossing the Atlantic. This being so, I'd like to 
step back to the original topic of this thread...

I suspect that a reget function within HTTP won't help you folks in the 
UK. If your link to, say, Japan runs at 200 B/s, downloading a large 
binary file in chunks won't reduce the total download time; it's only 
effect can be to spread the download process over a longer period of 
time. It might be helpful if large downloads are normally stalled out, 
but if that is the case, even with regets you might never get the whole 
file.

Hopefully, the new Demon cable will cause a noticeable speed-up, and that 
further expansions of the Atlantic cable will not be long in coming.

-- 

Ken

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