Why is my internet connection faster at home?

[Undertoad]

Maybe you're configured not to cache anything and are being sent through a busy firewall or a firewall behind a busy router or something.

Try running a traceroute to microsoft.com or something, and see what it gets you. (run "tracert microsoft.com" in a cmd window, or find a traceroute tool - there are lots of em).

Or google for a "traceroute gateway" - look for a website that will trace back to you.

Traceroute tries to see how long it takes to reach each point between you and your destination. Between you and microsoft.com or cellar.org or whatever, there may be 10-20 different routers or gateways of various kinds from various providers. Because traceroute tries to see how long it takes to reach each one, sometimes it will quickly show which one is the bottleneck.

Run it when you're more congested, then when you're less congested, and compare the two and see if that shows anything interesting.

Then complain to management that your co-worker is running Kazaa Lite and sharing his entire hard drive of porn. Your connection will improve immediately.