Methods and apparatus providing information about characteristics associated with a network are described. A network node associated with a client for selecting a server that can best provide content to a client transmits a request for a response. A plurality of content servers or content routing agents receive requests corresponding to the request from the network node associated with the client. The content servers provide a response and fragment and/or pad datagrams associated with the response. The content servers transmit these fragmented and/or padded datagrams to the network node associated with the client. The network node associated with the client can reassemble and/or trim the received datagrams and identify as optimal the server that first completes transmission of the response.