Re: [tlug] Tokyo ISP Throttling? Why does my internet speed increase so much by setting up a proxy?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Raymond Wan writes:

 > That makes sense, though a bit disappointing to think that my
 > workplace (a university) would somehow limit bandwidth to a
 > perfectly work-related web site.

I doubt that the university is deliberately throttling.[1]  I would
guess that the problem is that they can't (or won't) afford multiple
connections to different providers, and therefore end up with uneven
bandwidth depending on which providers have to be traversed.  They may
also have pessimized routers (see article "Bufferbloat" on Wikipedia).

 > I should probably look into whether my home connection and work
 > connection takes a different path to the USA...

That's exactly what [tcp]traceroute does, but it's limited in terms of
giving you other information about the route.  The mtr ("my trace
route") utility mentioned by Jens and Time also provides ping-like
information about times and dropped packets.

Tim Osburn's posts also identify a bunch of other things that could be
causing issues.  You probably can't do anything about most of them,
but you never know.  I've occasionally gotten improved service if I
can diagnose a problem because the technical staff is too busy
installing software on professors' PCs and dealing with virus issues
to think about network QoS.  But if they know what the problem is and
it's a simple tweak, they'll do it (it makes their lives more fun,
too!)

Footnotes: 
[1]  If other departments seem to be getting better service they may
be paying for additional bandwidth or multiple connections.