Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Hi,

I'm routed automatically through the Poplar proxies and this week had my STB upgraded to 3 meg, very nice :)

My problem is that none of the Poplar proxies can reach 3 meg speed, all of them seem to only max out about 150k, if I switch to a different proxy (Colchester/Swansea etc) then I can get the full 375k.

For instance using:
http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt as an example
Poplar proxy only reaches 123k but others give me the full 375 rate.

I've noticed this with nearly all web sites when downloading files.

Can one of the nice NTL tech people have a look, or if I'm mistaken can they tell me what I'm doing wrong ?

Thanks

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Have you tried connecting directly to the Poplar proxies or are you letting your web traffic be redirected transparently to them?

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I'm transparently routed through them, but specifying them specifically doesn't make them any faster :(

I'm using Hersham or Colchester currently and getting full speeds, but surely all the proxies should be able to cope with the 3 meg speed or whats the point of having them ?

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

:tu: hersham;)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I am using the poplar proxies & download at 240kB on my 2Mb connection.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

get a max of 120K on that link gonna change proxy then :)

yup changed to colchester and much faster for some reason

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Can any of the cable forum team suggest why this happens we have had similar threads http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=25968, http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=25571 & http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=25988.

Last time NTL had poxy problerms they switched them off due to pressure on this board.

I wonder if the poxys can not cope with the new speeds, where they specified to run with new speeds or is it the wccp softyware that will not work.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Its strange, most sites I visit (Fileplanet,Easynews & 99% of all homepages with games files/vids etc) only give about 140-180k at most through the Poplar Proxies, switching to either Colchester or Hersham gives full 370k speed IN EVERY CASE, this seems to indicate that the Poplar Proxies are misconfigured in some way, or speed capped.

Those of us routed through Poplar are getting a raw deal if we are on the 3 meg package, as most sites will only give sub 2 meg speeds default.

Perhaps a techy from NTL could look into this please ?

Cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

looks like people are missing this thread

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Not necessarily. When you specify a different proxy you are also using a completely different section of network as well - and so you can't make a deduction like like this - although it might be tempting. ;)

This is why ppl tend to blame proxies for all sorts of behaviour changes, since it is the only tangible thing that they changing - when in fact there are many other network changes too, as a result of changing the proxy, that aren't very visible (unless you use something like tcp-traceroute to show the actual network path used).

That said, your evidence shoud be something that support can use to investigate further. Did you report the issue?

One other thing is to investigate your TCP Receive window which will limit download throughput from sites.
http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I'm being routed transparently through manc-cache-12.server.ntli.net and I never seem to be getting my full 2mb. Right now I'm downloading 2 files from fileplanet at 20kb and a slow torrent at about 20kb. Shouldn't I be gettting twice these speeds?

I am on the 2mb service, I've ran the speeds test and checked the modem file

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I haven't reported it yet, I just got the contact details from the guys at Chetnet, so I'll give it a go.

I altered my TCP receive window from that site and it made a difference to NNTP downloads from Easynews, I get full whack from one connection now which I couldn't before, but it made no difference to the Poplar Proxies, they still appear much slower than others.

__________________

You should definately get more than 20k from Fileplanet with a 2mb connection, I normally get at least 150k, it depends on their load etc but 20k is very poor.

Torrents vary enormously so 20k could be all you can get out of that particular one, also if you are uploading (as you probably will be if you are using Bittorrent) then your download speed could be fragmented somewhat, on my cable modem uploading drastically affects download speed.

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I'm very aware how torrents work and have limited my uploads to 20kb.

I'm just a bit frustrated that my web browsing and downloads seems to be more sluggish than before the upgrade. Ill try altering the RWIN but I was under the impression that windows xp did that automatically.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I applied the RWIN registry tweak from dslreports, quit the torrents and all network programs.

Rebooted and start a fileplanet download, it start at about 100kb but quickly drops to 20-30

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

my issue here in detail

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...164#post434164

Did experiments with my own proxy server, and it seems the ntl proxies cant cope, I tried colchester proxies and the first 2 are good but the last 4 are slow. Right now trying number 2 for normal use.

The problem is I cannot see NTL backing down on this problem, I would be very surprised if they abandoned their proxy policy even tho there are much better ways to save the money.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I regularly get 350KB/sec from HTTP, and always get that kinda speed from FTP and NNTP. Obviously, FTP and NNTP aren't dependent on the proxies.

The occasions that i don't get full speed from HTTP, i'll assume the webserver can't spit it out that fast.

I haven't done extensive tests on the same file over and over again, at different times of the day, to ascertain if i regularly get the same speeds from the same servers.

it definitely looks like some proxies are faster than others, though. I don't know the areas you've spoken about, what's the difference in population density (and cable takeup?) in the areas?

Have you tried using a download manager (like at www.intelligentdownloadmanager.com ) to see if you can speed things up on the slow proxies. that'll be able to tell you if the proxies can handle the traffic or not. Might be that some proxies are setup to limit the speed of an individual thread, but this can be circumvented by downloading a file over 4, 8, or even 16 threads.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

So do I if I specify virtually any proxy other than my default Poplar one, and I also get full speed from FTP and NNTP (especially now I tweaked my Rwin).

I'm still convinced that the Poplar Proxies are misconfigured or just can't handle a 3 meg connection, this problem is only going to get worse as speeds get higher and higher :(

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Well I can tell you proxies that are not capable of 3mbit

Transperent proxies in leicester (not necessarily all of them but certianly never got above 150kB on none specified)
Nott-cache1
Glfd-cache3
Colc-cache6

Colc-cache2 and Colc-cache1 are both fast (over 330kB)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

tryed the colchester ones and I'm now getting 70kb each on 3 downloads from fileplanet :)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Could it be the load balancing software and not the proxies.

I know on my tests to the manc ones it changes even specifying same proxy.

If you remember the load balancing software falls over all the time.

Even associates say its bobbins.

I think they need to sort it again the proxies are always NTLs achelles heal

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Just posting more evidence:

I have 3 downloads coming from the same fileplanet server, the one going through my regular manchester proxy immediately went to 20KB. I then switched to the col-1 and started 2 more, those are coming through at 88KB and 112KB.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Downloaded some Theme's from wincustomize.com, same old story - 109k at max from Poplar Proxies, 320k-350k from Hersham & Colchester, did this many times always the same speed differences.

Surely several NTL tech's have seen this thread by now, their silence is sadly deafening - I think there is nothing that can be done, the proxies at Poplar (and apparently some other places) are just inferior to others, this isn't just on some sites but nearly *all* sites :(

It doesn't seem to be a network issue as the speed is there and available but the proxies are capping, hey maybe thats how NTL will enforce the caps ;)

heh

Cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I suppose that if a lot of customers start specifying proxies when they experience not being able to connect to some sites and leave that proxy set then eventually some proxies will become congested and lead to speed degradation. The more customers that have their speed increased, the more that congestion may occur.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

has anyone tried multithreaded downloads yet? Just to see if the proxies are capable or not.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Multithreads (2 or 3) on Easynews http site brings in the full speed on the Poplar Proxies, but single thread on the other proxies brings in full speed all the time.

So I'd guess the Poplar Proxies are capable of the full speed, but are somehow throttled whereas most of the other Proxies are not.

Strange and annoying, yet another proxy related problem it seems :(

I wish they'd just get rid of them as Freeserve/Wanadoo did...
__________________

Could be a coincidence, could be a reason - the proxies I always get full speed from (Colchester/Hersham/Swansea) appear to be Inktomi and most others (including Poplar) are NetApps - this is according to Robins page here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d...cache.html#ntl

Could this be the reason, the Inktomi Proxies can handle 3 meg speeds and the Netapp ones can't ?

Cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

No, the NetApps are meatier boxes. Load related perhaps.

That list is out of date. Swansea is definitely not Inktomi.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Well ideally NTL should be looking at this issue and if they have no quick fix then morally they should be disabling all the proxy servers that cant handle the load. (perhaps disable for all top tier customers only)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Heh, find me a way for different tiers to be differentiated at the proxies and I'll be happy to suggest this.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

How about suggesting they fix the Poplar Proxies ;)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Ignition the only way I could think of is when dhcp server is assigning ip's it gives a specific range to top tier customers then that range is bypassed the proxies on a access control list.

If this isnt possible then really the proxies should be disabled until they are capable of not degrading the service.

IanUK its more then just poplar.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

DHCPs split allocation by service delivery type, not tier (STB or SACM). There are thus only two pools max per area (although each pool can have >1 actual IP range). It's technically possible to limit ranges to particular service types, but it involves changing the entire DHCP config (think how you'd differentiate between a customer PC on 3Mb and 2Mb/1Mb/750k/1.5Mb/etc.). Additionally, given the number of 3Mb customers you'd waste an awful lot of IPs. In any case, I don't think the symptoms are 3Mb related, I can't see why 3Mb wouldn't work but 2Mb would be fine.

For big downloads I'd recommend using a non-HTTP protocol anyway.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I'm on 2mb and I don't get full speeds.

And with all due respect non-HTTP protocols are not always availiable and having to use them would kind of defeat the point of a having a fast connection.
It's becoming more and more normal to have a http and bittorrent for many file hosting sites and I think the ISP will dread the day customers get a better speed on a bittorrent swarm than a normal download ;) .

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

When I had 1.5 meg I could only ever get about 150k out of the Poplar Proxies, I just thought it was good enough then, but now I have 3 meg it's nowhere near good enough.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I don't think BBKing was referring to Bittorrent (or any file sharing system). I think he was referring to "ftp://" links. Proxies will not affect these.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Indeed, I understood that, I was merely pointing out that FTP is being used less and less.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Yeah I know its not 3mbit related but what I think we are saying is that on the old 1.5mbit tier 150kB max speed would have been ok its only a little below the rated max speed, but if you are providing a 3mbit product which is sold as a fast web browsing package then having proxies hindering it at 150kB is not good enough its less then 50% of the rated max.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Are they fixed? I'm getting 203KB through manc-12

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

No, in fact Poplar is even slower than usual today :(

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

It would be helpful if ppl could give a little more detail when posting results as many so far are not at all clear. Also it seems as if ppl are under the impression that if they do not specify a proxy then they have a "regular proxy" when this is not the case.
I'm sure there used to be a sticky thread explaining how all this works but it looks as if it has become unstuck. :(

In brief, when you don't specify a proxy, the routers or switches load-balance web requests based on the URL over all of ntl's local proxies - the end result is that the same URL always goes to the same proxy (unless it's overloaded or down).

Therefore the concept of having a "regular proxy" when not actually specifying one is completely false.
Using one of the proxy checker web sites that displays the web headers e.g. http://www.all-nettools.com/toolbox will only tell you which proxy is being used for that particular URL, unless you are manually specifying a single proxy.

Also using your own local proxy server will not bypass the ntl proxies because of this upstream redirection mechanism. If you get faster results using your own local proxy server it's prolly because the object is already cached or else your proxy server is better than your PC at utilising the network connection. ;)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Sorry for my misunderstanding. At least this explains why my download speeds are all over the place, some of the manchester proxies must be faster than others or otherwise the file is cached.

Just curious. How much does it cache? For instance would a 50 meg file be cached?
__________________

Actually this also solves the mystery of why I only get full speeds when downloading from my webspace at homepage.ntlworld.com

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I guess unless ntl have restricted it, that it could cache any size of object - proxies tend to have quite a few GBs of storage space. Of course after a while when the cache gets full, older objects get aged out of the cache and are replaced by newer ones.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

files that are common maybe stuff like realplayer might well be cached. But most probably wont be cached.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

It seems I'm always routed through a Poplar Proxy, it just varies which one of the farm I get, here are some results.

Easynews - Trace on their site shows that I'm coming from various Poplar Proxies, *all* of them are only reaching a max of 150k, switching to swansea or Colchester Proxies reach 376k *always*

Fileplanet - max of 150k normally, Swansea and Colchester give 350k.

This pattern is repeated on almost all non UK sites I visit, for some reason UK sites seem to almost always give full speed regardless of the proxy used, but USA sites are somehow capped using the default Poplar Proxies.

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I just had a thought, I wonder if the TCP setting or equivalent is set wrong on the Poplar Proxies (and others that only give slow speeds) ?

Would that explain the good results with UK based sites and bad ones with USA sites ?

Prolly not, but thought I'd mention it in case an NTL techy is reading this.

cheers

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

It certainly could if that is indeed the commonly seen symptom i.e. download speeds are always slower on remote sites.

The TCP Receive Window limit (see info about RWIN on http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks) can reduce peak download throughput from sites that have higher latency. A trace on a download will quickly show what the negotiated window size is and if it is too small for the connection, and I would have thought that support could do this quite easily.

It seems strange though that some proxies (or sections of networks) are slower than others, since I would have thought the TCP Window would be uniformly configured on all proxies. Poor perf could also be due to a dodgy switch cable or misconfigured port that's dropping a few packets, although that would be more likely to affect all sites, although retransmits will take longer (and hurt perf) on higher latency connections.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

To be honest I'm wondering why this is getting so little attention. If people pay for faster speeds why are they complaining when they don't get them? Is is possible it's just the odd poplar and manchester proxy?

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Obviously not the case if you read my posts, guildford,nottingham and leicester also affected. The reason its got low attention is because when you browse the web and download small files it is unlikely the end user will notice that much, not to mention that I bet most of the time when people do ring up tech support they probably get told that its the server the other end not been able to send at the full speed.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Have any specific examples of consistently slow web server downloads through a certain proxy (or set of proxies) vs a faster download from the exact same server going via another proxy (or network) actually been reported to ntl? I certainly haven't seen any here.

I would think this is prolly the reason why it hasnt had any 'attention' - I would think that support would find it impossible to analyse a problem when it's just reported as "the proxies are slow/broken" and ppl do seem to have a tendency to blame them for everything under the sun ...:erm:

Rather like "When all you have is a hammer [selecting your proxy] - every problem looks like a nail [the proxy]." ;)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Look here:
Ok instead of "my regular proxy" I mean the one it was automatically routed through.

We have said many times that downloading the same URL through colchester-1 is faster than the auto-routed method.
__________________

See screenshots

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I also posted 2 specific examples - EasyNews and Fileplanet - so it seems a good place to start might be Fileplanet - as two of us have mentioned that one as being slow with specific proxies and speedier or full speed with other specific proxies, but to be honest I find I can choose almost any USA site and find it downloads files at half the speed compared to full expected 3 meg speed with specified proxies of Colchester or Hersham or Swansea.


Try Fileplanet with Poplar Proxies - then try Fileplanet with Colchester proxies for example.

Easynews have a trace here that includes a speed measurement.
http://www.easynews.com/slow/trace.phtml

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

The proxies are designed to work most efficiently if customers do not specify a particular proxy but leave them to get on with their work. If too many customers, particularly top tier customers, specify the same proxy then it can cause congestion using that proxy.

The speed achievable through a proxy depends on whether that proxy has had to obtain the data from source or already has it cached by another customer having recently asked for the same data.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Sorry, but I just don't buy that as the answer to this particular problem, if that was the case then randomly chosing proxies would show speed differences all the time, but Poplar is *always* slow on virtually all USA sites and Colchester for example is *always* fast on virtually all USA sites.

If this problem depended on cached files/sites then it would be spread over all of them and it plainly isn't.

I NEVER get full speed from the USA sites I regularily visit using my default Poplar proxies (any of them it seems) - I ALWAYS get full speed using Colchester/Swansea or Hersham Proxies.

I'm not sure how much plainer I can put it :(

http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt as another example gives a speed of about 120-130k using Poplar default - Colchester gives 376k.

Cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Maybe I should have said more specific in my last post...;)
Anyway I carried out some testing on the actual example that was given in the first post of this thread.

I downloaded this same 1.5MB object from www.supernews.com several times:
- via my local transparently-redirected group of proxies (Bham)
- via specified proxies, both local and remote in different areas.
- via my work's VPN connection via a VPN server in the US

I downloaded the object using the free GNU uility 'wget' on XP: http://gnu.paradoxical.co.uk/software/wget/wget.html

It is a simple command line 'web get' tool which should eradicate any browser discrepancies. It can specify a proxy, indicate the object's download speed, and display the http headers which are useful in determining whether it's the same object and whether it's been obtained from cache. (Unfortunately I did have some small background file transfers going on which might explain some variance in the results, but it wasn't very significant.)

Results (long)

The speed for the first object fetch was broadly similar (70-100KB/s) for all locations, irrespective of whether it was from transparently redirected caches or manually specified - and the same for local vs remote. It was even slower via my US VPN connection (which does have to encrypt/decrypt and encapsulate every packet).
Then for any subsequent hits from the same cache, the object downloaded at full speed (300KB/s).

So from this admittedly quick and dirty test I can't see anything much different about any of the proxies that I tried, and it appears that www.supernews.com is doing rate limitation for every connection (fairly understandable given the site) - unless anyone can download this object at a significantly faster rate (and show that is hasn't been cached).

Full results:

In the below http headers, note that if the 'Age:' header is >= a few seconds then the object is a cache hit i.e. it has been served from the cache.
(http://rfc.net/rfc2616.html#s14.6)

#1 Transparently redirected via Bham cache group (Miss)

Destination is www.supernews.com - the network latency via ping seem to be about 200ms (so it's a US site).

D:\temp\wget>ping www.supernews.com

Pinging www.supernews.net [216.168.3.20] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.168.3.20: bytes=32 time=175ms TTL=107
Reply from 216.168.3.20: bytes=32 time=177ms TTL=107
Reply from 216.168.3.20: bytes=32 time=269ms TTL=107
Reply from 216.168.3.20: bytes=32 time=191ms TTL=107

Ping statistics for 216.168.3.20:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 175ms, Maximum = 269ms, Average = 203ms

#1 First object fetch via local transparent proxies (Bham)

D:\temp\wget>wget http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:21:23-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt'
Resolving www.supernews.com... 216.168.3.20
Connecting to www.supernews.com[216.168.3.20]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1,442,929 [text/plain]

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 94.32K/s ETA 00:00

14:21:40 (83.78 KB/s) - `active.txt' saved [1442929/1442929]

#2 Again (Hit)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:26:20-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.1'
Resolving www.supernews.com... 216.168.3.20
Connecting to www.supernews.com[216.168.3.20]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 297
3 Accept-Ranges: bytes
4 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:21:23 GMT
5 Content-Length: 1442929
6 Content-Type: text/plain
7 Connection: keep-alive
8 Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
9 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
10 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
11 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 240.05K/s ETA 00:00

14:26:25 (277.44 KB/s) - `active.txt.1' saved [1442929/1442929]


#3 Again (Hit)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:32:10-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.3'
Resolving www.supernews.com... 216.168.3.20
Connecting to www.supernews.com[216.168.3.20]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 647
3 Accept-Ranges: bytes
4 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:21:23 GMT
5 Content-Length: 1442929
6 Content-Type: text/plain
7 Connection: keep-alive
8 Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
9 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
10 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
11 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 313.85K/s ETA 00:00

14:32:15 (319.67 KB/s) - `active.txt.3' saved [1442929/1442929]

#4 Use Poplar-1 proxy (Miss)
>set http_proxy=popl-cache-1.server.ntli.net:8080

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:39:05-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.4'
Resolving popl-cache-1.server.ntli.net... 62.255.64.4
Connecting to popl-cache-1.server.ntli.net[62.255.64.4]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 0
3 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:39:07 GMT
4 Content-Length: 1442929
5 Content-Type: text/plain
6 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
7 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
8 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 120.91K/s ETA 00:00

14:39:20 (104.51 KB/s) - `active.txt.4' saved [1442929/1442929]

#5 Same again (Hit)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:39:57-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.5'
Resolving popl-cache-1.server.ntli.net... 62.255.64.4
Connecting to popl-cache-1.server.ntli.net[62.255.64.4]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 51
3 Accept-Ranges: bytes
4 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:39:07 GMT
5 Content-Length: 1442929
6 Content-Type: text/plain
7 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
8 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
9 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 306.08K/s ETA 00:00

14:40:02 (306.26 KB/s) - `active.txt.5' saved [1442929/1442929]

#6 try from Poplar-cache-2 (Miss)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:41:10-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.6'
Resolving popl-cache-2.server.ntli.net... 62.255.64.5
Connecting to popl-cache-2.server.ntli.net[62.255.64.5]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 0
3 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:41:11 GMT
4 Content-Length: 1442929
5 Content-Type: text/plain
6 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
7 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
8 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 121.03K/s ETA 00:00

14:41:23 (116.68 KB/s) - `active.txt.6' saved [1442929/1442929]

#7 try from local Bham-5 cache (Miss):

D:\temp\wget>set http_proxy=brhm-cache-5.server.ntli.net:8080

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:42:33-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.7'
Resolving brhm-cache-5.server.ntli.net... 62.255.32.13
Connecting to brhm-cache-5.server.ntli.net[62.255.32.13]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 1
3 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:42:34 GMT
4 Content-Length: 1442929
5 Content-Type: text/plain
6 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
7 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
8 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 71.01K/s ETA 00:00

14:42:51 (83.84 KB/s) - `active.txt.7' saved [1442929/1442929]

#8 local Bham-5 cache again (Hit)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:47:37-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.9'
Resolving brhm-cache-5.server.ntli.net... 62.255.32.13
Connecting to brhm-cache-5.server.ntli.net[62.255.32.13]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 304
3 Accept-Ranges: bytes
4 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:42:34 GMT
5 Content-Length: 1442929
6 Content-Type: text/plain
7 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
8 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
9 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 319.13K/s ETA 00:00

14:47:41 (320.54 KB/s) - `active.txt.9' saved [1442929/1442929]

#9 From Manc-2 (Miss)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:44:39-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.8'
Resolving manc-cache-2.server.ntli.net... 62.252.192.5
Connecting to manc-cache-2.server.ntli.net[62.252.192.5]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 0
3 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:44:41 GMT
4 Content-Length: 1442929
5 Content-Type: text/plain
6 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
7 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
8 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 104.05K/s ETA 00:00

14:44:54 (98.48 KB/s) - `active.txt.8' saved [1442929/1442929]

#10 local Bham-6 cache (Miss)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:48:23-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.10'
Resolving brhm-cache-6.server.ntli.net... 62.255.32.14
Connecting to brhm-cache-6.server.ntli.net[62.255.32.14]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 1
3 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:48:25 GMT
4 Content-Length: 1442929
5 Content-Type: text/plain
6 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
7 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
8 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 91.69K/s ETA 00:00

14:48:42 (79.62 KB/s) - `active.txt.10' saved [1442929/1442929]


#11 - via work VPN (US connection)

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yoff http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--14:50:26-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.11'
Resolving www.supernews.com... 216.168.3.20
Connecting to www.supernews.com[216.168.3.20]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Age: 0
3 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 07:26:44 GMT
4 Content-Length: 1442929
5 Content-Type: text/plain
6 Connection: keep-alive
7 Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
8 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
9 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
10 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"
11 Via: 1.1 corpse (xxxxxxxxx)

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 52.42K/s ETA 00:00

14:50:51 (59.17 KB/s) - `active.txt.11' saved [1442929/1442929]

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I just tried a Colchester proxy - and it does seem faster on a miss:

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--19:40:37-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.16'
Resolving colc-cache-3.server.ntli.net... 213.107.224.11
Connecting to colc-cache-3.server.ntli.net[213.107.224.11]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 18:40:40 GMT
3 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
4 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
5 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"
6 Accept-Ranges: bytes
7 Content-Length: 1442929
8 Content-Type: text/plain
9 Age: 1
10 Via: HTTP/1.1 ntl_site (Traffic-Server/5.2.4-59306 [cMsSfW])

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 261.36K/s ETA 00:00

19:40:47 (163.81 KB/s) - `active.txt.16' saved [1442929/1442929]

But this is an Inktomi cache (others were Netapps) - so it might have had its RWIN tweaked higher.

So then I tried a Bromley one (also Inktomi) and it exhibits the same - but even faster!

D:\temp\wget>wget -S -Yon http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
--19:46:05-- http://www.supernews.com/stats/active.txt
=> `active.txt.20'
Resolving cache2-bmly.server.ntli.net... 80.1.224.5
Connecting to cache2-bmly.server.ntli.net[80.1.224.5]:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.0 200 OK
2 Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 18:46:07 GMT
3 Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.29 mod_ssl/2.8.19 OpenSSL/0
.9.7d
4 Last-Modified: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:27 GMT
5 ETag: "cb9610-160471-424de09b"
6 Accept-Ranges: bytes
7 Content-Length: 1442929
8 Content-Type: text/plain
9 Age: 0
10 Via: HTTP/1.1 ntl_site (Traffic-Server/5.2.4-59306 [c sSf ])

100%[====================================>] 1,442,929 316.95K/s ETA 00:00

19:46:12 (265.17 KB/s) - `active.txt.20' saved [1442929/1442929]


So it is looking rather like the Inktomis have had their max RWIN size increased but not the Netapps.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Wow, thats some stats there :)
A bit more impressive than my DUMeter reading setup !

I can understand that if you are pulling in a cached file from one of the proxies, then you will get better speeds, but my own experience seems to suggest that the Poplar proxies are not caching *anything* from the USA (ie: virtually nothing goes above 150k) whereas the Colchester/Hersham/Swansea proxies cache *everything* I look at from the USA (ie: virtually all sites at 350-370k), which cannot be right.

I hope it is something as simple as RWIN values on the non Inktomi proxies, maybe that can be fixed fairly easily and bring them(Poplar and other slow ones) into line with the Inktomi Proxies.

In my own (admittedly non scientific) testing - the Proxies I get good speeds from are all Inktomi (according to Robins page - but someone told me that page was out of date).

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Yes that does sound strange.
But the key here is that I was only testing one object from one point (although over several different network paths) and you can't really do a reliable diagnosis from that. So more data points are required. Plus TCP window size is just one of several things to check in a trace e.g. there could be packet retransmits etc.

You can check whether an object is cacheable (and cached) by examining the HTTP headers. It should be pretty obvious.
You can always use the cacheability checker http://www.ircache.net/cgi-bin/cacheability.py if you don't want to use wget.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I use Luton proxies transparently and im downloading Service Pack 1 for Server 2003 from www.microsoft.com at 360KBS :)

No problems here

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

good posts mr-b, I have noticed the speed disprencancy on uk and eu sites tho, including my own server, I did several speed tests over http from a server that does 360kB over single threaded ftp and the results confirmed my problem. What you say about rwin makes sense as to why the issues might be occuring, I can post a http link later to a dedicated 100mbit link in germany and let you do some further analysis if you like.

I will also go back to a slow proxy and then run this url below on it and see what I get.

http://www.ircache.net/cgi-bin/cacheability.py

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

It could already be cached, or it may well be (OK, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't the case!) that MS use a form of global content delivery network where they have download servers all over the world and MS' download web sites will always redirect you to the closest fastest-responding server. Proxies are often used for this function as well as they are usually much faster and more resilient than web server farms.
You can tell which actual servers are being used by using 'netstat' which will list all of your connections. This method won't work of course if you are manually specifying a proxy.

I'll be happy to run tests using wget on any URLs that ppl list - although it really is quite simple and more meaningful to do the tests yourself. ;)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

here is link

http://www.hostingfreak.net/50MB

interestingly I am getting better results now.

no proxy specified few dips avg speed 330kB
nottingham 360kB no dips
colchester 360kB no dips

when I run that cacheability site it just seems to hang when I put in the url.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

That site appears to be in Germany, I too get 330k from it with my default Proxy, USA sites are still only 150k max - nothing has changed here :(

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Just to let everyone know, NTL techs are looking into this problem! More news will follow once some testing has been carried out...

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

IanUK - Yeah I know its in germany, but originally I was getting 150 KB from eu/uk and usa, now it seems to be somewhat improved so someone must have took notice of this thread :)

Firetrap - Thats good to hear.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I've just checked Swansea's proxies and they are Inktomi's (Traffic-Server/5.2.4-59306)

I've added up-to-date details of which proxies are Inktomi's to my list

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Thats good news, I'm away now for a fortnight or so, so hopefully when I return some progress might have been made :)

cheers

Ian

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

thanks, am I right in thiking the ones that have "traffic-Server/5.2.4-59306" are the faster ones? I am on 2mbit now so the problem wont be as bad for me now.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I don't think I've ever seen such a detailed, or useful fault report.

200ms RTT is far too high to get 3Mbit/s with the tcp window the netcaches are advertising.

Tracing a single download ( at the origin server )...

Inktomi
max win adv: 63712 bytes
min win adv: 1448 bytes
avg win adv: 25236 bytes

NetCache
max win adv: 17520 bytes
min win adv: 144 bytes
avg win adv: 9810 bytes

BDP for Dummies:
http://www.speedguide.net/bdp.php

And if you really need to get to sleep...
http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/index.htm

The Inktomi caches probably just use the ( possibly tweaked ) underlying OS TCP behaviour, and happily ramp up from a small initial window to ~64K, which is good for 375Kbyte/s upto 175ms (didn't advertise window scaling).

The NetCaches are a bit different and with the window advertised above, they'll only be good for 375Kbyte/s if the orgin servers are under ~40-50 ms (rtt) from the cache. It's tweakable, I guess that's what the techs are looking at (either that or they are going to move the entire internet within 50ms!), but larger windows = fewer connections.

On a cache hit none of this matters.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

yeah so we found the problem thats a good thing :D

east usa is usually under 150ms, west usa is nearer 200ms so that is just out of range of a 65k rwin but I think if they can get it set at 65k then most of websites will be well covered.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Hi Eusa,

I didn't think I'd see your nick again once I left Freeserve's support Newsgroups :)

Well, something has happened - Easynews now gives me 376k from a single thread using Default Poplar - as does the Supernews link I posted earlier.

Hooray ! - no more time to test - I'm off on Holiday - but thanks to whoever tweaked whatever !

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

LOL. Hello.

Came across this thread while googling for before/after upgrade reports regarding latency. Only use my NTL connection for gaming and couldn't for the life of me find my NTL details, so thought I'd see if it was worth the effort to search for details / call Support. Since it currently works, I have a faster connection I use for (rare) downloading, and will at some point be automagically upgraded I'll not bother.

It looks like Poplar (at least the 1st one I tried) is now advertising 70080, which has fixed the problem for you.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Just a bump, there are still the manchester proxies and maybe many more that need investigating.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

is it only poplar proxies fixed or all of them now fixed?

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Only "winn" and "popl" (from some list of proxies posted elsewhere in forum) are advertising large windows to clients ( which was quicker to test that checking the origin side ).

Large windows to clients won't ( erm, well.. shouldn't ) be useful, as the client to cache rtt is so low.
Guess they've just upped it for 0.0.0.0/0, and are now comparing a few changed caches to unchanged ones.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

ok thanks Eusa, is there a easy way for me to check myself, and also are ntl planning on rolling this change out to all proxes nationwide?

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

If you have root access to a webserver, then you can easily tcpdump traffic from the proxy, and just look at the "win" value on the initial SYN from the proxy, and the last FIN.

tcpdump / ethereal or another packet dumping tool can also be used client side to do the same thing (which is what I did earlier), but they could well change the client facing window to be small ( it doesn't need to be big, but currently it is on the first cache in "winn" and "popl" ).

I would just wait for Firetrap or A N Other to say when they think they've got the problem licked. Until then multiple tcp connections will get around most problems for anything that doesn't require high bandwidth over a single connection.

If you want to have a play with tcpdump/ethereal and need any help drop me a PM, which I think I've enabled? If not pipe me :-)

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Eusa is indeed correct, only the proxies at Winnersh and Poplar have been changed. A similar change will be rolled out to the rest of the proxies asap...

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I don't know if it's relevant but I noticed an issue with the proxies yesterday - the server s6.invisionfree.com can (or could at the time, not re-tested) only be reached through Inktomi proxies, not the NetApps.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

The verdict of SG's analyzer (if you allow the transparent proxy, it reads YOU, if you force-proxy, it reads the proxy) is not 100%

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

thanks again, its good when feedback is acted upon.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

are proxies fixed nationwide yet?

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

each of the "cache-1", for the ones listed as NetCache in some other post.

62.252.0.4 win 64240
62.252.32.11 win 64240
62.252.64.12 win 64240
62.252.128.15 win 64240
62.252.192.4 win 64240
62.252.224.12 win 64240
62.253.64.12 win 64240
62.253.96.40 win 64240
62.253.128.11 win 64240
62.254.0.12 win 64240
62.254.64.12 win 64240
62.254.128.4 win 64240
62.255.32.9 win 64240
62.255.64.4 win 64240
80.3.0.40 win 64240
80.3.96.40 win 64240
80.3.128.4 win 64240
80.3.160.4 win 64240
80.4.224.4 win 64240
80.5.160.4 win 64240
82.3.32.71 win 65535

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

hmmm, I'm getting very low speeds from US sites again, as before switching to other proxies fixes it - this has been going on for several days now, are the Poplar proxies mucked up again I wonder :(

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

62.255.64.4 win 64240
4.64.255.62.IN-ADDR.ARPA domain name pointer popl-cache-1.server.ntli.net

*shrug*

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Hersham gives full 376k - Poplar gives anywhere between 50-200k - again defeating the point of having a 3 meg service unless you manually change the proxy.

I'm really getting quite sick of these rubbish proxy hoops we are forced through to get the service we pay for :( :(

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Manchester has been fine since we complained.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Its been fine here as well until the last few days, the Newsserver has started timing out as well now, ho hum.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

is this one fixed?

Name: leic-cache-1.server.ntli.net
Address: 82.3.32.71

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

82.3.32.71 win 64240

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I wonder whats up this time then ?

I'm still getting 100-200k from Gamespot,Fileplanet,3dGamers etc - switching to Hersham proxies brings the speed back up to 376k - been like it for a few days now.

Why do NTL persist with these bloody things :(
or more to the point - why does it always seem to be the Poplar ones that break...

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

they persist for cash, although they must be saving pennies because bandwidth is dirt cheap now days especially on their commit.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Also, there is the catalog of sites with proxy troubles, and not JUST the clowns that block the proxy instead of a troublemaker's own IP ( 100% available through the transparent proxy ).

Yep! www.betanews.com is still unusable through default proxy (poplar)
62.255.64.11 seems to be the culprit - all the others work as explicit proxy
Maybe it's a block at their end!

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

You can add Ebuyer.com on an almost daily basis through default Poplar, and another site is rapidshare.de (virtually useless to NTL customers)

Its a pain to have to keep changing proxies continually to get some sites to show up, some less technical NTL users must simply think that many sites are often down - not realising that its NTL's fault that they cannot see them :(
My main beef with them though is that they do NOT give the full 3 meg speed that I'm paying for (at least the default Poplar doesn't..again)
Hersham does (for now at least)

God only knows how completely useless and restricting the proxies will become once 8 or 12 meg becomes the norm...us poor proxied users at NTL will probably barely get above 200k a sec with the current setup..

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Alone personally I could list over 20 sites that have had problems because of the proxies, then another load that have been posted on this site, there is probably 100s unreported.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

groups.msn.com doesn't work properly on Poplar - when you visit a group the page is blank (http://groups.msn.com/Battlefield1942Forumn/home.htm for instance) - refreshing then brings it in..

Really getting sick of this now..

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Somehow, I doubt that "I've got to reach my quota" support would be that interested, but there has to be some way to convey the problems to NTL.

On the plus side, the Kodak page that did have a problem, now seems to be clear - though the bad proxy may have just been shuffled away from it!

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

I think the best way of reporting is using that feedback feature linked to from this site.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

On a similar, but slightly different note....

I'm currently beta testing GameCenter, this is Gamespot's new application for online gaming - NTL customers have had to wait about 3 days longer than everyone else for a version that works with the Proxy servers - everyone else got in almost from day one - but the proxies caused a rewrite of the application before it would work - I participated in this by sending them logs.

Yes it is a beta, and yes, you could say that its bad programming - but once again its us, the customers, that suffer from these infernal proxies.

Not a day goes by it seems lately without the dam proxies causing problems :(

The pings I get are wonderful for online gaming - no complaints there - but I never imagined that the bloody proxies would start to interfere with online gaming applications !

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

Poplar Proxy now giving less than 100k (normally only about 20k) for 3dgamers.com downloads, switching to Hersham fixes this (as always)

Can someone please bring the Poplar Proxies into line with at least the Hersham ones !

I have complained to 3dgamers, they tell me that everything is ok their end and being as switching to the Hersham proxy fixes the speeds I'm inclined to agree with them.

3dgxfer2sa.3dgamers.com is one of the servers that is slow from Poplar default.

Re: Poplar Proxies don't reach 3 meg speed
 

been having problems with ebuyer.com, very slow using auto set ntl proxy, and is normal speed when using my squid server. The server is just 20ms away so looks like a proxy issue again.