Fast sustained download speed w/ lousy ping time?

[blahsome]

Hi, what could be the typical reason for a cable modem to have max (1.5Mbps) sustained download speed, but lousy ping time? My downloads, once started, can stay around 1400Mbps with no problem. However, when I browse the Web, there will always be a delay after I click on every new site. I checked my ping time, and it's around 600-700ms to a number of popular web sites. (Pings to the DNS servers of my ISP average 20ms, though.)

So the net result is, although the sustained download speed is great, it still feels slow for normal web browsing. :|

Any suggestions? What should I tell my ISP customer service to help them figure out what's going on?

Thanks.

 

[Garion]

You're probably getting to experience the benefits of TCP sliding windows. Two computers will send/receive many different packets at once and not wait for a response to each individual one to to send the next. This helps alleviate delays due to fast connections iwth high latency.

I'd go out and grab Ping Plotter from download.com. It will show you very clearly what device is causing your high pings when you go to another site. This is the info your ISP will need to actually fix something.. Assuming they do. Most don't pay too much attention to end users when they complain about latency, unless there's a LOT of them. But, ping plotter will show them in a pretty picture what's going on and see if they can do something about it.

- G

 

[n0cmonkey]

Also check to see if you are using a proxy. If so try disabling it. I remember this seemed to speed up a friend's cable connection at one point.

 

[Abzstrak]

there is a difference between bandwidth and latency. look em up.