Title: Faster Internet? Frontier DNS settings
Frontier DNS (Domain Name Server) performance (and reliability?)
I hope you find this correct and useful. (And by the way, what's your best Frontier DNS settings?)
I use a free and excellent app called DNS Benchmark for this evaluation.
https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm Of course, download it at you own risk.
WARNING you must do this evaluation for yourself, do not use my settings without evaluating them first, based upon your location and type of service FIOS, DSL, dialup? If you don't do this correctly you could certainly lose your internet service until you restore your modem/router settings. Back up your modem/router settings first. Also you should do this type of evaluation in a very "quiet" time for your internet service, but I also check during a busier time, looking for any quirks. I do not use a Frontier router/modem, I have my own, so in this little write up I can't help out much with the actual setting process. If you do use manual settings you will have to maintain them over the long run, Frontier could change anything and everything at any time and your internet could just STOP WORKING.
FRONTIER's DEFAULT DNS SETTINGS (for me)
Frontier's default settings for DNS are very poor; at least in my case. Their primary DNS server is 74.40.74.40 which is 2.6 times slower than their fastest DNS, available to me, 199.224.86.16. the 74.40 primary DNS is slower than many other free DNS's and THAT's THE DEFAULT server! Their secondary DNS is 1.13 times slower than 199.224.86.16. Before switching to 199.224.86.16 as my primary DNS, I had always used 74.40.74.41 as my primary and 74.40.74.40 as my secondary. In fact it may be better to use something like Google's DNS (8.8.4.4) as a secondary, however I've mostly found the Frontier DNS servers are "closer" and therefore faster. (Warning, some free DNS's will take you to ad pages if you have typo's in your address bar)
One can see why 74.41 is faster, in my case, because it's ping time is less, because the route is quite a bit longer to 74.40 than to 74.41 (See my Trace Route data below)
Frontier, by default, sets my modem up with the slowest DNS Server they supply! So I am willing to take the risk of manually setting my Router's Domain Name Servers (DNS). The Frontier 74.41 and 74.40 DNS's have been around for years, and actually the Primary DNS I just switched to (199.224.86.16), I believe, has been around for many years as well.
THE REASONS FOR SWITCHING
Of course, I've been finding our internet is slow, there are many reasons more substantial than DNS performance, but, something changed in the last few months and when I got back to evaluating my DNS performance data I found a real QUIRK with Frontier's secondary DNS 74.41, maybe the primary too, I'm not sure. Occasionally 74.41 gets very slow (reliable but slow), for no apparent reason, while 199.224.86.16 doesn't seem to have this quirk, and our internet has occasionally slowed down for no apparent reason, thus the change. I wasn't aware of this quirk until I used the DNS Benchmark app.
Watching the benchmark in action 74.41 may start out as fastest, but then all of the sudden it will drop way down the list, whereas to date, 199.224.86.16 has never done this.
I also copied the DNS BenchMark raw data farthest below:
RUNNING DNS BENCHMARK's CUSTOM LIST evaluating some 5000 DNS servers.
I ran DNS Benchmark's custom list and it found yet another faster Frontier DNS server 199.224.127.78, so I may add that as well as my secondary or primary (because it appears to be even faster than 86.16), remembering that at anytime Frontier could take these away, whoops, no internet! Website not found! I vaguely remember these IP addresses as Epix.net addresses, Epix was my original (superior) ISP.
So for now I'll use these two new Frontier name servers, that are apparently both in Dallas PA. which is physically near me and also where my GATEWAY is located.
PING DATA
Windows command prompt example : ping 74.40.74.40
74.40.74.40 Frontier's Primary DNS
Minimum = 47ms, Maximum = 66ms, Average = 52ms
74.40.74.41 Frontier's Secondary DNS
Minimum = 21ms, Maximum = 34ms, Average = 25ms
199.224.86.16 Best (for me) Frontier DNS (today at least, ha ha)
Minimum = 22ms, Maximum = 39ms, Average = 26ms
199.224.127.78
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 70ms, Average = 43ms
TRACE ROUTE DATA
Windows command prompt: tracert 74.40.74.40
Tracing route to dns1.anycast.frontiernet.net [74.40.74.40]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 3 ms 4 ms 4 ms 192.168.x.y
2 42 ms 24 ms 24 ms adr01.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.42.148.170]
3 22 ms 24 ms 24 ms ae3---0.car02.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.40.70.241]
4 54 ms 50 ms 50 ms ae8---0.cor02.chcg.il.frontiernet.net [74.40.5.9]
5 58 ms 46 ms 48 ms ae0---0.cor01.chcg.il.frontiernet.net [74.40.3.241]
6 130 ms 53 ms 59 ms ae9---0.car01.ftwy.in.frontiernet.net [74.40.2.146]
7 49 ms 49 ms 50 ms static-184-17-0-145.drr01.ftwy.in.frontiernet.net [184.17.0.145]
8 57 ms 50 ms 50 ms dns1.anycast.frontiernet.net [74.40.74.40]
Trace complete.
Tracing route to dns2.anycast.frontiernet.net [74.40.74.41]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.x.y
2 20 ms 25 ms 21 ms adr01.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.42.148.170]
3 22 ms 23 ms 32 ms ae3---0.car01.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.42.150.137]
4 24 ms 24 ms 24 ms 74.43.38.254
5 22 ms 22 ms 33 ms dns2.anycast.frontiernet.net [74.40.74.41]
Trace complete.
Tracing route to resolve-86-16.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [199.224.86.16]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 5 ms 4 ms 5 ms 192.168.x.y
2 57 ms 34 ms 45 ms adr01.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.42.148.170]
3 100 ms 23 ms 29 ms ae3---0.car01.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.42.150.137]
4 24 ms 25 ms 24 ms 74.43.38.254
5 23 ms 24 ms 22 ms resolve-86-16.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [199.224.86.16]
Trace complete.
Tracing route to resolve-127-78.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [199.224.127.78]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 4 ms 4 ms 13 ms 192.168.x.y
2 29 ms 22 ms 27 ms adr01.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.42.148.170]
3 31 ms 32 ms 25 ms ae3---0.car01.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [74.42.150.137]
4 27 ms 21 ms 23 ms 74.43.38.254
5 36 ms 25 ms 21 ms resolve-127-78.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net [199.224.127.78]
Trace complete.
DNS BENCHMARK DATA:
Final benchmark results, sorted by name server performance:
(average cached name retrieval speed, fastest to slowest)
199.224.127. 78 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%|
----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
- Cached Name | 0.020 | 0.024 | 0.028 | 0.001 | 100.0 |
- Uncached Name | 0.031 | 0.086 | 0.296 | 0.080 | 100.0 |
- DotCom Lookup | 0.033 | 0.076 | 0.139 | 0.035 | 100.0 |
------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
resolve-127-78.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net
··· unknown owner ···
199.224. 86. 16 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%|
----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+ Cached Name | 0.021 | 0.023 | 0.029 | 0.001 | 100.0 |
+ Uncached Name | 0.032 | 0.083 | 0.285 | 0.062 | 100.0 |
+ DotCom Lookup | 0.032 | 0.076 | 0.123 | 0.033 | 100.0 |
------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
resolve-86-16.dlls.pa.frontiernet.net
··· unknown owner ···
In this evaluation many other DNS's were faster than the Primary and Secondary Frontier Domain Name Servers
74. 40. 74. 41 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%|
----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+ Cached Name | 0.020 | 0.034 | 0.262 | 0.038 | 100.0 |
+ Uncached Name | 0.030 | 0.073 | 0.344 | 0.070 | 100.0 |
+ DotCom Lookup | 0.031 | 0.073 | 0.124 | 0.033 | 100.0 |
------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
dns2.anycast.frontiernet.net
··· unknown owner ···
74. 40. 74. 40 | Min | Avg | Max |Std.Dev|Reliab%|
----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
- Cached Name | 0.046 | 0.060 | 0.317 | 0.043 | 100.0 |
- Uncached Name | 0.051 | 0.092 | 0.347 | 0.063 | 100.0 |
- DotCom Lookup | 0.052 | 0.092 | 0.141 | 0.024 | 100.0 |
------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
dns1.anycast.frontiernet.net
FRONTIER-FRTR - Frontier Communications of America, Inc.,
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