PPRuNe Slow Since ADSL Installed... Why?

[beaver eager]

Three weeks ago, I installed Norton Utilities onto my P3 450 and (after running Win Doctor, System Doctor and Speed Disk - I previously used only to defrag with the program included with Win 98) my Computer was suddenly loading programs much more quickly and best of all, PPRuNe pages were loading so quickly I couldn't believe it! I wish I'd got a Utilities Program years ago.

However, that was using my old Dial Up connection with Freeserve Anytime. Unfortunately, since going over to ADSL with BT Internet last week, PPRuNe is downloading S-L-O-W-E-R than it used to with the old dial up connection.

It's very frustrating and, quite honestly, I can't really afford the time to wait for all the pages to download. Enjoying the PPRuNe experience is impossible at the moment.

Does anyone have any clues as to what may be happening? Obviously, other web pages (even with loads of piccies on) download instantly, as you would expect, as do e-mails with attachments.

So...
Is the problem that BT uses a different (and slower) 'route' across the pond from where the server is than Freeserve?

Is there something wrong with PPRuNe? Or is it's server reaching it's limit again. If so, why was Freeserve so much faster than my new broadband connection? Obviously PPRuNe got slower with the load since Sep 11th, but was recovering (and the Utilities treatment had made it really good anyway).

Do I need to make an adjustment to my browser (IE 5.5)? If so why do all the other non PPRuNe websites not go slow?

Any help would be appreciated.

[WhiteSail]

:( Unfortunately, the last couple of days or so, has seen the site slow to a standstill.

I have no idear why!

I have recently changed to Freeserve anytime, and its the same on that, (as you describe), so I don't think (just for once) its anything to do with BT.

[beaver eager]

Just had the following response from the PPRuNe Dispatcher...

Hi Pete,

I've got a horrible feeling that BT aren't spending as much as they should on network capacity. I've noticed that if I dial in using ukgateway.net or virgin.net I get significantly faster downloads from PPRuNe and many other U.S. sites than if I use btinternet.com If the bandwidth throttle point is BT's external link to the U.S. then going to ADSL from dialup won't give a noticable speedup with U.S. sites such as PPRuNe.

Your "speed up" programs may also be tricking you in that they may be caching some pages when they shouldn't, and going to ADSL means that you are now downloading pages each time instead of seeing old, out-of-date pages.

Finally, PPRuNe is overloaded (again...) and we do plan to upgrade the hardware and software. I'm hoping to install a software accelerator sometime in the next week or two which should relieve some of the pressure.

Mik Butler
aka PPRuNe Dispatcher

I'm sure I wasn't fooled by the caching problem as I'd noticed when this was happening and know how to command a 56k connection to always get the latest version of a page.

[beaver eager]

Yeah, I know it's sad to...

A) Be up at this time of night (I've an early check in).

B) To have a thread nearly all to yourself.

But... I had to know if it's going faster when the USA is in bed and it is! About the speed I would have expected with a fast connection. Of course this doesn't help much to know whether the problem is a crap BT connection across the pond or just load on the server when the entire population of the USA is online. Just one of life's mysteries, I guess. :(

[shack]

Don't despair or blame your gear too much, from here using France Telecom and an ISDN line and a very fast setup I keep giving up on my Pprune connection. Naviscope, a program that shows you what is happening to your connection, indicates that is waiting for a response from the server, so as has been said we are in an overload situation again.

[beaver eager]

Merci Shack.

Hopefully things will improve for a while when Mik installs this new software accelerator.