Why is my internet connection slowing down?

Can this same sort of traffic congestion by neighbors happen with a DSL connection?

Many blame their isp whether it is cable company or the telephone company that has dsl. The thing to remember is that it very well be out of the isp's hands. You also need a tracert to see where the problem is. It could be farther down the line on one of the major backbones. Getting a good spedd check is important also but one needs to do one that is closer to home. I and well as others us speedtest.net and use a major city closeest to me for the check. Anyone could use a distant city for the test but without a tracert to see where the request is going you would get a false test because of a trouble spot down the line.

We went through a imilar experience when the local cable company introduced internet phone service. Every time they installed a new phone in the neighborhood the cable internetservice would slow down to almost dial-up speed. They finally got it fixed and there is no problem now but for about a month they were always saying we needed a service tech call to fix "our" problem.

Another blame area is when an ISP filteres what its clients do on the internet , for example blocking certain websites , Because the filter causes a slowdown in the chain of events when sending and recieving information on the net.
BT in the uk is renowned for this kind of botleneck

I believe this is just a symptom of the whole www bogging down through a failure of nodes to keep up with the massive increase in traffic from video/audio streaming and downloads. I regularly run a speed test between me and my ISP, and it's always at or above the specified speed. But browsing has become so slow over the past few months it's just no fun anymore. The 'net is dying, killed by greed!

Leo .. thanks for the reply. I guess I was looking for a little "back up" so that I could say "see .. look .. it ain't me it's you"! Since initally sending question I did some checking. I did pings but just didn't give me much information to go on. In my searching about high latency, I came across PingPlotter. I downloaded the standard version (30-day trial). I ran PingPlotter and got some very interesting data to show the cable peeps that .. "see ... look ... it ain't me guys!" So, when all was said and done, I believe that I got my point across. So, for now, I just have to live with what I got and hope that the cable dudes will make steps toward "cleaning this up". Another way to look at this ... imagine a multi-lane highway. More often that not, traffic flow is ok. However, RUSH HOUR(S)!!! More traffic, some highway !!! Can you say "TRAFFIC JAM" or "BOTTLE NECK"? Anyway, again, thanks.

I recently had a slow internet problem I believed was caused by my Cable co. ISP. I disabled virus software and all firewalls without any improvement. Then I started my old windows ME machine which had no speed issues.
I was about to delete and reinstall internet explorer 7 but I reset it instead. Now my machine is like new. its easy to do and you won't lose any saved favorites only passwords. I am not sure what the problem was but its been gone for two + weeks.

DSL can also suffer from the same Saturation problem

It took figuratively months for me to convince my DSL ISP that service really stunk from about 3PM to 9PM Monday-Friday and from 8AM to 9PM on Saturday and Sunday. How stinky? A drop from 3m service down to 175k.

Finally, after much pleading, the tech was present when the school bus arrived in the neighborhood and he document the consumption just absolutely go through the roof.

Go to start -> cmd -> tracert ask-leo.com

This will show the path that your packets take on route to this website. Notice the highest latency. Now do ping ask-leo.com. Here you will see the avg ping is about the same as the highest one from the tracert. This is how you can see what part of the path is the choke point and answer questions like: does it choke when it gets to ask-leo.com's host, or early on such as maybe my router, or the early parts of the path provided by my ISP?

The way data travels through the internet is called "rout switching". If 1 path is congested, some of your packets will get "switched" to another path. In the end, packets arrive at different times, but then it's the job of the "Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol" or TCP/IP to organize the data into something meaningful. It all fits into an original design, but nothing is ever perfect..

Now, where things get real messy is when you step out of your ISP's provided network and into the NAPs or Network Access Points. This is where your ISP turns its data to the routers, provided by, not your ISP, but the "free internet" where it's able to speak to other providers. My Verizon ISP can speak to someone else's Comcast ISP once it enters the NAPs. If the problem is here, there's pretty much nothing you can do about it (the internet will be slow for everyone accessing that part of the NAP).

What Leo said though, is right on the money. Most of the problems can be found in the smallest degree of the "internet" -- The nodes in the streets where the houses in your town all connect to. If they, themselves are too congested (or sometimes need maintenance), everyone in your immediate area will have a problem and this is where your ISP will notice if indeed it's only you with the issue, or everyone on your block and send a tech sparingly.

hi,
well i read about your site ?
i want to ask you a thing that i am updating my windows XP from SP2 - SP3 and using IE 7 but it hangs my computer and then an error message occurs ! hence and in tast manager CPU usage comes to 100% until it comes back to normal ?

Please Help

To post a comment on "Why is my internet connection slowing down?", please return to that article's main page.