Another Tot Vs True Thread

[quiksilva]

I have been using True for 4 years and have been very happy with their service overall (sure you never get advertised bandwidth but I understand why).

I'm moving to a new Moo Baan and its looking like I will only be able to have TOT at this place as True for some reason as deemed it not important enough to have a presence their (~300 houses not enough apparently).

I have read many threads here absolutely slating TOT service (or lack thereof) and to be honest I have probably seen just as many about True but like I said, they were OK for me (all things considered). I got perhaps 70-80% of advertised speed. I can live with that, not happy really but I can live with it.

So with that perspective in mind is TOT really as bad as all these posts make out, or can I expect much worse?

PS the Moo Baan is in Nonthaburi province, nr Chaeng Wattana just off Viphavadee Rangsit Road,

[sabajja]

Well, you can say like this.

If TOT were operating in Europe or the states, with the service and reliability

issues they have, they'd be bankcrupt a looong time ago.

[autonomous_unit]

My experience with True ADSL and TOT ADSL are that on average I don't notice much difference. I had True 1024/512 service for almost two years back in 2004-2006 in a high-rise condo block over the river in Bangkoknoi. I have had TOT 1024/512 service now for less than a year in a mooban over the river in Nonthaburi. (In between I was stuck with GPRS and there I learned to appreciate any ADSL at all. )

Both times, I have seen good line quality (low noise and attenuation statistics) and the performance is undoubtably limited by the local backbone and/or international gateways. You have to keep in mind that the local connections, contention created by neighbors, and different tech staff from the ISP may influence these experiences... someone living in different parts of the BMA might see different service from each company.

I saw random outages in the first weeks of service with both companies, settling into a pretty decent service once you accept the bottleneck for international traffic. I think that perhaps the TOT DNS servers are a little slower to respond than the True ones were, or maybe websites I visit now just require more DNS lookups (more annoying ads loaded from third-party servers, etc). I had better bandwidth sometimes with True, but also much worse at times. I never felt like I needed the "true2m" login boost here with TOT, whereas I had to use it with True at times just to get things done.

[brianinbangkok]

My experience with True ADSL and TOT ADSL is that True provides a higher level of service with much less problems in Nonthaburi.

I had True 1024/512 service from 2001 > 2005 in Nontaburi in my old mooban.

Almost no problems , service was down maybe 1 or 2 times a year.

Speed was good !

I have had TOT 1024/512 service now for more than a year in another mooban also in Nonthaburi.

Speed has never been close to what I paid for 1024/512 more like 750/300 and this is the Gold Cyber

The TOT DNS servers go down at least 2 times a month , the ADSL service goes down or slows down to less then a 28k analog modem for at least for 1 week each month.

So you get 750k for 3 weeks and then nothing or 28k for a week before they solve the problems.

Over the last year they have been to my house and checked my PC at least 10 times , only one time it turned out to be a broken cable in my (new house) some insects broke the cable.

All the other times it was at the TOT server end of the ADSL system.

As there are no IT guys on standbye in weekends at TOT if DNS server or something else goes down it means you have no internet untill monday morning.

In any case now service is slow today (for more then a week) because according to the TOT guys they are "upgrading" the international bandwith connection.

"And all TOT customers have this problem at the moment....."

Still this does not explain why my local speed test shows 300k download !

But when I said that to the TOT helpdesk they just said "thanks for calling and bye".

CAT and TOT would be out of business within a month if the Thai gov allowed foreign ISP to compete with them.

[quiksilva]

But when I said that to the TOT helpdesk they just said "thanks for calling and bye".

Amazing Thailand huh!! Customer service staff at True I have always found to at least try, even when they couldn't help.

My True connection speed has always been pretty crumby. I have the SME package supposedly is 2000 kbps down / 512 Kbps up but is actually about 1200/300-400.

Not exactly looking forward to this aspect of the move... I heard Samart have a good deal at the moment 2000/512 for 590 / month but need to look into whether they can provide service to my Moo Baan.

[brianinbangkok]

But when I said that to the TOT helpdesk they just said "thanks for calling and bye".

Amazing Thailand huh!! Customer service staff at True I have always found to at least try, even when they couldn't help.

My True connection speed has always been pretty crumby. I have the SME package supposedly is 2000 kbps down / 512 Kbps up but is actually about 1200/300-400.

Not exactly looking forward to this aspect of the move... I heard Samart have a good deal at the moment 2000/512 for 590 / month but need to look into whether they can provide service to my Moo Baan.

I am waiting for a True line now as the only reason I switched to TOT was the fact I could not get a True line here at the time, but now 1 year later True lines have become available but they need to add more lines to my mobaan , I can't wait to make the switch back !

TOT ADSL in Nonthaburi is terrible

[brianinbangkok]

Just to let everyone know how "wonderfull" the TOT ADSL GOLD CYBER 1Mb service is.

They have not fixed my problems after almost 2 weeks now , speeds still under 5kb/sec download.

I might as well use a normal analog modem at this speed.

So if people have the choice NEVER GET TOT ADSL they are the worst service in Thailand !

TOT have done NOTHING to FIX the problem , seems to be getting worse not better.

I read somewhere that TOT does not do the ADSL service themself its another company that got a service contract from TOT, that contract does not cover weekends and holidays....

Would explain why the service desk says they will try and fix the problem and nothing gets fixed , hehehe maybe TOT forgot to pay the monthly bill on time

[meadish_sweetball]

In Chiang Mai, TRUE has no ADSL on offer. They do however operate a cable modem system which was excellent for as long as I used it (but this is 1.5 years ago now).

TOT and TT&T is what most people will have experience with here. And from my experience of talking to people and reading this forum regularly since 2003, your results depend a lot on your location.

The relationship is a little complicated. Basically, all physical phone lines are TOT. TT&T then lease the right to operate a certain amount of these phone lines to sell similar services.

The ISPs, in turn, offer their services on top of this structure. So if you have a TT&T phone line, you will be able to get ADSL from TT&T as an ISP, as well as from several others - Loxinfo, KSC, CAT etc.

The same situation exists with people who have TOT phone lines, i.e. you can get other ISPs than TOT through their network.

The Chiang Mai situation suggests that the contention ratios differ (contention ratio = how many people you share your nominal bandwidth with). Basically, the ISPs pay through their nose to buy international bandwidth from CAT. So in order to make money, they need to let several users share that bandwidth.

Some Chiang Mai users get decent speeds with either TT&T or TOT... others, not so great.

The people who opt for Loxinfo pay a lot more, but get more consistent speeds. Loxinfo blocks Bit Torrent daytime but lets it run at full blast at night. Some of the cheaper alternatives on TOT and TT&T block both BitTorrent and Voice over IP (like Skype, Vonage etc.)

[Kyosuken]

Beware beware my friends, most of we farangs don't notice some little things like...

http://www.maxnet.co.th/product_Indy.php <= Notice the interesting prices... notice too that they are limiting the International Bandwith as well

http://www.maxnet.co.th/product_Premier.php <= Now this is another story ohoh prices goes to the tripple ! but there service might be a little better.

I didn't find anything like that regarding ToT but seeing the price of the GoldCyber (1000 baht) in the same range price as "Product_Indy" from TT&T, i am quite sure they are selling the same type of "no service". ToT is the worst for anything you call them "we will send a technicien" oh yeah and then ? Most of the time the guy will come and ###### up the configuration of your router GREAT ! or like many times the guy comes and has nothing to test if the connexion works or not, reset your router sees nothing is working, calls the central, then tries again a couple of time, then tells you he needs to check something and will come back later. You wait 2/3/4 hours then you get a phone call : is it working now ??.

If they did check the connection in the first place we customers wouldn't be losing money and time /cheer for the competance arround here But hey TiT .

Now when it comes to "you are late to pay the bill, we are going to shut your connection down" they are the best i have ever seen in the world, top service in this area.

About True, well in Phuket there is not enough Farang that brings money it seems so we have very limited Internet from them here, and the price is roughly 3000 baht or so for 256k connection (or worse but i don't recall).

This 3G network thingy is starting to smell more and more interesting in the area, i will need to find an adapter for desktop computer first

[brianinbangkok]

Well just called TOT again and now they told me they are upgrading "the IP equipment in my area" but they only mentioned this AFTER I told them it was not only the international bandwith I was complaining about but also the speed to local websites.....

Now they say the upgrade should be finished early next week.

Lets see hehe.

Its time for a beer now !

[Zoot]

I have the slowest of the 3 levels of TOT service and have no real complaints. I live in Loei, in the town about 3.5km from the TOT exchange. It arrived when they said it would. They come and check the line immediately I report a problem. I even had one technician follow me home (me on a bicycle) to fix the line the other day.

Line speeds aren't too bad and it's nearly always available.

Zoot

[quiksilva]

Well just called TOT again and now they told me they are upgrading "the IP equipment in my area" but they only mentioned this AFTER I told them it was not only the international bandwith I was complaining about but also the speed to local websites.....

Now they say the upgrade should be finished early next week.

Lets see hehe.

Its time for a beer now !

I went to TOT Nonthaburi HO on Chaeng Wattana - I have to go on a waiting list for the new lines which will be capable of ADSL for my new Moo Baan I asked when it was likely the lines will be complete and was told it could be months....!! TIT

[brianinbangkok]

Well just called TOT again and now they told me they are upgrading "the IP equipment in my area" but they only mentioned this AFTER I told them it was not only the international bandwith I was complaining about but also the speed to local websites.....

Now they say the upgrade should be finished early next week.

Lets see hehe.

Its time for a beer now !

I went to TOT Nonthaburi HO on Chaeng Wattana - I have to go on a waiting list for the new lines which will be capable of ADSL for my new Moo Baan I asked when it was likely the lines will be complete and was told it could be months....!! TIT

Only reason I got TOT now was because True did not have lines into my new mobaan for 15 month after we moved in !

And now they have just arrived and are already short of lines.

True I am told does not even have a waiting list system ? Anybody know about this ?

FYI , TOT still as slow as a 28k modem here , over 2 weeks of this now , bet the bill will be for a full speed TOT ADSL Goldcyber anyway !

[nonthaburial]

I live in Nomthaburi near Cheng wattana etc etc My TOT ADSL is so slow that I have reverted back to my KSC dial up

[whatsupdoc]

I live in Nomthaburi near Cheng wattana etc etc My TOT ADSL is so slow that I have reverted back to my KSC dial up

Also live in Nonthaburi, have TOT goldcyber, but usually get the speed as advertised (minus some overhead, but that would be normal). So I suppose it all depends very much on the exact location.....

[quiksilva]

I think it depends on the quality of the lines used. they said I could have telephone line quite quickly but that it would be old and no good for ADSL so they suggested I wait - but I have no idea how long for, probably a few months they said

I must say being without any internet at home is almost unbearable, its become a utility these days.