Lamar.edu myLamar Portal LUonline Alumni Online Community Search LU
Arrow to Search Lamar.edu

Why Is The Internet So Slow?


Faster backbones, faster routers, faster servers, faster modems -- all are being touted as "the solution" to slow performance on today's Internet. However, none of these solutions will improve the Internet's performance as long as traffic is constrained at the public exchanges and private peering points of today's Internet.


The current Internet architecture was not designed for today's level of traffic flows. It is at these interconnection points where downloads can grind to a halt or be lost entirely - resulting in slow, unreliable performance for the end user.


This image is a generic representation of the concept discussed in this document.   It does not reflect Lamar's connection.



WHY IS THE INTERNET SO CONGESTED?


Fundamental scaling flaws in the design of the Internet can typically cause latency and data packet loss at the interconnection points between backbone providers. These scaling flaws include:



All of these flaws result in unavoidable congestion and poor Internet performance.


WHAT ARE PUBLIC EXCHANGE POINTS?


The public exchange points are the major intersections of the Internet. At these exchanges points (MAE-East, MAE-West, PacBell NAP, etc.), the Internet backbones (UUNET, Sprint, etc.) along with hundreds of local and regional Internet access providers, meet to pass Internet transmissions on from one network to another. At these Public exchanges enormous amounts of data are sent to and from each and every connected network. All of this data is transferred from network to network over the same, common infrastructure. 


WHAT IS PEERING?


Simply put, peering is the agreement to interconnect and exchange routing information -- it is the arrangement of traffic exchange between Internet service providers (ISPs). With so many users connected to so many different backbones, a vast majority of the data transmissions from web sites to end users (and vice versa) must be passed on or exchanged from one backbone to another, before reaching their destinations. This arrangement is known as public or private peering. 


WHY ARE EXCHANGE POINTS SLOW AND UNRELIABLE?


Public NAPs and private peering points are major intersections of the Internet, where large amounts of data traffic converge. The public NAPs and private peering points are not centrally managed, and no single entity has the economic incentive to facilitate problem resolution, to optimize peering, or to bring about centralized routing administration.


Congested intersections often result in data packet loss. When public NAPs and private peering points are congested, data packet loss occurs, slowing downloads and decreasing the reliability of data transmissions. Downloading a file from a web site under conditions with 1% packet loss can take up to twice as long as doing so when there is no data packet loss.


As the rapid growth in Internet use continues, the congestion and data packet loss at the public NAPs and private peering points will hinder the performance of mission-critical applications over the public Internet.



Last Modified: