Extremely slow accessing PayPal UK ? (Feb/Mar 2012)

[#1]

It has been taking several minutes to get onto PayPal's UK site recently - especially if linked from a retail site and trying to pay.
Once logged in, it's as quick as any other site,.
Anyone else found this?
Any ideas?
(Sorry if there's an existing thread for this, but as we all know the search function on the community is terrible)

[#2]

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,84049.0.html for better searching   but it won't help as yours is the first recent post on this problem

[#3]

interesting!
I had noticed, yet hadnt thought anything of it tbh (thought it would just be Paypal under load)... i wonder..

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    e3868.b.akamaiedge.net
Address:  184.85.207.186
Aliases:  www.paypal.co.uk
          www.intl-paypal.com.edgekey.net

C:\Users\Matt>tracert www.paypal.co.uk
Tracing route to e3868.b.akamaiedge.net [184.85.207.186]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.254
  2    17 ms    16 ms    15 ms  lo0-central3.ptw-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.231]
  3    99 ms    15 ms   207 ms  gi1-11-231.ptw-gw01.plus.net [84.92.6.208]
  4    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  te-4-2.car5.London1.Level3.net [217.163.45.249]
  5    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  ae-11-51.car1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.66]
  6    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  xe-0-1-0-6.r02.londen03.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.2
50.8.137]
  7    15 ms    15 ms     *     a184-85-207-186.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [1
84.85.207.186]
  8    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  a184-85-207-186.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [1
84.85.207.186]
Trace complete.
C:\Users\Matt>

Looks like the data is going through Akamai's Content Distribution network - which could mean its sluggish until the SSL certificate is loaded (and it swaps to encrypted HTTPS traffic) - as soon as the SSL cert loaded when i browsed to www.paypal.co.uk - the pages were instant, getting that far took about 5-10 seconds though..
anyone else find that just browsing to www.paypal.co.uk is sluggish until the SSL cert is loaded?
(it could also be that paypals SSL server is just abit sluggish)
Regards

edit:

Quote

Content Distribution Networks (CDN) Akamai Limelight Networks Level 3 Many downloads from Apple, Microsoft, PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE and multimedia content from sites such as the BBC, eBay and Facebook are hosted on one of the above Content Distribution Networks. Depending on your account type, downloads from these sources may be slowed during busy times.

Depending on the package you're on it could be slowed slightly during the peak time period but it should *not* affect browsing that considerably.
Also: im using Plusnet Extra Fibre PRO - which wouldnt be slowed down anyway and see the same problem (which to me points at either Akamai doing something weird with the routing of traffic - or Paypal is just abit... busy?)

[#4]

ah the Akamai effect ... I should have thought of that.
I'm on BB+ still (and it's still perfectl for my needs)
it really does take several minutes from click to pageload ... not good

[#5]

Was just curious
it doesnt appear to be PN related, as im experiencing the same on PRO (no shaping applied by PN) could be bad peering by Plusnets Peer partner, or (more likely) Akamai congestion or Paypal load.
Shall see if anyone else has any other thoughts
Regards

[#6]

Would be useful to see if it's just us, or affects other ISPs as well.
Personally, I've always found Paypal to be slow when logging into it.

[#7]

well, as I say, logging in from scratch is quick, it's redire4cts from other sites (including ebay ) that are problematic.
however i've just spent an hour on the phone to ebay support about another issue and it wouldn;t surprise me if they've got a few technical  problems been building up, of which this is but one manifestation ...

[#8]

So far I've purchased four items this week on eBay, and another XTE-2005 faceplate from 'ADSLnation", and paid for all five items using PayPal (on different days and different times of day) and everything has been working as fast as it normally does - with each page loading within a second or two.  No sign of any slowdown, despite using eBay->PayPal normal checkout, eBay immediate payment->PayPal checkout, and ADSLnation's PayPal merchant checkout.
The only thing I've seen that is even slower than usual is accessing eStores via the Nectar loyalty card site.