Surely This Is Not True?

[davejonesbkk]

I live in an apartment building with one of those shared internet services. One of my friends lives on the floor below me with the same internet service, anyway he had the technician round yesterday as his connection was a bit slow. Apparently the tech guy started telling him how next month the contract that CAT has with one of the main US servers that supplies the main backbone connection to Thailand expires next month and will not be renewed due to the fact that the gov doesnt think this is a necessary expenditure, so as of next month all the websites from USA/Europe will be unaccessible (so thats 99% of the web gone)...

Surely this is not true?! My friend is leaving next week and the technician knows this so it cant be just an excuse for his bad service next month.

Can anyone shed light on this?

PS. This is NOT a wind up and Im NOT trolling...and sorry if this is a really n00bie/ridiculous question to ask

[Florin]

While it might be possible for them to do something as stupid as not renewing a major backbone contract, there is no way that 99% of the Internet will become unavailable, that is what ROUTING is for...what might happen is a general slowdown for everyone.

[Crushdepth]

Of course, it might slow down to the point where 99.5% of the internet is inaccessible (and the other 0.5% is in Thai)

[nikster]

Don't believe it simply because there's lots of dyed-in-the-wool true Thai companies making serious profits on DSL. Govt won't listen to us farang whining on TV, and I certainly believe they are too retarded to see the endless opportunity the internet presents for this country... but they will listen to True, TOT, TT&T.

[lazeeboy]

Don't believe it simply because there's lots of dyed-in-the-wool true Thai companies making serious profits on DSL. Govt won't listen to us farang whining on TV, and I certainly believe they are too retarded to see the endless opportunity the internet presents for this country... but they will listen to True, TOT, TT&T.

life without the net ..............wow

[Crushdepth]

Don't believe it simply because there's lots of dyed-in-the-wool true Thai companies making serious profits on DSL. Govt won't listen to us farang whining on TV, and I certainly believe they are too retarded to see the endless opportunity the internet presents for this country... but they will listen to True, TOT, TT&T.

The thing that worries me is that they are (to varying extents) making serious profits by selling capacity that they don't have. Until the ISPs are held to account they have no incentive to address the situation.

I know virtually all contracts have an 'international bandwidth is not guaranteed' loophole but there should still be some reasonable expectations on service delivery. Why are they allowed to advertise something they know they can't possibly deliver?

-----

Ok I can't help it, I'm going to be another whining farang !!!!

I recently went through the trauma of trying to find a reliable international internet connection for my workplace. The best service agreement we could find (INET) was still a joke as far as international connection speed went (although it was good in all other respects). We agreed to pay a hefty premium for a defined bandwidth allocation (512k). However according to the definitions in the contract if you could squeeze a ping across the connection internationally then it was 'working'. Or put another way, even if the connection speed was 0.1kb/s it would be defined as 'working', and therefore if we felt dissatisfied (on the grounds that it would be utterly useless), we would have to pay a hefty penalty to cancel the contract.

It took about a month of hassling them just to get them to agree to let us have a provision whereby we could cancel the contract without penalty if they failed to deliver the bandwidth we were paying for (remember, this is a defined allocation contract).

It was amazing how much they tried to wriggle out of it - people ringing us up to assure us that it would be 'fine', that they had multiple redundant systems to this and that, verbal assurances that even though there was a penalty clause they would never exercise it etc (yeah right, why won't you put it in writing!).

Which eventually they did, but rather unhappily.

Edited September 12, 2007 by Crushdepth

[percy2]

That loud noise was George's sphincter in seizure.

Cheers

[phazey]

You dont need a direct link just to get sites - It's probably more cost effective to use SMW-3. Thailand has shedloads of bandwidth available.

[Mid]

Thai Agency Says ISPs Must Move To Its Net Exchange - Communications Authority of Thailand - Government Activity

Newsbytes News Network, August 8, 2001

The Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT), Thailand's state telecom provider, last week told all Internet service providers operating in Thailand that they will have to sever their links with the Thaisarn Public Internet Exchange (PIE) and switch to its own exchange, NIX. No date has been set for the change.

The state telecommunications monopoly also told the 18 ISPs during a meeting last week that they must join the agency to buy international Internet bandwidth solely from Teleglobe.

The CAT move is interpreted as a bid to assert greater control over the Internet in Thailand and bolster its status for when it is privatized in the future.

snip

findarticles.com

[Crushdepth]

The CAT move is interpreted as a bid to assert greater control over the Internet in Thailand and bolster its status for when it is privatized in the future.

Or it could be interpreted as a move to stuff money into pockets. There's nothing quite like a monopoly is there?

[MaxLee]

Why is Internet service in Thailand so f$§ing bad???

[quiksilva]

Because government is involved in private enterprise.

[Crushdepth]

You must buy from us at the price we set or go out of business. You choose. Oh, and don't even think about complaining about the quality of our monkey-run service or you might run into...'problems'.

[Crushdepth]

I know virtually all contracts have an 'international bandwidth is not guaranteed' loophole but there should still be some reasonable expectations on service delivery. Why are they allowed to advertise something they know they can't possibly deliver?

Actually, today's Dilbert cartoon has answered my question. Enjoy!

[tjo o tjim]

Thai Agency Says ISPs Must Move To Its Net Exchange - Communications Authority of Thailand - Government Activity

Newsbytes News Network, August 8, 2001

Note the date. Things changed. According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_Thailand, there are currently four international internet gateways. I was surprised to see that there are only five submarine cables into LOS; we could lose 20% of our capacity if one of the links is lost.

Another fun graphic is the internet map of Thailand. It's kind of sad, actually.

[nikster]

Why is Internet service in Thailand so f$§ing bad???

Government monopolies, incompetence, and corruption. Retards are running the show.

[Mid]

we could lose 20% of our capacity if one of the links is lost.

happened already ready ,

fishing for copper scrap in Vietnam , couple of months ago .

[OxfordWill]

Wanted to bump this. I spoke to the technician before I left and he said he and his colleagues were 80% sure this was going to happen within the next 30 days. Anyone have any info to share?

[kenjin]

Because government is involved in private enterprise.

Internet access is provided by 18 commercial ISPs and 4 non-commercial Internet hubs. Until March 2000, the Communications Authority of Thailand had been licensing ISPs, which had to hand over to CAT 32% of their shares upon receiving a licence. Awaiting the appointment of a new regulatory body for the Internet, CAT has ceased to grant any more licences. CAT also controls the country’s only international Internet Gateway linking Thai users to international sites.

The connectivity map http://www.cat.net.th/thix/connectivitymap.html

Edited September 20, 2007 by kenjin

[monty]

CAT also controls the country’s only international Internet Gateway linking Thai users to international sites.

Most definitely NOT true anymore!

Here you see clearly several different ISP's having direct international links, the biggest new IIG's (international Internet Gateway) are owned by TOT, TT&T, True and CSLoxinfo.

The CAT IIG remains the biggest though, with all ISP's still buying bandwidth from the CAT, but not everything anymore...

[kenjin]

Yes you are correct, in that there are now 4 IIG's which is still only quiet recent.

[Dkr]

Well it might be true atleast with TOT. Yesterday morning I noticed that route to google.com has been routed to KL - London - US backbone instead using shorter route under pacific. Route to japan is now very slow, between HK and BKK 600ms increased response time. Just wondering why at same time some people are celebrating very fast connections with TOT.

Edited September 20, 2007 by Dkr

[OxfordWill]

Hmm I suppose could be other reasons for that. But interesting. Im glad I am out of the country right now.