SDMB server vs. other servers

Factual Questions
1

I’m not too sharp on the server side of operations so I wondered if someone might be able to clear something up for me.

When I have this board as my default home page for the browser and I dial up, the bytes I get often tops out at a relatively low rate and stays at that level (using Ye Olde 56K dial up connection). This obviously affects the rate at which the page loads. However, if I then switch to another server (something like Hotmail), the bytes increase dramatically and, once they’re up to a more respectable level, I switch back to the board (takes about 5 – 10 seconds to bump the bytes up). The board home page then loads a lot, lot faster.

Assuming this isn’t a regularly occurring coincidence and I’m not seeing something that isn’t there, how is it that the server I’m connecting to (bytes received) has a greater bearing on the speed of my connection than does my ISP and, also, do servers affect speeds that much right across the internet ?

2

I think it does. The SDMB gets more hits during peak hrs then it can handle so everyone slooooooows to a crawl. I suggest that you do not set your home page to the SDMB until they get more capacity as you will be using their server every time you log on and tieing up bandwidth - but maybe it’s so small a factor that it really doesn’t matter.

Mods how about a statement on using the SDMB as a home page - good idea or bad?

I like to set a blank page as my home page as I never know which site I want to go to and using a blank gives the quickest load time (because it doesn’t have to get anything from the net)