At a high level, your PC is comminicating directly with the target web
server, but at a lower level, the packets go through the ISP's routers
(which lay people erroneously call "servers") which act as an interface
with the sea of routers which form the Internet. This sea of routers is
what transports your IP packets which, in turn, carry the HTTP packets.
Anywhere along the path to the target web server, or along the path
back from the target web server can exist a bottleneck. The Internet is
designed to avoid forming bottlenecks (that's the essence of the Internet),
but it's not perfect - especially if the feds want to put in an "interface"
to peer at packets passing between regions or countries.
*TimDaniels*
Very interesting, and thanks to Bug Dout. You are referring to some
variant of the OSI model: Application/Presentation/Session/Network/Mac/
Physical, with an emphasis on Network.
So now my argument comes back full circle. Given the possibility that
DNS resolution speed is a potential bottleneck, but given that most
people say it's not, it stands to reason that the Network layer (layer
3) is not the bottleneck here in GR, but rather it's the physical
layer (layer 1) because they have not rolled out high speed trunks
like optical fiber yet. It's doubtful that it's the MAC (Data Link)
since I trust they have relatively state of the art servers and
hardware at the nodes. From what I've read Greece seems to lag Europe
in connectivity.
Suggestive is this Wikipedia passage: (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Internet_in_Greece#Controversy_between_OTE_and_new_ISPs) "OTE has
been assigned the manipulation and maintenance of the local loop.
Although not backed by evidence, accusations have been leveled at OTE
of its having stalled and even barred the disengagement of the local
loop from its own switching centre when an existing customer chose an
alternative provider. OTE has also been accused of lowering the
quality of the local loop when handing the line over to an alternative
provider. Because of these allegations, the Greek Independent
Authority of Communications (EETT) has issued a ruling (known as the
RUO 2007) that states that OTE must complete any needed work for the
preparation of the loop within a fixed number of days.
However, OTE has claimed that the overwhelming demand for alternative
ISPs has burdened them far beyond their capacity, blaming itself OTE
for its own operational problems. Court convictions and bankruptcies
like Telepassport and Altecnet, also proved that the alternative ISPs
had huge debts to the OTE group for LLU and support services.
OTE has also been criticized for artificially limiting the number of
packet throughput of ADSL lines, thus making VoIP services over its
broadband network unusable and unreliable."
Which undercuts perhaps my argument it's Layer 1 not 3.
So there you have it: somehow OTE is:
1) slow, in every sense of the word
2) 'artificially limiting the number of packet throughput of ADSL
lines'
3) sabotaging the efforts by customers to switch ISP providers (so
it's said).
Which raises the question how they would limit the packet throughput
(done through hardware or sofftware or probably both?), and for
academic purposes which layer in the OSI model this is.
RL
