Networking

Which DNS resolver is good for you?

dns, networking

Which DNS resolver is better - ISP’s (default) DNS resolver, or Google Public DNS or the pioneer of DNS openDNS or even a local DNS server?

Let’s try to find out! I am sitting on a BSNL data link, and I will try to perform few tests to find that out: Available DNS resolvers to me:

  1. BSNL DNS resolvers - 218.248.255.194 & 218.248.255.196
  2. Google Public DNS - 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4
  3. OpenDNS - 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220
  4. Local DNS Server - BIND running on localhost - 127.0.0.1

Observing ping time:

BSNL DNS resolver:

--- 218.248.255.194 ping statistics ---

5 packets transmitted, 4 received, 20% packet loss, time 4001ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 26.978/27.754/29.122/0.897 ms

--- 218.248.255.194 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 4 received, 20% packet loss, time 4001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 26.978/**27.754**/29.122/0.897 ms

Google Public DNS:

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics --- 5 packets transmitted, 
5 received, 0% packet loss, 
time 4001ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 121.147/121.878/122.951/0.783 ms

OpenDNS:

--- 208.67.222.222 ping statistics ---

5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 217.678/**219.528**/222.034/1.717 ms

Next, localhost? :)

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What to expect from 3G?

networking

So, finally 3G is set to launch in India from Private operators. One of my friend came to me and asked:

“So what should we really expect from 3G? End of wired broadband?”

Very nice one!


Short answer - NO, NO yet!

It’s quite strange to see, how users are taking 3G. Actually it has been largely “overestimated” technology, specially from Indian media. Let’s first try to understand - What exactly is 3G? Without going into geeky definitions - 3G is simply upgrade from 2G. It uses higher frequency, and thus has more spectrum available for more bandwidth. That’s all. One important thing we need to understand is - 3G is more or less just a last mile technology i.e it connects telecom network’s exchange to consumer’s device. Mostly 3G, 2G, landline network, and broadband network - all share same core network backhaul. Western countries who did deployed 3G many years back are going into hybrid path of taking 3G to 4G apart form offloading peak data to (wired) broadband networks. They are promoting use of wifi, bringing new gadget FemtoCell. At this time, it doesn’t makes sense to say - 3G is everything! Latest capping on uncapped 3G plans by AT&T is a good example of that.

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