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Showing posts from November, 2014

"Why Does My Internet Connection Keep Dropping?" -- A Few Tips About IPv6, DSL, MTU, and Apple AirPort

We are told that IPv6 -- an updated and advanced system of network addressing -- is the future of the Internet. That may be true, but IPv6 is also an immature and treacherous technology. For maximum reliability, my wife and I have two Internet connections, one cable and one DSL. Both are routed through wireless networks running on Apple's latest generation of AirPort base station. Generally, I use the cable Internet, while my wife uses the DSL, though we switch as needed. For the past few months, my wife has switched to the cable more often than intended. With her DSL, she kept complaining that Web pages were slow to load or stopped partway. I tried a number of possible solutions and managed to make some improvements in network operation, but nothing fixed the original problem. And then she complained it was getting worse. I began to wonder if our old DSL modem was at fault. So, I started researching modems and uncovered some interesting facts. One was that our DSL provider,