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Slow Vodafone Broadband Speeds? Try This

troubleahead
2: Seeker
2: Seeker

Hi Guys

 

I have just had Vodafone broadband installed, it was appalling whilst using most devices.  

 

I checked the physical and transport layers and below, all looked fine and it was syncing at 40mb down, latency was <15ms etc, it was mainly applications running really slowly.  I changed the router DNS settings to Google DNS instead of Voda DNS, boom, now I’m getting 30mb+!!!  Login to your router > Internet > DNS & DDNS > Manually > 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

 

My company laptop uses Cisco AnyConnect SSL VPN and there I noticed the best gains, from 0.17mb to 32mb download after I changed DNS servers.

 

Hope someone in the Infrastructure team gets this note and fixes this DNS issue.

 

Sam

10 REPLIES 10

Anonymous
Not applicable

All DNS does is convert human-readable web addresses into a target IP address.  Changing the DNS servers will not change the routing that your packets take across the internet as those routing tables are held by the various network switches through which your packets travel.

 

It's still a good idea to change one of the DNS servers though just in case the VF ones fall over!

 

If you are a technical mind then you could try running DNSbench from Gibson Research to compare the speeds of the DNS servers (the VF/C&W DNS servers do quite well from within VFs own network!).  Just don't get to hung up on the results as DNS calls should only ever make up a small portion of your network traffic!

 

*regards the speeds you are seeing I would just check that VPN is functioning correctly.  You don't really want to be using the VF DNS servers if you are tunnelling to another location to start with, and it may be better to change the DNS setting on your laptop instead of/as well as on the router! 

I have to disagree on this. There is ample evidence from these forums that the VF DNS servers are "poisoned". Instead of mapping the hostname to the real IP address, they route traffic to their own servers for content control. Not only does this slow down the connection (when it works), it also compromises the users' privacy.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Alex, DNS servers do not provide any routing at all, all they return is an IP address of the target.  That doesn't mean that network switches in between are not poisoned, it'd be a fair description of the situation the VF network switches were in last year around November.  But switching DNS servers should not change the target that is returned.

 

*Using software such as DNS Bench will actually pull this up if it does happen.  I can even provide examples of it happening if you like, but the VF DNS servers have checked out whenever I've performed the tests.

 

**I can give you plenty of good reasons not to use the VF DNS servers, but increasing internet throughput is not going to one of them (I don't use the VF DNS myself!).

 

DSN Primer Video (overly simplified)

 

Basic internet routing explanation video

Keith, I wish you were right. See this for yourself.

With VF DNS server:

$ nslookup - 90.255.255.90
> google.com
Server:		90.255.255.90
Address:	90.255.255.90#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	google.com
Address: 90.255.255.12

With a public DNS server:

$ nslookup - 8.8.8.8
> google.com
Server:		8.8.8.8
Address:	8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	google.com
Address: 172.217.169.14

Let's see who owns the IP address of google.com as returned by Vodafone's DNS server:

$ whois 90.255.255.12
% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

refer:        whois.ripe.net

inetnum:      90.0.0.0 - 90.255.255.255
organisation: RIPE NCC
status:       ALLOCATED

whois:        whois.ripe.net

changed:      2005-06
source:       IANA

% This is the RIPE Database query service.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf

% Note: this output has been filtered.
%       To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.

% Information related to '90.255.255.0 - 90.255.255.255'

% Abuse contact for '90.255.255.0 - 90.255.255.255' is '[had to delete to post]'

inetnum:        90.255.255.0 - 90.255.255.255
netname:        VODAFONE-IP
descr:          P11 Anycast Service
country:        GB
admin-c:        BC419-RIPE
tech-c:         BC419-RIPE
remarks:        INFRA-AW
status:         ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by:         CW-EUROPE-GSOC
created:        2017-04-12T14:09:04Z
last-modified:  2017-04-12T14:09:04Z
source:         RIPE

role:           Cable and Wireless Access Ltd
abuse-mailbox:  ipabuse @ vodafone.co.uk
address:        114 Great Suffolk Street
address:        London
address:        SE1 0SL
remarks:        ---------------------------------------------------
remarks:        Please do NOT send abuse complaints to the contacts
remarks:        listed. Please email them to [had to delete to post]
remarks:        ---------------------------------------------------
admin-c:        MN4790-RIPE
admin-c:        EJ343-RIPE
admin-c:        MB4
tech-c:         EJ343-RIPE
tech-c:         MB4
mnt-by:         BDDSL-MNT
nic-hdl:        BC419-RIPE
created:        2002-08-22T08:17:39Z
last-modified:  2016-04-11T08:12:34Z
source:         RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to '90.255.0.0/16AS25310'

route:          90.255.0.0/16
descr:          Vodafone UK
origin:         AS25310
mnt-by:         ENERGIS-MNT
created:        2015-04-17T14:22:08Z
last-modified:  2015-04-17T14:22:08Z
source:         RIPE

% Information related to '90.255.0.0/16AS5378'

route:          90.255.0.0/16
descr:          BIGFELLA_P11C-SOUTH
origin:         AS5378
mnt-by:         BDDSL-MNT
created:        2015-09-11T14:05:58Z
last-modified:  2015-09-11T14:05:59Z
source:         RIPE

% This query was served by the RIPE Database Query Service version 1.94 (HEREFORD)

QED

Alex,

I had seen this argument about using external DNS servers before, and found that changing to Google made no difference when my slowed speed issue began in January last.

I was getting 35MB regularly from August 2018 (when I joined) until December 2018 when I reported my speed had dropped to below 10MB.

I got fed up trying all the suggestions to remedy this, and as we currently don't use the internet for streaming etc and the speed now averages 14/17MB I decided to worry no longer and will just leave Vodaphone when our contract is up.

Seeing this thread I decided to check my router settings today and found that somehow they were back on automatic, so changed them to use of the Google servers once again, speed testing before and after the change - unfortunately this made no difference at all and the speed today is 15.5MB using either setting - I'm sorry to say.

Keith, the fact remains that the VF DNS servers map most hostnames (including those of banks) to 90.255.255.12 which is a Vodafone IP address. The extent to which this affects the speed obviously varies from site to site and from user to user. Maybe in your case the effect is minimal but the impact on the OP appears significant. However, it is the privacy issue that I think people should be worried about. I for one do not like to share my banking details with my ISP.

Our speeds are as promised BUT THERE IS HUGE LAG after each web request. I set a URL into my browser and get a bit of feedback (DNS resolved?) then there can be a 5-10 second lag before the web page starts to load. This has been getting worse and worse over the last year, especially in the evenings.

 

I suspect there are too many subscribers on our node of the network, with great profit for Vodafone, of course.

Anonymous
Not applicable

It might pay more returns trying a Traceroute - there are plenty of guides for this online.

A traceroute "may" show where there are any bottlenecks en route.  If you do this and there is any stupidly odd routing then post the info on here, this time last year it was a MAJOR issue!  We do have a couple of members of tech support on here who are brave enough to pass those issue up-line!

 

If you still want to see how the DNS servers are working, then I'd have a play with the free utility DNS Bench from GRC research.  What you see may be an eye-opener.

 

*In my previous posts in this thread, all I trying to do is myth bust.  I don't actually use the VF DNS myself.  Instead of the VF DNS I use an SDNS service along with a running "pi-hole" on a Raspberry Pi Zero which filters and caches (no need to use an adblocker).

There is definitely long lag in traceroute to several IP addresses, but this seems to happen beyond Vodafone Broadband servers. Thank you