dslreports logo    how-to block ads   packet drops  What good is
a super fast connection if 20% of the packets transmitted get
dropped on the floor? packet loss is the biggest enemy of
getting good bandwidth.. when a packet drops, the receiver must
tell the sender to re-send it, which adds even more congestion,
and in addition, tcp/ip is designed to slow down in response to
packet losses.. the assumption in the protocol is that the
packet loss is because the network is loaded, therefore dynamic
adjustments take place to reduce the rate at which the packets
are sent. Where packet loss is because of a bad connection on a
router somewhere, these assumptions make an otherwise fast link
operate like a slow one. Before eliminating packet loss as a
problem when diagnosing a slow link, you really need to run a
spray test to an echo port, which outputs UDP packets at the
rate you expect the link to work, and check how many are dropped
on the floor. Some implementations of ping have flags that you
can use to adjust the