Experiencing very slow browsing at times (atheros wireless)

[Petr Janda]

I recently purchased a new atheros based WIFI card.

I am using no encryption at the moment. I can ping all websites and the 
ping times are fine.

64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=0.731 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=0.735 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.737 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=128 time=1.620 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=128 time=0.738 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=128 time=0.732 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=128 time=0.736 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=128 time=0.736 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=128 time=0.731 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=128 time=0.728 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=128 time=0.818 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=128 time=0.729 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=128 time=0.729 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=128 time=0.733 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=128 time=0.730 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=128 time=0.733 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=128 time=0.734 ms
[elevator] ~% ping www.google.com.au
PING www.l.google.com (72.14.253.99): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 72.14.253.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=236 time=369.645 ms
64 bytes from 72.14.253.99: icmp_seq=1 ttl=236 time=356.193 ms
64 bytes from 72.14.253.99: icmp_seq=2 ttl=236 time=361.215 ms
64 bytes from 72.14.253.99: icmp_seq=3 ttl=236 time=362.085 ms
64 bytes from 72.14.253.99: icmp_seq=4 ttl=236 time=362.198 ms
64 bytes from 72.14.253.99: icmp_seq=5 ttl=236 time=361.109 ms
64 bytes from 72.14.253.99: icmp_seq=6 ttl=236 time=361.947 ms
They are my normal ping.

However, browsing web pages often slows down to  0kb/s (i can still ping 
though).

ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
       inet 192.168.1.50 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
       inet6 fe80::20f:b5ff:fefa:9196%ath0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
       ether 00:0f:b5:fa:91:96
       media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (OFDM/54Mbps)
       status: associated
       ssid homenetwork channel 11 bssid 00:19:db:0a:39:e6
       authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpowmax 37 bmiss 7 protmode CTS burst
       bintval 100
Speed is almost always 54 or 48Mbps.

Any ideas what might be happening? Before someone says DNS, no its not 
DNS, my DNS and host configuration has been working for 2 years now on 
DragonFly (only recentely i moved to wireless). It's not upstream 
connectivity either because all other non dragonfly boxes work even when 
this box is experiencing the slowness.

Thanks,
petr