Hi Steve,
The issue remains as I originally reported to Ashley in your team in Sydney on 12 July . Confirming I am on TCL Cable network here in Christchurch. As per other and my original feedback, the SMH start page still taking over a minute to load initially, with full load/page complete taking 3 mins or longer. When I logged the fault with TCL and went through tests with their IP Team Tech, they more less agreed it was a proxy scenario put in place to manage their Trans-Tas traffic due to the advertising on these sites. So it appears to me that this issue remains in this Transparent Proxy Server config, so perhaps it needs further escalation with TCL Engineering Management?

I have tested http://direct.fairfax.com.au/hserver/AAMSZ=4x2/SITE=VID.MH.SMH.NEWS/AREA=HOMEPAGE - This also times out for me.

Fyi Here is a Tracert to ffxd.adbureau.net that I have done this morning:
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]

Tracing route to www.ffxd.adbureau.net [122.248.157.58]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.15.1
2 9 ms 13 ms 9 ms 121-72-239-1.cable.telstraclear.net [121.72.239.
1]
3 22 ms 22 ms 21 ms 218.101.61.185
4 22 ms 21 ms 22 ms ge-0-2-0-1.xcore1.acld.telstraclear.net [203.98.
50.251]
5 22 ms 21 ms 22 ms 203.167.233.10
6 47 ms 306 ms 96 ms i-1-3-1.syd-core03.bx.reach.com [202.84.219.97]

7 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms i-14-1-0.sydp-core01.bi.reach.com [202.84.249.13
]
8 50 ms 48 ms 48 ms telstra_domestic_peer-peer.sydp-core01.pr.reach.
com [134.159.126.34]
9 48 ms 47 ms 48 ms Bundle-Ether3.chw-core2.Sydney.telstra.net [203.
50.6.26]
10 49 ms 48 ms 49 ms TenGigE0-1-0-0.ken-core4.Sydney.telstra.net [203
.50.19.1]
11 73 ms 96 ms 214 ms TenGigabitEthernet7-1.ult2.Sydney.telstra.net [2
03.50.20.51]
12 48 ms 48 ms 48 ms attglo.lnk.telstra.net [165.228.144.190]
13 49 ms 49 ms 50 ms 122.248.156.250
14 48 ms 48 ms 49 ms 122.248.157.58

Trace complete.
_______________________________________

Thanks for your continued efforts with this frustrating issue....
Cheers
Peter