# Could this be a net neutrality issue? (Personal internet connection) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 30, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039 "2015-09-30T14:24:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/1 "2015-09-30T14:24:39Z")
(Mods, if this should be in IMHO, please excuse me.) I have Comcast cable internet and it is notoriously unreliable in this somewhat remote area (Clackamas County, OR). Much of the time the connection is entirely dead, but I’ve been noticing quite a few times when a shortlist of websites will open quickly, and nothing else will. If I have access at all, many times I can open [Google.com](http://Google.com) and all its subsidiaries, [Facebook.com](http://Facebook.com), and Wikipedia, but nothing else. I’ll have a dozen tabs open, all for huge web servers like [nytimes.com](http://nytimes.com), [msn.com](http://msn.com), [washingtonpost.com](http://washingtonpost.com), Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia, and I’ll go tripping through all the tabs trying to get them to load or refresh. Google/Facebook/Wikipedia will open and refresh instantaneously, repeatedly, where nothing else will. I’d be VERY suspicious of deliberate throttling by Comcast, but for two things: (1) Wikipedia’s allowed? and (2) on these occasions, [Comcast.net](http://Comcast.net) and [Xfinity.com](http://Xfinity.com) will NOT load. Naturally, the only idea Comcast Customer Service ever has is to reboot the modem. This selective outage happens about once per day, sometimes for hours at a time. Sometimes rebooting the modem fixes the problem, but usually not. Any thoughts? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/2 "2015-09-30T14:37:10Z")
It _could_ be a DNS problem. Basically the DNS (Domain Name Service) is what translates domain names (like [http://www.wikipedia.org/](http://www.wikipedia.org/)) to IP addresses (like 208.80.154.224), which is what you need to actually connect. If the DNS goes down, you won’t be able to load sites you don’t already know the IP address of, but your browser might have the IP addresses of a few of the major sites (google, facebook, wikipedia) cached locally. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/3 "2015-09-30T15:35:17Z")
My guess is that all of those other sites use the same ad provider, and that ad provider is slow. Pages really _ought_ to be designed to load everything else anyway while they’re waiting for the ad, but they usually aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/4 "2015-09-30T18:57:14Z")
I’m going to guess DNS, as above. Depending on how computer-savvy you are, there are diagnostic steps you can use to confirm. If you can open a command window (Start \> Run \> cmd) you can us ‘nslookup’ to query your DNS server and see if it’s responding. \> nslookup [google.com](http://google.com) Should come back fairly quickly with one or more IP addresses. \> ipconfig /all shows detailed connection information for your computer, and will tell you what the IP addresses of your DNS servers are. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/5 "2015-10-01T02:21:26Z")
I’ve run into this before, and it had to do with being unable to reach a DNS server. Those sites had their DNS cached, and thus worked. I have also run into this problem on Wi-Fi, and I still don’t know the cause. It definitely was not a DNS thing, and it didn’t happen when directly connected. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/6 "2015-10-01T03:24:27Z")
Have you tried to point your connection to a DNS server other than your ISP’s? [Google Public DNS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLb7_UrV3-A) is available. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/7 "2015-10-01T06:13:09Z")
Would having so many windows open slow him down? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/8 "2015-10-01T19:20:11Z")
It could, especially if they’re all full of background scripts, which many commercial sites are now. OTOH, that doesn’t explain why some sites reload super quick and other don’t reload at all. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/9 "2015-10-02T03:14:00Z")
Thanks all. I don’t think it’s an issue of too many tabs open, because it will happen with just one or two; nor of obnoxious scripts because I block those by default, and anyway, the problem will happen even with Web 1.0-type pages which normally load but on these occasions will not, even while Google, etc. will. Without really understanding much at all, I’m able to run a command window and use nslookup, which in the case of [google.com](http://google.com) just now returns the following information: Server: [cdns01.comcast.net](http://cdns01.comcast.net) Address: 2001:xxx:feed::1 DNS request timed out. Timeout was 2 seconds. Name: [google.com](http://google.com) Address: 2607:f8b0:400a:xxx:100e (Note: in a hyperabundance of caution I have changed two sets of 3 digits to x’s above, on the off-chance they reveal too much about my personal location.) How would you interpret that? What other things might the command return on a different occasion or with a different input than [google.com](http://google.com), that would mean something else? I have no idea what I’m doing, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/10 "2015-10-02T03:26:46Z")
‘DNS request timed out.’ would be a pretty good clue. Find your network settings and hard code your DNS server to googles - as mentioned by jayjay above - ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-this-be-a-net-neutrality-issue-personal-internet-connection/733039/11 "2015-10-02T12:57:26Z")
There’s almost no reason not to use Google’s public DNS, unless you in a work intranet environment where your local DNS will have stuff that public DNS’s don’t.