Standard tips for Improving performance

[SJB]

Does anyone of you forumites have tips regarding improving the performance and feel of the 3G experience?

Typical helpful items would be to improve the web http, sntp, ftp and pop.

A while back 155 suggested the use of specific DNS. Will this improve performance or just cause problems if the ISP change the DNS' IP for some kind of reason. (I experienced this a number of times with my previous ISP)

 

[Tazz_Tux]

Does anyone of you forumites have tips regarding improving the performance and feel of the 3G experience?

Typical helpful items would be to improve the web http, sntp, ftp and pop.

A while back 155 suggested the use of specific DNS. Will this improve performance or just cause problems if the ISP change the DNS' IP for some kind of reason. (I experienced this a number of times with my previous ISP)

Hey SJB,

This is such a big can of worms to open - you can start flame wars over this in a matter of seconds

It depends firstly on your "view" of what 3G *should* offer, then your understanding of what you are seeing. Just because a site/servers reply is slow, doesn't mean 3G is crap. Vodacom has tests in place which you can preform to confirm this. e.g.

ftp to smtp.vodacom.co.za and download FILE-3.3m (or something like that)
ftp to ftp.is.co.za and download anyfile from there.

That will test the two MAJOR links/segments in the network, ie *your* 3G link and Vodacom's ISP link (to IS) Anything outside of that is outside of Vodacom's control. I had an example where a user was connecting to a server from his work and it took long to download email - dial up and it is fine. Turns out, he didn't have a reverse DNS on the IP he was connecting from, and the server waited to resolve that.

So, how do you optimize your PC for 3G....you don't

What I mean is, are you sure that what you are seeing is bad ? or for that fact, what *are* you seeing?

Just keep in mind that Vodacom, like every other Internet user in South Africa suffers from the lack of international bandwidth, not Vodacom's fault, not the users fault, but because of the cost etc. ISP can't afford huge pipes to UK/US/Japan etc.

So I think, post a bit more info with regards to your query/problem and let see what we can do

Laterz

 

[ic]

Methinks there are some standards tips for wireless communications, the most obvious being to optimize your 3G / GPRS signal - not just signal strength but quality of the signal itself, also bearing in mind that there is a difference between signal that the customer is receiving from a cellular tower, and the signal that is being sent from their device to a cellular tower.

[post=164954]This info provided by v3g[/post] might help .

If you are on the move with your 3G / GPRS, it is unlikely that you will be doing much signal optimising [since you'd be switching between cellular towers], but it's definitely going to be worth it if you often use the service in the same place - like your office.

If you have a 3G/GPRS Data Card, and you haven't got the external antenna, make sure you get it - [post=191287]instructions in v3g's FAQ thread[/post] .

I'm sure there's a lot more generic/standard advice that can be given by forumites that actually have and use 3G / GPRS...

 

[SJB]

Hey SJB,

...
So, how do you optimize your PC for 3G....you don't

What I mean is, are you sure that what you are seeing is bad ? or for that fact, what *are* you seeing?
Laterz

For me it feels like my PC is obeying the 3 second following distance as you should on highways

IE. when following a link, it takes some time to get going. Thus, I do believe that some caching should be better. But not if it would create problems with ISP's changing them regularly.... (and when they typically do, the helplines get overloaded and then your truely stuck.)

To put it more bluntly: Should I be considering building host and/or xhost (I normally get confused between the two), and manually setting up the DNS IP's or will it then just result in more problems later on.

Lastly, the internet is full of internet accelerators by tweaking certain of the windows default settings. What are the applicability of these or are they the "snake oils" of the software markets. From Tucows quickly: Enter the Internet Registry

 

[ic]

Malware can consume a considerable amount of bandwidth & slow things down...

Ok, before installing "accelerators" that allegedly tweak your PC to give you optimum broadband performance, make sure that you already have the following:

• Firewall
• Anti-Virus proggy
• Anti-Malware programs [preferably more than one]

Make sure that your notebook/PC is completely free of spyware and adware [== malware], then Google for reviews of such "accelerators" - often they contain malware components, and make sure your download only from reputable sources - sometimes programs are offered from sites that take the original program and modify it to include malware components.

 

[SJB]

Firewall
Anti-Virus proggy
Anti-Malware programs

XP SP2 built in firewall
AVAST!
Proxomitron; Adaware; Spybot & MS Antispyware (I'm a bit paranoid in this regard )


Any real world success with such programmes or guides specifically using 3G?

 

[ScrnScrm]

For me it feels like my PC is obeying the 3 second following distance as you should on highways

IE. when following a link, it takes some time to get going.

Hi SJB
The initial latency is, *gasp*, actually normal. There is a very good technical reason for this. You will see a similar sort of latency on GPRS connections. Basically, 3G and GPRS are "Stateless" connections - so they have to negotiate their connection everytime a new data stream is requested.

With 3G, it is a bit more complicated - the power on your device needs to be adjusted as well. It uses Code Division (WCDMA), so everyone is broadcasting on the same frequency. The broadcasts cause signal noise, so the "noise floor" needs to be adjusted depending on the activity within the cell. To adjust the noise floor, the BTS adjusts its transmitting power accordingly and instructs your handset to do the same. The effect of this is that the cell is constanty expanding and restricting depending on the noise (due to the changing transmitting power levels), and the quality of your connection can change even if you are statically located. This is what people are referring to when they say that 3G cells "breath".

<edit : Here is an anology - think of people in a fix sized room talking. The more people in the room, the more difficult it is to hear another individual person talking or to conduct a conversation normally. So what do you do? You talk louder, and the noise level in the room gets increasingly louder. How do you fix this situation? You take some people out the room so that the general noise level drops, and you can hear normally again. This is adjusting the general noise level, or noise floor. How do you get the people out the room? Make is smaller so not as many people can fit into it. A very simplistic illustration, but it gets the point across :end edit>


I dont think you will see a difference changing your DNS settings, as it is more a latency issue than a DNS issue as DNS requests are usually the first thing to initiate the connection.

Hope this helps - if you need me to explain in more detail, shout.
Cheers -

 

[Tazz_Tux]

XP SP2 built in firewall
AVAST!
Proxomitron; Adaware; Spybot & MS Antispyware (I'm a bit paranoid in this regard )


Any real world success with such programmes or guides specifically using 3G?

Hey SJB,

<personal pref>
Windows Firewall ??? eeeeewwwwww
</personal pref>



I have noted a general slow down in DNS accross the servers that I look at/use in SA. There are people looking into this so that might cause the slow down. What speeds are you getting when downloading ?

Laterz

 

[ajax]

For me it feels like my PC is obeying the 3 second following distance as you should on highways

IE. when following a link, it takes some time to get going.

I'm using GPRS and I find the delay quite annoying sometimes, specifically when googling for stuff.
It's exactly like SJB says, you hit enter, nothing happens for about 2 - 3 seconds and then it gets going.

Pings are typically higher than 800 ms. I thought it may be lower if I have say a 20kbps audio stream running in the background to keep the connection open as ScrnScrm suggests.
Wireless will never be like fixed line I suppose

 

[SJB]

..Here is an anology - think of people in a fix sized room talking. The more people in the room, the more difficult it is to hear another individual person talking or to conduct a conversation normally. So what do you do? You talk louder, and the noise level in the room gets increasingly louder. How do you fix this situation? You take some people out the room so that the general noise level drops, and you can hear normally again. This is adjusting the general noise level, or noise floor. How do you get the people out the room? Make is smaller so not as many people can fit into it. A very simplistic illustration, but it gets the point across :end

Will it help to keep the connection alive with a pinger etc.(like the old days when Helkom used the R7 weekend and had you disconnected when no data was transferred?)

Analogy would be to keep talking in the room...

 

[ScrnScrm]

please dont dude. you will be hogging a timeslot that somebody else could be using, and defeating the whole point of mobile data. its all about aggregated bandwidth. i would say live with the initial latency so that everyone can get a decent connection when required anyway you pay for the pings in data usage...