6-March-2002 : ADSL : Spoke too soon

OK… Spoke too soon… I am having problems with my connection. An example is

traceroute to www.alwaysonline.net.au (202.181.16.9), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 reactor (203.42.174.62) 0.726 ms 0.545 ms 0.432 ms
2 syd-h427.adsl.AlwaysONLINE.net.au (202.181.20.30) 2.268 ms 12.582 ms 1.71 5 ms
3 * * 172.31.26.15 (172.31.26.15) 32.430 ms
4 172.31.52.15 34.415 ms 37.715 ms 37.988 ms
5 Syd-ADSL.lnk.alwaysonline.net.au (203.22.184.198) 39.167 ms 35.974 ms 37.768 ms
6 vzdy.AlwaysONLINE.net.au (202.181.16.9) 37.541 ms 37.598 ms 39.795 ms

PING www.alwaysonline.net.au (202.181.16.9) from 203.42.174.49 : 56(84) bytes of
data.
64 bytes from vzdy.AlwaysONLINE.net.au (202.181.16.9): icmp_seq=33 ttl=59 time=3
9.925 msec
64 bytes from vzdy.AlwaysONLINE.net.au (202.181.16.9): icmp_seq=34 ttl=59 time=3
9.924 msec
64 bytes from vzdy.AlwaysONLINE.net.au (202.181.16.9): icmp_seq=35 ttl=59 time=3
9.913 msec

— www.alwaysonline.net.au ping statistics —
36 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 91% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/mdev = 39.913/39.920/39.925/0.230 ms

Note the packet losses… This is a killer to TCP/IP. And worse is that