As a new member to the forum, I am not sure where to begin. I have searched the forum and don't see a thread pertaining to my situation. I live in China and have broadband (DSL) (supposedly up to 4 MBs) but lately have not been close to that speed. Sometimes I can't even surf any pages. The complicating factor is the "Great Firewall" (GFW) here in China which endeavors to block outside connections to social networks like FaceBook, and sites like YouTube, etc. For several years, I have overcome this limitation by using a VPN. In fact I have two separate VPN services. All was going well until a few months ago. There are several "possible" reasons that my service "could" have changed but I am not sure which factors are to blame.
One factor is that our ISP has been systematically installing fiber optic lines into our neighborhood with promises of future speeds of up to 20 MBs! So possibly, my poor connection is related to local service work interruptions or some kind of mistake in the process by my ISP. That happens here in China, but I doubt this is my problem. Sometimes my speed increases greatly without the VPN turned on and when surfing to an "acceptable" site but sometimes it is still just a trickle. I am talking speeds of 4-10 KB/s!
Another possible factor is that China has tightened down the GFW (this is rumored to be true) lately and now my old methods do not work. I read online that they routinely practice DNS poisoning, and a whole host of other techniques that I don't really understand. Currently, even when connected to one of my VPNs, I routinely get impossibly slow connections to youtube etc.
Yet another possible factor is my new Apple Airport Time Capsule router. I have used an old Linksys router for years and bought the new Apple router. It seemed to work fine for a few weeks but then my trouble started. However, I hooked my old Linksys Router back up (with the exact same settings as before still in it) and have the same terrible connection I am getting with the Apple Router.
But as frustrated as I am, I am at wit's end about what the issue is. I have even entertained the thought that my ISP has somehow singled my account out for throttling. In a place where you do not enjoy freedom of speech, those thoughts do occur! Also, although my recognized IP is something like 182.242.xxx.xxx (a recognizable IP owned by my local ISP here in our city) Airport Utility lists my IP as: 100.64.155.203 and this cannot be identified online. Resetting the Router does not change that 100..... IP. My connection is PPPoE which China Telecom. My question is could that 100.64.155.203 be some sort of proxy router that my router is being connected to for the purpose of monitoring and/or throttling? Someone with more network expertise might know the answer to that! The truly frustrating thing is that our local ISP is totally non-helpful in situations like these. Even if I can get them to send a serviceman out, he will almost certainly tell me the problem is my equipment. After trying three different routers (all of which are assumed to be in perfect working order) with the same results, I am practically certain the issue is with the ISP (i.e. outside my house), (whether intentional censoring or otherwise). But local servicemen will always deny censorship or responsibility unless you can "prove" such. One other potential issue is the DSL modem which the ISP provided about three years ago. I do not have a way to check that and wouldn't know how to set up a new one or check the old one. But I do not think that is the issue either.
So....... after several weeks of trying everything a neophyte can try, I have landed here hoping someone could help me at least narrow down my problem. I should say that have both PCs and Macs (along with several iOS devices) in the house and the internet issue is across the board. My main-use computer is a MacBook, so I prefer to work on that but will welcome any practical advice I can get. It is very difficult for a foreigner to use an internet connection without a VPN which limits connections to local sights or non-media outlets. Also, I need to be able to use a VPN for banking, etc. for security purposes. Although they do not like them, there is no law against VPNs in China. But they do make efforts to curb their use so they can censor all internet traffic. They have their reasons; but it seems totally stupid to prevent foreigners from viewing material (TV shows, movies, FaceBook, videos, sport content, etc.) that is of interest to them as a foreigner. Sorry, that was venting!
Today I ran SpeedGuide's TP/IP Analyzer and will post the results below for any experts. Please know that my knowledge is quite limited so I will need very specific and clear instructions or advice. I will say that I will be extremely grateful for any advice and will try anything reasonable. Hopefully, someone will be able to see what my lack of knowledge keeps me from understanding. The one issue I see on the SpeedGuide dats is that my MTU is way too low. But I don't think I have a way to adjust that on the Apple router and can't imagine why it's that way now. The router shows it set to "automatic" and set at 1500. I remember that my Linksys router was set at 1492, still with poor throughput. I wish I had a local network expert who could thoroughly research my connection but that is not possible here.
Thanks for reading all this! And for any advice! Thanks for ignoring and forgiving typos. Here is the analysis:
« SpeedGuide.net TCP Analyzer Results »
Tested on: 2014.05.10 00:01
IP address: 182.242.xxx.xxx
Client OS/browser: Mac OS (Safari 537.75.14)
TCP options string: 02040400010303040101080a41e06f1a0000000004020000
MSS: 1024
MTU: 1064
TCP Window: 131552 (NOT multiple of MSS)
RWIN Scaling: 4 bits (2^4=16)
Unscaled RWIN : 8222
Recommended RWINs: 63488, 126976, 253952, 507904, 1015808
BDP limit (200ms): 5262kbps (658KBytes/s)
BDP limit (500ms): 2105kbps (263KBytes/s)
MTU Discovery: ON
TTL: 51
Timestamps: ON
SACKs: ON
IP ToS: 00000000 (0)