Advanced Internet Tips

Advanced Internet Tips

What is a domain name?

All internet sites are addressed by a unique IP address (analogous to a telephone number). IP addresses contain four 3 digit numbers (102.123.234.5). A domain name is a alphabetical representation of your IP address, and therefore more easily remembered than numbers.

What do the suffixes mean?

Domain suffixes in the United States are (currently) organized into 5 categories. Click here for a complete listing

Suffix Type

.com Commercial. Every domain name that doesn't fit the other 7 categories.

.gov Government. Federal, state and local governmental entities.

.org Organization. Churches, charitable organizations, and trade groups.

.net Network. Internet network providers.

.edu Educational. Colleges and universities.

Can transfer speed problems be traced or identified?

Yes! To help trace problems with Internet traffic, try the following:

Type TRACERT suburbancomputer.com (or any other domain name) at an MS/DOS prompt line.

Your screen will output information that looks like:

Tracing route to suburbancomputer.com [208.234.13.72] over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.254
  2    14 ms    14 ms    15 ms  adsl-68-22-14-1.dsl.sfldmi.ameritech.net [68.22.14.1]
  3    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  dist2-vlan50.sfldmi.ameritech.net [67.38.70.227]
  4    15 ms    13 ms    13 ms  bb2-g3-0-0.sfldmi.ameritech.net [67.38.70.116]
  5    21 ms    21 ms    26 ms  core2-p6-1.crchil.sbcglobal.net [151.164.242.129]
  6    24 ms    23 ms    23 ms  bb1-p3-0.emhril.sbcglobal.net [151.164.42.168]
  7    23 ms    22 ms    22 ms  bb2-p13-1.emhril.ameritech.net [151.164.191.114]
  8    23 ms    23 ms    22 ms  ex2-p5-0.eqchil.sbcglobal.net [151.164.42.139]
  9    23 ms    22 ms    23 ms  ex1-p11-0.eqchil.sbcglobal.net [151.164.191.249]
 10    23 ms    24 ms    25 ms  as4323-twtelecom.eqchil.sbcglobal.net [151.164.248.138]
 11    23 ms    25 ms    24 ms  core-01-so-0-1-0-0.chcg.twtelecom.net [66.192.244.21]
 12    41 ms    42 ms    41 ms  dist-02-so-1-0-0-0.rhdm.twtelecom.net [66.192.242.17]
 13    42 ms    42 ms    41 ms  hagg-01-ge-1-3-0-508.rhdm.twtelecom.net [66.192.242.15]
 14   205 ms   202 ms   234 ms  64-132-140-162.gen.twtelecom.net [64.132.140.162]
 15   201 ms   189 ms   190 ms  nameservices.net [208.234.13.72]

Trace complete.

This is called a trace route, which traces, hop for hop, all the jumps you take from your internet connection to the destination. The first few hops are usually through your service provider's network. The hops from there are usually through the backbone/upstream provider your service provider uses to route internet traffic. The last few hops will be with the internet content provider.

Each hop shows timing information (designated by 3 sets of 'ms' ratings). Timing below 300 ms is good timing. Anything above that up to 1000 ms indicates some delays which will ultimately affect your overall connection performance. Any 'ms' timings represented by an asterisk (*) indicate a timeout (bad connection). Whatever hop shows asterisks or timings above 500 will, more than likely, be where your connection is having problems. Check with the appropriate people regarding any performance problems.

If the problems occur, in the first few hops, it is your service provider (AOL, AT&T, MSN, etc). If the problem persists, get a new service provider.

If the problems occur within the midway hops, it is your service provider's upstream / backbone connection. This is internet traffic from around the country, which means that everyone on the net is slow.

If the problem occurs within the last few hops to the site, then it is a problem with the host provider.

A very useful site for performing multiple internet administrative tasks is www.dnsstuff.com This site will allow you to retrieve a wide variety of information about web sites.