I have a name server for the few domains I host and my little local LAN. with reverse DNS lookup on for incoming e-mail and for web server logging, it does a fair bit of ns queries. I considered making it forward to concentric (my DSL ISP) name server but the result would be degraded performance of my network (or possibly no improvement over concentric, depending on which root is queried): PING hudson.concentric.net (207.155.183.72): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from hudson.concentric.net (207.155.183.72): seq=0 ttl=247 time=85.1 ms . 64 bytes from hudson.concentric.net (207.155.183.72): seq=1 ttl=247 time=85.9 ms . 64 bytes from hudson.concentric.net (207.155.183.72): seq=2 ttl=247 time=86.3 ms . ---- hudson.concentric.net (207.155.183.72) PING Statistics ---- 3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 85.1/85.8/86.3 (std = 0.475) PING a.root-servers.net (198.41.0.4): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from a.root-servers.net (198.41.0.4): seq=0 ttl=249 time=28.9 ms. 64 bytes from a.root-servers.net (198.41.0.4): seq=1 ttl=249 time=19.2 ms. 64 bytes from a.root-servers.net (198.41.0.4): seq=2 ttl=249 time=18.0 ms. 64 bytes from a.root-servers.net (198.41.0.4): seq=3 ttl=249 time=48.6 ms. PING b.root-servers.net (128.9.0.107): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from b.root-servers.net (128.9.0.107): seq=0 ttl=248 time=73.1 ms. 64 bytes from b.root-servers.net (128.9.0.107): seq=1 ttl=248 time=72.5 ms. 64 bytes from b.root-servers.net (128.9.0.107): seq=2 ttl=248 time=73.7 ms. 64 bytes from b.root-servers.net (128.9.0.107): seq=3 ttl=248 time=73.3 ms. 64 bytes from b.root-servers.net (128.9.0.107): seq=4 ttl=248 time=76.9 ms. ò ---- b.root-servers.net (128.9.0.107) PING Statistics ---- 5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 72.5/73.9/76.9 (std = 1.54) PING c.root-servers.net (192.33.4.12): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from c.root-servers.net (192.33.4.12): seq=0 ttl=247 time=23.4 ms. 64 bytes from c.root-servers.net (192.33.4.12): seq=1 ttl=247 time=20.8 ms. 64 bytes from c.root-servers.net (192.33.4.12): seq=2 ttl=247 time=22.7 ms. 64 bytes from c.root-servers.net (192.33.4.12): seq=3 ttl=247 time=20.2 ms. 64 bytes from c.root-servers.net (192.33.4.12): seq=4 ttl=247 time=20.6 ms. ò ---- c.root-servers.net (192.33.4.12) PING Statistics ---- 5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 20.2/21.5/23.4 (std = 1.25) PING d.root-servers.net (128.8.10.90): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from d.root-servers.net (128.8.10.90): seq=0 ttl=246 time=91.7 ms. 64 bytes from d.root-servers.net (128.8.10.90): seq=1 ttl=246 time=109 ms. 64 bytes from d.root-servers.net (128.8.10.90): seq=2 ttl=246 time=109 ms. 64 bytes from d.root-servers.net (128.8.10.90): seq=3 ttl=246 time=111 ms. 64 bytes from d.root-servers.net (128.8.10.90): seq=4 ttl=246 time=99.6 ms. ò ---- d.root-servers.net (128.8.10.90) PING Statistics ---- 5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 91.7/104/111 (std = 7.34) PING E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (192.203.230.10): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (192.203.230.10): seq=0 ttl=56 time=75.1 ms. 64 bytes from E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (192.203.230.10): seq=1 ttl=56 time=78.3 ms. 64 bytes from E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (192.203.230.10): seq=2 ttl=56 time=75.0 ms. 64 bytes from E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (192.203.230.10): seq=3 ttl=56 time=75.9 ms. ò ---- E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (192.203.230.10) PING Statistics ---- 4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 75.0/76.0/78.3 (std = 1.35) Clearly BTW I'm not getting what I'm paying for (1.1Mb SDSL via Covad) from Concentric. 85ms is ridiculously bad to a name server.