If you’re experiencing really slow downloads from the iTunes store on TELUS Optik, it could be a problem with your DNS servers. I think by default the DHCP server on the Optik router configures the clients to use the router as their DNS server. The router is configured to use the servers:
- 75.153.176.1 (ns1.dns.telus.com)
- 75.153.176.9 (ns2.dns.telus.com)
I think that either the Optik router or the TELUS DNS servers are a bottleneck here. I guess that for some reason, iTunes needs to do a lot of DNS lookups when it transfers data?
Anyways I changed my clients to use the following DNS servers:
- 8.8.8.8
- 8.8.4.4
- 208.67.222.222
- 208.67.220.220
The first two are provided by Google, the last two are provided by OpenDNS. iTunes download speed went from ~200KB/sec to ~1.5MB/sec. On Mac OS X, change the setting in System Preferences → Network → (Select your Network Connection) → Advanced → DNS.
Thank you for your post! I am an Optik customer having the same painfully slow iTunes downloads. Hardcoding DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 caused the download to go from 3 hours to about 50 minutes. This is easy on a Mac, just set up a location called iTunes, hardcode in the DNS servers (you can leave your IP address coming from DHCP if you want) and apply. Don’t forget to change back to your regular or automatic location after you’re done.