# Why is surfing speed slow when download speed is good?



## go4saket (Oct 15, 2014)

Hello friends!

I have a BSNL Business UL 512Kbps plan and am working in Win 7 environment with a TPLink wireless modem. Problem is dat when I try to download something, I get a speed of approx 60 KBps i.e. 480 Kbps which I guess is good for a 512 Kbps connection but when I am try to open any webpage through any browser, the surfing speed seems to be pretty bad. In youtube, it doesnt stream any video without buffer break even if I select 360p.

Can you please help me to resolve this issue?

Thank you.


----------



## Vyom (Oct 15, 2014)

512 kbps is really not a good speed for today's bandwidth hungry websites.
Youtube is almost impossible to stream without pausing the video to buffer. Even my 1Mbps sometimes pauses due to some algorithm change which Youtube developers did recently (due to which mechanism of transfer of packets of video data changed dramatically).

On 512 kbps I can only recommend to download the video first before watching it. Since due to that algorithm change, you can't just pause it at the beginning and expect it to let it buffer while you grab a coffee. It just doesn't work that way now. Thanks Google.


----------



## go4saket (Oct 15, 2014)

I have a same connection in my office also and there it streams youtube video without any problem and even the websites open pretty fast. So obviously there is some issue in my home connection.


----------



## Vyom (Oct 15, 2014)

You said same, that means same BSNL's? You can check the speeds at both location at speedtest.net.

Also, check the pings. Try to change DNS since that could be an issue. *developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using


----------



## go4saket (Oct 15, 2014)

Vyom said:


> You said same, that means same BSNL's? You can check the speeds at both location at speedtest.net.
> 
> Also, check the pings. Try to change DNS since that could be an issue. *developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using



Can you please tell me where do I need to change the DNS, in the particular PC or in the router. If in the router, should I add the new DNS under LAN settings or under DHCP server settings?


----------



## Vyom (Oct 15, 2014)

You can check the DNS in your PC or in your router. I have no idea about changing that in router since I don't have access to my home router right now.

But you can try doing that in PC, as per the link provided in previous post.


----------



## amjath (Oct 15, 2014)

Do a speedtest on both PC and see the pings. Lower pings are good for youtube stream at 360p in 512kbps with a few seconds pause in the beginning


----------



## whitestar_999 (Oct 15, 2014)

dns settings in router are usually found under lan settings.if your pc is automatically connected to net when modem/router is turned on then most likely dns setting in modem/router is being used by pc.


----------



## go4saket (Oct 16, 2014)

whitestar_999 said:


> dns settings in router are usually found under lan settings.if your pc is automatically connected to net when modem/router is turned on then most likely dns setting in modem/router is being used by pc.



Yes, my PC is automatically connected as I have a always on internet connection. I did add DNS settings in my router but even after that, when I rebooted my router, I was surprised to see that as soon as it got connected to the net, some other DNS was automatically assigned and the values of DNS that I had saved was ignored. Why is this happening?


----------



## ico (Oct 16, 2014)

Apart from DNS, it could also be an issue with MTU size.

Change and try different values in your router's settings.


----------



## sling-shot (Oct 16, 2014)

go4saket said:


> Hello friends!
> 
> I have a BSNL Business UL 512Kbps plan and am working in Win 7 environment with a TPLink wireless modem. Problem is dat when I try to download something, I get a speed of approx 60 KBps i.e. 480 Kbps which I guess is good for a 512 Kbps connection but when I am try to open any webpage through any browser, the surfing speed seems to be pretty bad. In youtube, it doesnt stream any video without buffer break even if I select 360p.
> 
> ...


YouTube will not play 360p videos without buffering at 512 Kbps BSNL speed at all.

DNS trouble should only affect the initial look up of web addresses but not later. Go to FileHippo.com - Download Free Software and download a large file say LibreOffice installer (or any file larger than 10MB) and watch the download speed in your browser. Don't consider the initial 1 or 2 MB. Check after 5 MB or so and keep watching for variations. 

Perform a Speedtest.net by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test speed test and report the findings.


----------



## SaiyanGoku (Oct 16, 2014)

also, use adblock and set browser plugins to "Click to Play". flash content and ads keep hogging up the bandwidth.


----------



## ithehappy (Oct 16, 2014)

I happen to have this a lot. Whenever the overall speed is slow I just go to YouTube and download other stuffs via IDM and more than often they stay fine. I like that though, cause I download more than browse, but that's just my priority, yours could be different. I would be scared if it were the opposite


----------



## $hadow (Oct 18, 2014)

Downloading stuff via IDM generally comes as a real life saver when you don't have enough bandwidth


----------

