Csloxlinfo Making Major Changes To Their Network

[cyborgx]

I have been doing some International speed testing recently with CSLoxinfo ADSL.

For at least the last 2 weeks it has been consistently awful (around 50kbps on a 1mbps line), but in the last day or so they have made changes which have improved the speed tests, but seem to have implemented P2P throttling to the extreme, and now P2P is unuseable with their network.

When ISP's here make major changes to their service like this without advising existing or new customers it really pisses me off!

I'm looking for another ISP that has decent P2P throughput without ridiculous levels of protocol throttling which CSLoxinfo appear to have implemented. True is actually not bad at the moment.

I agree that at times it may be necessary to control traffic, but when you can hardly get 10kbps out of a 1mbps line, they have gone too far!.

Can anyone recomend a good ISP for P2P?

[george]

You should choose a proper business package. The ISP's are complaining that the P2P traffic takes over 40% if their bandwidth, so it's about time that the heavy users will pay more, isn't it?

Please feel free to flame me...

[cyborgx]

I don't mind paying for what I get. But the reverse is actually true, I and I'm not getting what I am paying for.

They game me a Business logon to test last week, but the speeds were just as bad, and I'm talking about normal speed tests, nothing to do with P2P.

They should advertise more realistic service speeds, but they give absolutely no idication of the REAL INTERNATIONAL speeds that come with their packages. Whilst it is true it is hard to guarantee speeds, they should give some indication in their service offerings, as well as perhaps even indications on what controls are in place.

I know the latter is a dream at the moment, but as broadband usage around the world increases, and consumer pressure mounts, I cannot see it being too long before legislation is put in place (at least in the West) to prevent misleading advertising, and force disclosure of some of this information by ISP's. Until then, we'll just have to rely on each other for it....

[cyborgx]

I'll just add, I'm not interested in flaming people, just exchanging accurate information and advice.

If the ISP's adverts were forced to show for example, their average international speeds (using hourly test results) to a standard US/European location with each service offering, it would make choosing a service/pricepoint to suit our needs so much easier.

Since most people (even ISP's) use the same speed test websites/java scripts, comparisons and standardisation of results would not be too difficult.

It could even be done by government or independant bodies, although in Asia you'd have to worry about how much corruption was fiddling with the numbers, but at least it would be something that people could then all see, and comment on it's accuracy.

Edited May 2, 2007 by cyborgx

[astral]

I do hate ISP's who offer "unlimited" access, then tell you in the very small print that only the 1st Gb is included,

If there are limitations then they should be clearly laid out, not hidden.

I do not use P2P but I am a heavy News Group addict and often downlaod 3 Gb a day,

and I do pay the News provider for that privilege.

Should I really have to pay twice??

Just my 2 pennth.

[Firefoxx]

I'd just rather that Thai ISPs would start kicking the really heavy users. And by heavy, I mean *really* heavy, the ones that leave their bittorrent downloads/uploads on at full speed using up 100% bandwidth 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The shared structure of consumer broadband cannot support even one person using all the bandwidth all the time, when dozens of people are using that same bandwidth, and thus sharing the huge cost of the bandwidth. Using bittorrent on a moderate basis is totally OK, abusing it and your bandwidth is not.

I also use newsgroups, and although I do download around as much as astral, I'm not even close to using even half of my bandwidth, let alone all of it. In the past few days my NNTP speed has dropped from pretty good to unacceptable, and I wonder if True has done some packet shaping. If so, they're messing with the wrong protocols.

[Guest Reimar]

You should choose a proper business package. The ISP's are complaining that the P2P traffic takes over 40% if their bandwidth, so it's about time that the heavy users will pay more, isn't it?

Please feel free to flame me...

Agree fully!!

[monty]

A 1 mbps package used full blast 24/7 gets you over 10 Gb/day!

Using 3 Gb is only 30%, and as Astral mentions, he downloads that amount often, but probably not always, so I doubt that on any given month he eats 25% of his capacity.

Problem is indeed people on 1 mbps home packages downloading 300Gb/month through P2P networks (and hardly actually using/watching anything of it, but heck, they pay for 1 mbps don't they?).

Shared connections are based on the principle that people are not using internet 24/7, and certainly not full blast either!

But I do indeed agree that there is a lack of information on the packages the ISP's offer.

Expected speeds are close to impossible to tell you, but things like contention ratio, or simply informing you like Maxnet (TT&T) does, that the home package is best used for surfing Thai based websites, and that other protocols might have their bandwidth throttled, would be a good start...

Incidentally, I have no complaints about their (Maxnet) SME packages, admittedly at quadruple the price/speed compared to the home packages!

[cyborgx]

Using bittorrent on a moderate basis is totally OK, abusing it and your bandwidth is not.

I totally disagree with this sentiment. If you pay for unrestricted bandwidth at a certain speed, then that is what you should get, and that is what they should provide. The fact that the way ISP's setup and share bandwidth makes that expensive for them, is their problem not mine.

Next you will be telling me that you think we should accept the pump attendants that only give us half the gas we pay for because it's expensive, and they sell it so cheap!

Should I feel guilty that I use the service I pay for? No way! It's bad enough that it never even reaches close to what they advertise, now I have to justify my usage? If you are not getting what you are paying for from from your ISP, take it up with them, and stop blaming it on other users.

Edited May 2, 2007 by cyborgx

[wpcoe]

I believe many Thai ISPs have a disclosure statement somewhere that excludes peer-to-peer usage from their lowest-priced residential packages, which IMHO is a reasonable trade-off for the low-price/high contention ratio used.

When I signed up for TT&T's MaxNet I was shown some document in the TT&T office that notified me that peer-to-peer and VOIP were not supported. I vaguely recall a similar restriction when I had residential ADSL packages from KSC and QNet in Bangkok.

I'm not sure if all ISPs are entirely upfront in advising such a restriction.

[TopDogger]

now P2P is unuseable with their network.

Only between 8am and 7pm

[monty]

I totally disagree with this sentiment. If you pay for unrestricted bandwidth at a certain speed, then that is what you should get, and that is what they should provide. The fact that the way ISP's setup and share bandwidth makes that expensive for them, is their problem not mine.

CyborgX, it seems that you don't want to grasp the reality for your own justification of using your package as you wish!

The ISP's are not making their bandwidth expensive with their set-up and sharing.

They have to buy expensive bandwidth from a de-facto government monopoly. They pay 24,000 Baht/month for 1024 kbps of international bandwidth.

If it wasn't for for these heavily shared packages, you would be paying 26,000 Baht/month for the privilege of a 1 mbps broadband line. Don't believe it? Check here.

And do realize, we are in Thailand. These cheap packages are aimed at Thai people, who, guess what, mainly visit Thai websites, and, guess what, they have full bandwidth to these Thai websites. Guaranteed!

I do agree they should lift the "unlimited" part of all but the most expensive packages. Limit the download amount to a certain percentage of your line capacity, like 1Gb/day oer even 10Gb/month for the home packages (1024/512). If you need more, you'll have to pay more!

Like they do in the West. Don't believe it, look here

Yep, on a 256/128 package you can chose a download quota from 150mb (right that's megabyte!!)/month up to 45 Gb/month. See the price differences??? That was Australia

Now Belgium... Look here

See that? A 1mbps packages gives you 1Gb/month of download quota. For 31 Euro (1400 Baht)/month. Every Gb over that and you pay 5 Euro extra.

About time they do the same here!

We are not in America where 80% of the content is hosted, and where you can download everything from a datacenter in your own backyard. Over here, everything has to come trough bloody expensive underseas fibre cables and satellites, gotta get paid somehow!

[cyborgx]

I totally disagree with this sentiment. If you pay for unrestricted bandwidth at a certain speed, then that is what you should get, and that is what they should provide. The fact that the way ISP's setup and share bandwidth makes that expensive for them, is their problem not mine.

CyborgX, it seems that you don't want to grasp the reality for your own justification of using your package as you wish!

I really don't understand your statement. Sorry, don't mean to be derogatory, but it sounds like it's supposed to be insulting, and ends up just being a nonsense sentence.

Anyway in response to your ideas - You are right, perhaps they should use quotas on the unlimited packages, that would allow people to pay for what they want, and allow casual users to pay less and stop whinging.

It might go some way to solving the speed issues. If there is an ISP that uses this kind of pricing scheme AND gives a reasonable precentage International speed/advertised speed AND does not throttle P2P to ridiculous levels, i'd be interested....

[astral]

I would be interested to see if there is any Thai ISP that does state clearly, in English,

exactly what is on offer, and the benefits/limitations.

[cyborgx]

I believe many Thai ISPs have a disclosure statement somewhere that excludes peer-to-peer usage from their lowest-priced residential packages, which IMHO is a reasonable trade-off for the low-price/high contention ratio used.

When I signed up for TT&T's MaxNet I was shown some document in the TT&T office that notified me that peer-to-peer and VOIP were not supported. I vaguely recall a similar restriction when I had residential ADSL packages from KSC and QNet in Bangkok.

I'm not sure if all ISPs are entirely upfront in advising such a restriction.

Interesting, thanks I had not heard that. My TRUE contract is years old, so pretty sure they hadn't thought of it at the time, and don't recall anything in the Loxley agreement either, but at least they are starting to do something.

I think the unfair thing is that whilst it is a lot easier for techies such as ourselves to spot the differences and track down the root causes of why our Internet services suck, for the average Joe in the street, he just pays and accepts what he is given, and in a lot of cases probably thinks he's getting the wonderful advertised speeds without questioning why he still sits there patiently waiting for stuff to load....

[TopDogger]

Well, its seems a lot quicker today for general use.. Good on em I say

Edited May 3, 2007 by TopDogger

[cyborgx]

Loxley appear to have made more changes to their rules since yesterday, and at least P2P is working during the day again. Still slow, but at least can get a little past 10KBps now!

Their constant playing around is driving me up the wall, and just about ready to try CAT. At least then will hopefully only have to deal with 1 layer of controls instead of 2.

[wpcoe]

I would be interested to see if there is any Thai ISP that does state clearly, in English,exactly what is on offer, and the benefits/limitations.

Here's a scan from the TT&T brochure when I signed up about two years ago. It clearly states that Bit Torrent and VoIP are not supported, and alludes to shared bandwith (contention) in the lower right-hand fine print. The numbers I penciled in on the "No. of Shared computer" is what the sales person said were the contention ratios for each plan. I was impressed, and surprised, that she shared that info.

[cyborgx]

Great info.

Which one did you sign up for, and what kind of International do you get?

Also interesting for the Home package they say No Bittorrent, but the rest no mention.

[wpcoe]

I signed up for the MaxNet@Home 512/256 about two years ago. When they introduced 1024/512 (about a year later?) I upgraded to that for approx B1000/month. The international throughput varies, but usually I get about 800k when I use the ThaiVisa.com brodband speed test. Of course, there are (far too many) times when it drops to dial-up speeds, or worse. This seems to parallel reports from all users here with various ISPs, so I just assume it's "typical."

I think their mention of "Bittorrent" meant all file sharing, but since I don't do any of that, I'm not sure. I don't use VoIP, either, so that was another non-issue.

I went through a frustrating period where the signal would drop frequently: some times after only five minutes, other times after a few hours. I was using a WiFi modem/router. On a hunch, I dug out a simple Zyxel modem that I got with KSC several years ago. Using that modem, I haven't had a single drop out, and have left it on for three to four days straight with no drops. So, that's another of my projects: to see if I can tweak the WiFi/router to not drop the connection.