Accessing Rackshack from Ireland seems quite slow. Today for example, pages on their web site often would not load at all or took a few minutes just to load. It's somewhat faster again now, and I have done a traceroute (see below). Moreover, there are quite a few "hops" on the way to their NOC. Usually, I can get to American web sites in about 15 hops, sometimes less. Comments? Might it be better for me to go with 4webspace? Their web site seems to load far more quckly.

Lastly, what are the advantages of the RaQ 4i over the RaQ 3i? Are they big enough so that I should go with a 4i instead of the older, but more affordable, 3i?

1 3.593 194.145.128.248 quar133b.esatclear.ie
2 3.193 194.145.128.254 hades.esatclear.ie
3 2.240 193.120.19.129 serial3-0.cr17.dublin.esat.net
4 3.375 193.120.12.75 fe1-0-0.border0.dublin.esat.net
5 3.566 193.120.12.49 ge1-0.tr9.dublin.esat.net
6 3.585 193.120.59.18 pos2-3.gsr-002-cw.dublin.esat-x.com
7 3.572 193.95.129.5 ge1-0.c7206-001-cw.dublin.esat-x.com
8 3.572 146.188.38.121 serial1-1-1.gw1.dub2.alter.net
9 3.807 158.43.152.2 ge3-0.cr2.dub2.gbb.uk.uu.net
10 3.777 158.43.253.25 so3-1-0.tr1.lnd9.gbb.alter.net
11 3.121 146.188.15.50 so-6-0-0.ir1.nyc12.alter.net
12 3.310 152.63.23.57 so-0-0-0.ir1.nyc9.alter.net
13 3.143 152.63.1.98 119.at-5-0-0.tr1.dca6.alter.net
14 3.146 152.63.11.102 0.so-4-0-0.xr1.dca6.alter.net
15 3.221 152.63.38.85 0.so-2-1-0.xl1.dca6.alter.net
16 3.685 152.63.38.117 pos6-0.br3.dca6.alter.net
17 3.249 137.39.92.46 -
18 3.456 208.186.20.99 srp0-0-0.ar01.wash.eli.net
19 3.622 207.173.115.129 a4-0-0--171.gw01.hsto.eli.net
20 3.454 216.190.70.18 gw-cust-ev1.net.hsto.eli.net
21 3.462 207.218.245.8 twhou-ni-2.ev1.net
22 3.510 207.218.223.132 ns1.rackshack.net

looks like alter.net is acting up :(

I'm now getting full speed again. Do these problems with alter.net happen often?

By the way, I know ***** has been getting a lot of bad press on these forums, but I always get ultrafast connections to them, and they're only a few hops away. They may have crap customer support, but they aren't lying about their peering arrangements. Also, from what I've heard, they haven't had any major outages since 1999 when they completely messed up a network upgrade. Looks like they are at least trying to improve.

That said, I called them once and their sales people seem to be incompetent ******** who don't have a clue about pricing or anything at all, for that matter. :D