sillyfools

Any particular setting to enter on these registry positions minute ?

Thanks,

SF

Hi Croft,

I printed that one out immediately (you never know they might change their logging description) as well as any other papers listing it as 4 Gb transfer

No word back in the mail however but at least I've got the papers to show they promised 4 Gb's :-)

Haha Huski,

Indeed. that is what CS means :-).

Don't be fooled by the CS staff that will point you to their demosite where you can download a file of several sizes at blazing speed. Of course that comes in smoothly. It even almost crashed the sound barrier.

Only thing they forget to mention is that it is a server sitting just next to the uplink center or on an unmetered part of thier demo network. They tried to fool me on our previous subscription by saying. Look you have a full 256 Kbps from our demosite while any place else, even their own site got me sometimes a 40Kbps. After I told them I'm smarter then to believe their crap about their demoserver and that I'm talking about the speed down the line. they shut up and admitted that there was a temporary problem with their local loop.

So be prepared to ask the not so obvious questions and don't let them blow you away :-D. (Oops hinting too much at CS :-))

Hi frankie.

Using the standard VPN in XP over TCP/IP indeed but I would have no clue as where to enter TTL's.

Any pointers?

Thanks mate.

Da*n... and I thought you would be the expert on that :-D.

Yes that is the problem with iPSTAR vpn as well. Not at all an idea however how I can change the response time. I guess nobody over here has a printer hooked up at the other end of the globe right ????

Anyone ;-)?

Thanks monty for the terrific post. This is really helpful. Somehow I was hoping of a combined upload speed that would be higher with less the lag of satellite.

Madfrankie, as what I've heard VPN can be set up on iPSTAR (2-way satellite) but not on iPTV since iPTV is sort of a VPN itself.

I have to say that I have pretty bad results with VPN over iPSTAR and that is why I am looking into other 'land' options. VPN is an encrypted network connection allowing you to connect your pc or whole network at home or a remote office over the internet with no worries about security. The problem is that every piece of information is encrypted as it is sent along the internet. Now the problems comes in when it is transmitted over satellite because of the satellite lag (remember those shiny fridges hang a couple of thousand kilometers above our heads). Now every packet of data has to wait for the key and confirmation that it has arrived correctly. This slows down the network tremendeously. The fastest VPN I have established over iPSTAR so far is about 8Kbps !!!! Yes Kilobits.

Now what I am interested in especially is to print documents from here directly to my home in Europe. Whenever I try to do this over VPN I run into troubles that my thailand site cannot see the printer at the other end. I suspect due to sat lag so that the pc thinks there's something wrong with the printer.

Another reason why I am interested in other options is because of VoIP (Voice over IP). It allows you to by 2 phone sets that you can hook up to your network. You can then call from one location in the world to the other location for free (well, apart from download costs but if you are on an unlimited plan you can have an intstant connection between yourself and the family or between offices.

What is even more interesting about this is that there are certain VoIP devices that you can hook up on the other end and have it connected to a phoneline over there and a fax machine over there. This way you can from Thailand make local calls in your homecountry and even send out and receive faxes within your own country all for the price of .... say it all together ...yes FREE :-)

'

Check out http://corporate.ksc.net/corporate/corporate.php?page=G12

It's been there for a while. I know to get to that speed you need 4 multilink modems but this can we seen as a one time investment.

Has anyone tested this or experience with it?

The advantages from my point of view:

1) Near ADSL download speed (224 Kbps resp. 256Kbps for ADSL)

2) Higher upload speed (correct me if I'm wrong but I thought modems had an almost equal upload speed in comparison to their download speed (so I'm thinkin of 75% resp. 50% for ADSL)

3) No disconnection of the phonelines so Always on

4) No download limitation

5) No satellite lag due to the satellite communication crossing 35.000 kms a couple of times so Voice over IP much smoother and more easy telnetting and remote server maintenance

6) Since land-connection more reliable and speedy VPN connection

Disadvantages:

1) Higher initial setup cost (4 modems, 4 phonelines)

Anyone care to elaborate?

Hi,

I also have iPSTAR Megabit Service running (the 512 Kbps down) over here in Pattaya. I upgraded from the 256 Kbps down we've had before.

HOWEVER, I have never managed to actually receive more then 256 Kbps even since the upgrade. I am using DUmeter (www.dumeter.com) and set it to display average results. Then I started downloading multiple videostreams simultaneously as well as ftp'ing to some servers and it never went above 256 Kbps.

Furthermore, a couple of days ago I tried the same on a friend's iPTV installation, dumeter installed and downloading the same kind of data and on iPTV the downloadspeed was actually FASTER then 256 Kbps, sometimes up to 320 Kbps. It seems to be that iPTV is able to use compression and iPSTAR is not.

So a couple of questions about this:

1) Does anybody have iPSTAR up and running at effective speeds higher than 256 Kbps (set average speed results on dumeter to check)?

2) Is there a way to use compression on iPSTAR like you can do ons iPTV and some Lox phonelines?

Another worrysome thing that has gotten my attention is the following:

I remember our main reason to upgrade is the download limitation being jumped up to 4000 Mb instead of the 3000 Mbs we had before.

1) BUT today I checked the CSLOX site and it seems that we have all been 'had' since now they list their same package (Megabit 2) as having a download limit of only 3000 Mb! No notification, no warning, nothing. So if this is the case a lot of users have been lured into upgrading our buying the system then to take back what was promised.

2) Is it my imagination, or did I actually see a flyer that convinced us to upgrade to the Megabit service that stated that the speed would be 512/256 Kbps? I think it was. No everywhere I look I see that the speed for the same package is listed at 512/128 Kbps.

I would say time to hit the phones..... If this is true then this month I will be paying 10.500 baht (8000+2500 for extra gig that now all of a sudden is removed from bandwidth allowance again) for the same speed I had before when I paid 7.000 baht.

Any help greatly appreciated. And please tell those cslox webmasters also to finally fix the button so that users can read the english version (or actually put the english version of their pages up). I think CSLoxinfo should drop CS from their name again as Customer Support there is NOT.

I will let you know. Just ordered two. Should be here in a couple of weeks. It's not the same one as in the article though. Did some more research afterwards.

Will let you know later.

SF

Hi, thanks for the replies.

At the moment we use earplug purchased at a boots store but then again we still wake up 4 times or more each night. They arent the wax types though. Cannot find those.

Just because I don't want to start a fight with the neighbours I don't want to use the strychine solution :-). I've told them about the problem but they simple don't care. I know for sure that the boxes do work and they are pretty harmless.

I guess I will see and order one from the internet and hope that everything works out. I'll let you know on the progress.

Thanks,

SF

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I'm still looking for the box though :-).

We've tried earplugs. But we are virtually surrounded by dogs. Our bedroom is about 2m away from our neighbour's house where they keep about 5 dogs or so. Normally they are quiet until one smart fellow decides to take his dog, left alone in the house for most of the day, for a walk at 2 or 3 in the morning. Then all ###### breaks looks.

Ear plugs no use. Even medicine did not help. I even had to move to another place for a week just to catch up on some sleep.

Maybe there's some electronics savvy guys over here that know how to build something like that. I think it would make a pretty good market as well. You could advertise it here on thaivisa (shameless plug in favor of the new sales mgr over here :-D.

On the other hand, does anybody have any experience with importing small appliances like this to thailand? A 100$ order, shipping excluded from the US over here, what would it cost extra in import duties, taxes etc?

Best regards and stay away from those gf-made saussages ;-)

Hi,

I'm confronted with the following situation, maybe a lot of you are having the same problem:

We are living in a nice area which is not a gated community though. And while we are animal lovers ourselves, we are woken up several times at night by all the dogs of all the neighbours starting to bark whenever somebody is walking his dog or a motorbike passes by. Several neighbours have already moved in to a house in the soi and moved out a couple of months later because of sleeping problems.

I know that the main reason is because the neighbour's dogs are not trained, but then again, you try to explain that to all of the neighbours...

A dog barking during the day does not annoy me at all and a few barks at night will not get me out of my sleep, it's only the continuous barking of sometimes 10 minutes to about an hour that has us waking up at least 4 times every night.

It's come to a situation where it is almost impossible to live in this house, but we've got the contract going for another 9 months so I guess you see the problem.

I've done some research and found several us websites that can offer dog deterrent. From the simple ones (always on) which I don't like because it's not good for the dogs and has an adverse effect, to the ones that only emit a sound (not audible to humans) whenever a dog is barking for more then let's say 15 seconds. My idea is to hook this up to a timer so it only takes effect from midnight till 5 or 6am.

Does anybody know where we can buy some of these? I've heard of an american expat who brought some over from his home country and even the Thai neighbours like the quite nights now :-).

When a dog is really scared or in distress, he will still bark whatsoever, so it's not at all that all of a sudden they don't have any protection anymore because their guard dog isn't performing. In fact it just cuts down on 'nighttime canine communication' which exist because their lack of respect and love to their animals during the daytime. So when installing the box the dogs will still bark, but it will be during the day.

Anybody can help a lot of expats over here out on this one? Maybe even a whole new line of business ;-)? (Don't forget to cut me a slice of the pie :-D) 555

Thanks,

SF

So funny.

Yesterday and today on the cover of cnn.com : "New curfew to tame Thai nightlife".

The day itself not.

Getting back to the original Q's...

I didn't know that small sentence would get such an amount of replies :-).

-----

I find this thread to be very interesting and would like to add some more questions.

-1) Regarding the Q that started this all, from what I read if would be best to enter on a Tourist / Business via and lay low typing away your novel in the sun sipping a beer, .... However, are there any downsides to this, whereas I know that you have to leave the country each 3 months to get a your passport stamped.

However, I've also heard that after a period of time you have to stay outside of the country for a couple of months. Can anyone clarify this for me: a) after how much time, for how long, c) what kind of visas does it apply to ?

2) So apart from laying low and wishing for the best, what would the "best" legal option be for our soon-to-be-expat friend who can make a living working anywhere in the world on the internet for companies in the home country?

3) I've also read the taxing stuff with great interest. Since Thailand does tax income less than most western countries, wouldn't it be great to have one pay taxes here and not in the home country? How can one do that, regarding that there is already a company set up in the home country, generating a list of projects to be handled? I guess that Thai government would be happy to receive the extra taxes and the foreigner who wants to lay in the sun over here would be more than happy to pay them over here, so what is possible, what are the pitfalls and how to start this off?

----

Really great thread. Good job.

SF

Or does this sentence put us all in jeopardy ?

I find this thread to be very interesting and would like to add some more questions.

-1) Regarding the Q that started this all, from what I read if would be best to enter on a Tourist / Business via and lay low typing away your novel in the sun sipping a beer, .... However, are there any downsides to this, whereas I know that you have to leave the country each 3 months to get a your passport stamped.

However, I've also heard that after a period of time you have to stay outside of the country for a couple of months. Can anyone clarify this for me: a) after how much time, for how long, c) what kind of visas does it apply to ?

2) So apart from laying low and wishing for the best, what would the "best" legal option be for our soon-to-be-expat friend who can make a living working anywhere in the world on the internet for companies in the home country?

3) I've also read the taxing stuff with great interest. Since Thailand does tax income less than most western countries, wouldn't it be great to have one pay taxes here and not in the home country? How can one do that, regarding that there is already a company set up in the home country, generating a list of projects to be handled? I guess that Thai government would be happy to receive the extra taxes and the foreigner who wants to lay in the sun over here would be more than happy to pay them over here, so what is possible, what are the pitfalls and how to start this off?

Really great thread. Good job.

SF

Hi mouse,

Thank you for your information. The speed itself does not seem to be much of a problems once it's going. The main problem seems to be it can take from between 5 to 10 seconds for a website to open. I don't even mean to complete the transfer, but util you see the url changes so the actual transfer begins.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the dns servers I use.

Best regards,

SF

Dear Sabaijai,

First of all let me thank you very much for the information. It was very helpful. I will try to contact my consulate next week.

One more question though. Does anyone know if one needs to be a reporter (i.e. writing articles) or one can be a media director? In effect, I am not a reporter but a media manager. My press card in Europe is provided to me because I manage a press office.

Does anyone have more information on this?

Best regards,

SF

You might want to try Remote Administrator (RAdmin). It works fine for me. In fact I use it together with GoToMyPc, so that whenever one fails for some reason I don't have to hop on a transatlantic plane).

Good luck.

Hi George,

Thank you for the information. I think my consulate can provide me with an M Visa based upon my press card in Europe, but does anyone have more information on like a thai press card, on how to obtain one? Is it required, difficult, what are the requirements, ... ?

Since the url you pointed to is the same information I get from most law officers over here :-)

SF

Hi Broadband users,

Up till december of last year I have been quite happy with IP Star. Since then however there are a lot of times (maybe 8 times a week) when the internet just "freezes". Nothing comes in anymore. Sometimes for 5 minutes. Sometimes a coupl of hours. Highly annoying considering the cost. Connections to sites in europe is very slow as well. The sites I access are in Brussels on the main Level3 Internet Exchange node so should come in very fast. My Dumeter shows access to those sites most of the time at around 40 Kbps. VERY slow, since my dialup connection through Lox adds compression and generally boosts up to 80 Kpbs (on certain phone numbers, not all). Sometimes access to sites like cslox or loxonfo also crawls in at about 20 Kbps.

Support from cslox has been next to non-existing. Most emails are not even replied to. At the moment I have the 256/128 Kbps installed with 3Gbs transfer but I want to switch to 512/256 IF and only IF there is some decent speed and not like now 6 seconds+ pinging to a european site or even to loxinfo sites themselves.

I got the system installed by Wattana (opposite foodland). I wonder now if there is something wrong with the installation or is it the problems at CStox ?

Can anyone share his readings from the IP-Star control settings so we can check and maybe help each other out this way.

Here is my report, I hope to read yours.

Best regards,

SF

------- IP STAR RECEPTION REPORT AND SETTINGS ------

-

- Date : 25/02/2004

- Location : South Pattaya

- Current weather : daytime, bright, no clouds, no rain

-

- Config : IP STAR 256/128

- Link Quality : Poor *

- Signal strength : 78.54

- EsNO : 9.70

-

- DNS Servers : 203.192.33.34 **

- DNS Servers : 202.183.255.11

-

- Satellite TXGain : -21.5 dB ***

- MaxGain : -20.5 dB

- RxFrequency : 1888 Mhz

- TollID : 3

- LO BUQ Frequency : Ku Band 13.050 Ghz

-

- Problems reported : 1) Very slow on intl. connections. They kick in after

- Problems reported : sometimes 10 or 15 seconds but it looks like the lookup

- Problems reported : is extremely slow.

- Problems reported : 2) Problems with data sent along this connection to the

- Problems reported : office in Europe. Sometimes data appears to be not

- Problems reported : transmitted correctly, resulting in problems on the

- Problems reported : web based interface on the other side.

- Problems reported : 3) Caching problems. It seems to be that CSLox uses

- Problems reported : some kind of transparent caching but does not always

- Problems reported : refresh when you hit the refresh button. Anyone else has

- Problems reported : this problem?

-

------ END REPORT -----

The information is obtained from the webpage at

http://YOUR-SAT-IPNUMBER:8080/xWebGateway.cgi?page=satellite

* The link quality information is what you get if you hover over the left graphic in the uppper corner depicting a satellite and a 5 digit bar.

** The dns number you can obtain when you go to

http://YOUR-SAT-IPNUMBER:8080/xWebGateway....page=networking

and type in ADMIN, pass operator. Then switch to the tab 'dhcp'

!!!! You can look over there but don't change these setting unless you know what you're doing or you have written down exactly how they were. If in doubt, don't do it.

*** The satellite information you can obtain when you go to

http://YOUR-SAT-IPNUMBER:8080/xWebGateway.cgi?page=satellite

or siwtch to the tab satellite.

Hi all,

Because it is very difficult to get relevant information from most big companies such as TOT or CSLox, I hope that users on this forum can come up with a way of keeping each other up to date on what's happening regarding to adsl availability.

- The need for broadband forced me to relocate to another part of Pattaya as a result of TOT telling me that it was available at that address. After changing ownership of the telephone lines, numereous checks and such they told me it was not available, so I had moved for zip.

- I asked TOT to install an additional telephone line in the house. They said it was impossible because they had no more lines available in that region.

- The next day I went to TT&T and they installed me an additional phone line within 2 weeks, furthermore, the quality of the line beat the one of TOT. The TT&T line was 50 Kbps whereas TOT slacked along at sometimes between 20 and 50 kbps.

Because I need broadband I intend to move to another part of the city or Jomtien.

(I have ip star already but for my use this is not suitable, I need to remotely access my office pc in europe and the satelitte position comes with a lag of up to 1 second). That's ok for browsing websites but not for remote maintenance or even teleworking.

Does anybody know (or have credible connections, a friend working at TOT ot TT&T) or something like that, who can tell where exactly adsl is available. Up till now we only hear beach road and 2nd road but if they want to bridge the digital devide, then it's about time to stretch the adsl lines to south pattaya, north pattaya and jomtien. So, anybody has some kind of map with current and future adsl availability?

Also, anyone wrestling with the same problem? I need to have a fast connection 512/256 or 256/128 and more steady then IP STAR. I compared the speed I got at an internet cafe on adsl and my IP STAR connection and the difference was enormous, in favor of adsl. If you're in the same kind of situation, kindly get in touch. Maybe if we get together and think about it for ourselves, maybe we can find a solution.

Best regards,

SF

Hi Jeb,

It depends on the type of antenna. Most AP's have an adjustable antenna that you can turn in order to get the best reception. Some (f.e. Dlink) also come with the possibility to add an external antenna.

It all depends on the amount of space (or rather read concrete) it has to go through.

Consider this:

If you have 2 rooms. Room A has your AP, Room B has your laptop or whatever device you want to connect wireless to.

Let's consider that the distance between the two devices is 40 ft.

in case 1: you have the ap sitting next to the wall in room a and the other device 40 ft away in room b just in front of the place where the first device is. the signal will travel through maybe one ft of wall and 49 ft of air so the reception will be very good.

in case 2: the first device is sitting at the same spot in room A but you have your second device in room B, right next to the wall, but still 50 ft away, ... the distance will still be the same, but now it will have to travel through maybe 49 ft of concrete and 1 ft of air because the straight path between them is blocked with the long end of the wall.

So... It all depends on the amount of walls, type of material and such.

I had the problem that I had one server room in the house and couldn't get a clear connection less than 25 ft away because of 2 walls.

1) I place an omnidirectional antenna outside (central location on the house) and turned the transmitted power down a bit (you cannot really transmit outside according to thai law :-( ... until CS probably has all the gear to boost wifi itself and the law will change all of a sudden).

2) I replaced the wifi card in the laptop with another one.

My signal now is clear on both floors, outside and inside and working great. You can use a program called Netstumbler to check on you reception quality. The latter solution alone jumped my reception form -50 to -10 db.

I hope this one helps.

Also anyone with experience with wifi, adsl and bridging the "last mile" problem in pattaya/jomtien feel free to contact me.

SF

Regarding the range for certain types of routers - is that vertical only. Is range different when considering I am 50 feet away from an access point down the hall on the same floor. Or if I'm 50 feet away from an access point 4 floors up.

thanks,

Jeb

Hi,

Can someone provide me with more information about press visas. I own a publishing company in Europe and therefor am holder of a press id card.

1- What can I do in Thailand?

2- What can I not do in Thailand?

3- Are there any additional requirements?

4- Which process to follow?

5- How long does the permit to stay last, i.e. does one with a press visa need to hop the border every 3 months?

I kindly thank you all for any information you can share with me because most of the law offices I went to so far have no information or knowledge about that whatsoever.

Best regards,

SF (It's a thai rock band)