Telecommunications

Speeding up your Tonfon Connection

Posted by: Samiuela LV Taufa on June 01, 2007 9:33:45 AM

[Edit: Changed IP address from 68.15.185.82 to reflect new server settings 68.98.213.178 as at 2007.06.13]

Tonfon seems to be having another problem with their servers again, which actually gives me more bandwidth (funny enough.)

How can that be ?

Your ISP generally provides as one of its services a machine that will translate your www.google.com type of addresses to the numerical (IP) addresses actually used by the machines. Now, both TCC and Tonfon have had problems with their machines doing this work (normally called a DNS Server.) But we're not talking about TCC here.

The problem that happens when the ISP's (Tonfon's) DNS Server doesn't work, is that although you are still connected to the Internet, you cannot really get to anything unless you already know that server/machine's numerical (IP) address.

For example: www.nomoa.com has a numerical address of 68.98.213.178 on the Internet. When your machine wants to talk to www.nomoa.com it actually asks the Internet what address www.nomoa.com points to, and a response is provided of an numerical (IP) address of 68.98.213.178. Thus, your web browser asks onto the Internet to talk with the machine at address (IP) 68.98.213.178.

When your ISP's DNS Server is working properly, then it will respond to your question "what is the address of www.nomoa.com, so you can get to this website by typing www.nomoa.com, as you can always get to it with its numerical address of 68.98.213.178

When your ISP's DNS Server isn't working, you never get a responsess back from the DNS Server, and you cannot get to www.nomoa.com. When your web browser doesn't have a numerical address for www.nomoa.com it cannot go out on the Internet to ask for the web page. This problem occurs whether you use Internet Explorer or Firefox.

However, you can still get to the website if you type in the numerical address http://68.98.213.178 because your browser can go out directly to the Internet asking to the machine numerical address directly.

Now, the speed increase that I can get "intermittently" is because I know a few of the numerical addresses of the key sites I visit. So, when everyone else gets knocked off the Internet because Tonfon's DNS Server is down, I get all the available bandwidth my machine can suck down. Way Cooool.

Of course, if they fix the problem quickly then it's back to the old drudgery of sharing with everyone.

later, ...

How does this help us ?

If you're Internet connection seems to be down, try seeing if you can connect directly to your ISP's website, and then try connecting outside to the world by using a numerical (IP) address.

On 2007.06.01

http://www.tcc.to is at http://202.134.24.121

http://www.tonfon.to is at http://65.77.76.131

Happy surfing