Why are some web pages fast & others slow?

Some web pages are poorly made with too many graphics, too much code, or graphics that have not been optimised for the web. They then take a long time to download to your computer.

Some pages are made where the content is continually changing, so they cannot be stored in buffer computers (proxy servers) closer to you in the Net.

When a page is coming from some part of the world to you, it travels to a trunk link to Australia. Most trunks to Australia come via USA. It only takes one link between two US cities or one link elsewhere in the world to be heavily loaded and the rate that data gets through for individuals slows dramatically. If our staff have a lot to get from a web site they try to access it at a time of day when it is 2 to 5am over most of USA so the US population is not slowing the trunks.

Sometimes a site is so popular that the slow link is the one out of the server that is hosting the pages, as it is congested with too many page requests. In a very overloaded site the delays may be so long between bursts of data to you that your browser may timeout or just stop. (occasionally clicking refresh and starting over connects you via less congested links through the Net but not usually).

Within Australia there are multiple internal trunks that ISPs are connected to. Many of these do not directly connect to each other very well, so some of the internal Australian traffic actually links via USA. This creates an interesting situation where you with one ISP will get some pages fast (from ISPs on the same backbone or trunks, and you will get other pages slowly; yet your next door neighbour on a different ISP may get a different mix of fast and slow sites - pages you get fast they get slow and visa versa.

No matter how fast your ISPs system is, in the evening up to midnight, the trunks between ISPs and links overseas will be slowed down due to large numbers of users on line. The problem is getting worse during the day, and Telcos that build the trunks and inter-country links are having trouble keeping up with the unforseen rapid growth in the Internet.

At Easynet we run a fast system, and have a good proxy server as part of the system, ensuring that at least pages that come from proxy can be faster even if external trunks are congested. You should make sure you have proxy turned on, as it makes quite a difference to the speed many pages download (In most browsers proxy is set in tools, options, connections, dial up settings. Proxy should be on, the address is proxy.easy.com.au the port is 3128 and proxy can be bypassed for local pages. This is where you set a list of pages that are exceptions that need proxy off, usually applicable only to certain secure transaction pages like bank account or share purchase).