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November 23, 2007
Finally I got the time and motivation to follow up on a post earlier called China Internet Speed too Slow or Just DSL Slow? . Thanks to Alex, a visitor who left a question on that post. You will find in this articles:
Update: I got a better solution: VPN Solution (click to read more).
Why is it slow?
Why broadband in China too slow? The reason... bottleneck at the trunk line to International Websites, especially to America. I found my own IP is located in Bejing while I'm staying in ZhongShan, which is thousands of km away from Bejing. Far enough to say... "too far".
I have been wondering this in mind "Why is it so slow" when surfing international websites in Vietnam and China. I had an Australia proxy, which generally give me full speed access to those sites, but with no proxy, the connection is terrible.
Then one day, while searching for "Australian Proxy", I stumbled upon this page: Australia Proxy for those having connection problems by Reaper-X. From that page, I realized why the Internet speed is so slow when connecting to most international web sites.
The recent connection problem in Asia region is caused by recent earthquake in Taiwan, as Reaper-X pointed out. As much as I know, the earthquakes also destroyed many undersea fiber optic cables in Vietnam, causing a bottleneck for the Internet traffic going in from and out to Website hosted outside the country.
A visitor, Alex raised the issue up again, and this time his connection is ADSL. So basically, what I learn is that not only DSL is too slow, but also ADSL is too slow. In this case, Alex has a 3MB ADSL plan and he is complaining about the speed.
I've been complaining about this too much, and now I have to accept the only one solution to it. Why? Even the 3MB ADSL have the same problem, what can my little 512Kb DSL do? Unfortunate enough, The 4MB plan I mentioned earlier isn't available in my area.
How to make it faster?
The only fix available for me now is to use Australian proxies.
I've been using one Australian proxy 165.228.131.12:80. If you don't know what it mean then here is the breakdown:
- IP address: 165.228.131.12
- Port number: 80
The proxies that work
For as long as I can remember, that was the only proxy that worked for me. I've tested too many and none of them worked. Until recently after reading Reaper-X article, I found 3 more proxies which do work:
- 165.228.128.10:3128
- 165.228.130.10:3128
- 165.228.132.10:3128
Testing the proxies
I test those proxies against Lorelle's "Taiwan Earthquake Disrupts Internet Access" and here are the results:
| Test | Proxy Used | Status | Load time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No proxy | Time out | 126.110s |
| 2 | 165.228.128.10:3128 | Worked | 166.203s |
| 3 | 165.228.130.10:3128 | Worked | 29.266s |
| 4 | 165.228.132.10:3128 | Worked | 19.453s |
| 5 | 165.228.131.12:80 | Worked | 48.470s |
| 6 | 165.228.128.10:3128 | Worked | 47.172s |
Winner of the test: proxy 165.228.132.10:3128
Interesting facts
- In fact, without using proxies I can only open Google.com.
- With proxies, Google.com will block my IP and ask for entering confirmation code.
- Google come up slower when proxy is used.
How to use proxy
On Internet Explorer:
- Open Tools menu > Internet Options;
- Open Connections tab > LAN settings (near bottom of the dialog box);
- Look for proxy server, enable the "Use proxy server for LAN";
- Enter the IP Address and port number there;
- Click "Advanced" button, enter google.com into the exception list.
On FireFox:
- Open Tools menu> Options... ;
- Open Advanced tab > Network tab > Connection group > Settings... button;
- In "Connection Settings" form, select "Manual proxy configuration";
- Enter the proxy IP address into HTTP Proxy box, and port number in to port box.
- Enter google.com into the "No proxy for" box.
Caution: to avoid all the trouble, remember to bypass proxy for google.com.
What's next
Update: I got a better solution: Strong VPN (click to read more).
I hope the solution here fix your problems with the slow internet speed in China. Every visitor to my website is valuable and the motivation for me to continue providing quality articles.
If you have same problem. If you find this article help. If you need some more information. If anything, please feel free to contact me by sending me an email, or leave a comment here and I will attempt to follow up immediately.
Nice article and thanks for sharing. I would like to share a proxy site we have been using to access websites blocked in China: http://www.proxy4china.com
Cheers,
Pat
Thanks Seo4China, I tested that URL and it really works, and it work fast. But still it only work if people use Australian proxy because it's main function is to unblock China IPs, not to browse faster.
Thanks again, Alex for emailing me and say:
Hii..thanks for your info
Keep posting bro!
Unblock MySpace, Youtube, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, etc. You can try Premium High Anonymous Proxy with SSL enable, Ads Remover (Strip out Google Adsense, Adbrite, etc. up to 65 ad hosts), Blowfish URL Encryption, Output Optimizer, Hide browser details and more :
Proxiter.com
Binh,
Try our VPN at https://www.witopia.net. VPNs tend to be a lot faster than proxies as well as anonymize you. With us, you'll appear to everyone as a U.S. based user. VPNs also encrypt all traffic so you can use other Internet applications, not just browser-based. You do need to clear proxies out of your browser though before using because they will interfere. we have a moneyback guarantee, but we have many users in China and elsewhere.
Free proxy suppost 24/7: http://speed4a.com
Hey there,
This is exactly the information that laowais need.
I also have a article on proxies. Check it out here: http://www.laowise.com/blog/category/3
It contains a short article and three screencasts that walk you through Tor, Hot Spot Shield, and Ctunnel.
Thanks for your comment Smuel,
I visited http://laowise.com and really like it. Exactly what I wanted to make. Keep it up and work it well. Cheers.
I have users in ten countries. Only users in China are always complaining about internet speed specially when surfing outside China. I saw your comments and article very useful. I have to go to the office in Yunnan province to 'resolve' their internet issues.
At present they have 4Mbps DSL internet for only 10 users. I have spoken with China Telecom and they said that is the way it is. Only thing Chine Telecom said is to increase bandwidth to 10MB.
Any suggestions and tips on how to make their internet faster like VPN solution or some proxy settings in the browser, getting 3G data card etc
@Aric, Thanks for your comment. Please read this post: http://www.binh.name/strong-vpn-solution/
At 4Mbps the speed is reasonable, about 512Kbps getting from outside of China. With Strong VPN when I chose a correct server I could push up to 2Mbps (maximum). But the speed was really unreliable, it also depends on peek time.
When I needed speed I had to work overnight because daytime it's not possible.
I'm sorry to say this, but it's not what we could do but what China Telecom should do.