Your results may vary, but give it a try

For many computer users who complain about their ISP's Internet speed, one factor they may not consider is the quality of their ISP's DNS servers. DNS stands for Domain Name Servers, and it's what your web browser uses to convert the web address you type into the browser's URL bar into the actual IP address of that website.

For example, if I want to visit ESPN.com to check today's basketball scores, I type espn.com into my web browser. You'll notice that the address changes to espn.go.com and the website eventually loads. However, you can also access espn.com by typing 68.71.216.176 into the URL bar. Of course, espn.com is much easier to remember than 68.71.216.176 (imagine trying to remember the IP addresses of dozens of websites you visit), so DNS servers are used. When someone types in a website address, the browser checks with a DNS server for the actual IP address (which is hidden from the user) and uses that to access the website.

Often, when websites or the Internet itself is "attacked", what's really happening is that DNS servers are being bombarded with millions of requests, slowing them down to a crawl. The "Internet" is still there, and if you knew the IP address of the website you wanted to visit, you could, but without DNS servers to quickly resolve espn.com to 68.71.216.176, you can't.