Isp Or Apartment Obstructing Streamed Content

[Veazer]

My girlfriend's apartment, or their ISP, seem to be doing some severe 'traffic shaping' with streamed content. Web browsing and downloads are fine, she can download at around 60-80 kBps from most sites without using a download manager, but she cannot listen to even a 24kbps station. I've tried various station with different codecs (mp3 and aac+) and all are affected. It's not 100% blocked, but it's not nearly fast enough to keep up. Proxies have no effect either.

Skype is also affected by whatever they are doing, i've had instant messages arrive 5 minutes late or more.

My only guess was that they've greatly deprioritized UDP traffic, but that's just a guess. I don't know if skype uses TCP for text messages or not.

Any idea how to get around this?

[Kyosuken]

is her ISP TT&T ? if yes check this : http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=153478

It seems like hopefully i will get heard in the end , it's not only UPD it's HTTP also the protocol isn't at fault it's the port that are shaped/limited

To get around this ? the only way i know is via heavy IPsec tunneling (that encrypts both the communication layer and the data) not to say that it's really heavy to put in place, very expensive, needs certificate for each host trying to connect to the main frame and well suck bandwidth like there was no tomorrow...

So basically the ISP wins, to make things changes maybe a lot of complaint from both Thais and Farang may do something, yet i dunno...

[Guest Reimar]

If is an Apartment Building with alot connections the Landlord will limit the use of the Internet.

The first thing is to talk to the Landlord to get the info who's limit the traffic.

In case the Landlord is limiting the traffic and you go "around" this limitations than you breach your contract. Even if the Landlord charge for the Internet connection it's hims right to do so and limit the connection to keep the system for all user accessible.

If you directly connected to an ISP, than you need to get in touch wit the ISP!

[Kyosuken]

Reimar your really think there is something like "bandwidth" limiting in an apartment in "Thailand" ? i have yet to see that ....

And bandwidth limiting is "not" traffic shaping, the guy said :

"Web browsing and downloads are fine, she can download at around 60-80 kBps from most sites without using a download manager"

Will you really limit bandwidth by only choosing to limit anything else than surfing ? when you can surf and actually suck a lot of bandwidth doing so ? seems fishy to me

[Guest Reimar]

Reimar your really think there is something like "bandwidth" limiting in an apartment in "Thailand" ? i have yet to see that ....

And bandwidth limiting is "not" traffic shaping, the guy said :

"Web browsing and downloads are fine, she can download at around 60-80 kBps from most sites without using a download manager"

Will you really limit bandwidth by only choosing to limit anything else than surfing ? when you can surf and actually suck a lot of bandwidth doing so ? seems fishy to me

NOT bandwith but all just open some ports for incoming traffic but exclude VoIP and so on! I do that in system of my customers and I know some App-Buildings which doing the same!

[Kyosuken]

the thing is that these services aren't "blocked" they are throttled down, so it's traffic shaping happening here, not just some ports opened and the rest closed. And doing port block and traffic shaping asks for very different equipment and network knowledges i don't see your landlord having a backbone working unattended just so the traffic is "limited" on a "private network". (Or the apartment is rented by the Hilton maybe )

For the landlord, bandwidth limitation and port blocking is a better way to go, but what Veazer said is not the case at all, so i still think this is more a problem with the ISP.

[Veazer]

She said the internet is informally run by a student in the apartment who offers it for 150฿ per month. She's going to ask him if he does any special 'traffic management'. Perhaps his service is his way of getting other people to pay for his online gaming and torrents. I'll bet I can guess what priority the traffic from his pc has.

NOT bandwith but all just open some ports for incoming traffic but exclude VoIP and so on! I do that in system of my customers and I know some App-Buildings which doing the same!

Why would you intentionally block VoIP? It's one of the most valuable uses of the internet and uses a fraction of the amount of bandwidth. Downloading 1 big service pack for windows would use more bandwidth in a few hours than the average VoIP could do in a month. Any respectable ISP would give VoIP traffic the priority it needs and honor QOS tags to ensure the best call quality.

[Guest Reimar]

NOT bandwith but all just open some ports for incoming traffic but exclude VoIP and so on! I do that in system of my customers and I know some App-Buildings which doing the same!

Why would you intentionally block VoIP? It's one of the most valuable uses of the internet and uses a fraction of the amount of bandwidth. Downloading 1 big service pack for windows would use more bandwidth in a few hours than the average VoIP could do in a month. Any respectable ISP would give VoIP traffic the priority it needs and honor QOS tags to ensure the best call quality.

For me or better for my customer the reason are very easy: Calling within working time to private numbers and for just private use! Even the other use of the Internet is limited at all!

Some of the Apparmet Building wit limited connection, special VoIP, it's because the App. make business with the in house telephone, they charge a quite high rate for calls over the house lines to public lines, like THB 5 per min!!

[Veazer]

Some of the Apparmet Building wit limited connection, special VoIP, it's because the App. make business with the in house telephone, they charge a quite high rate for calls over the house lines to public lines, like THB 5 per min!!

So you block VoIP service with the intent of forcing tenants to use overpriced phone service? Sounds like a shady extortion scheme to me and it saddens me that you're so willing to be a part of it by helping apartment owners implement these systems.

If a tenant was using voip for overseas business or keeping in touch with family (or anything else that's none of the apartment's business), how is some unreasonably priced apartment-provided service going to be of any use? It's not, they'll maybe use it a few times before they realize that it's far cheaper to use a decent cell phone plan or just move somewhere without these absurd restrictions. Ultimately you'll be left with a neutered internet service that benefits the mobile providers, not your customer.

[Guest Reimar]

Some of the Apparmet Building wit limited connection, special VoIP, it's because the App. make business with the in house telephone, they charge a quite high rate for calls over the house lines to public lines, like THB 5 per min!!

So you block VoIP service with the intent of forcing tenants to use overpriced phone service? Sounds like a shady extortion scheme to me and it saddens me that you're so willing to be a part of it by helping apartment owners implement these systems.

If a tenant was using voip for overseas business or keeping in touch with family (or anything else that's none of the apartment's business), how is some unreasonably priced apartment-provided service going to be of any use? It's not, they'll maybe use it a few times before they realize that it's far cheaper to use a decent cell phone plan or just move somewhere without these absurd restrictions. Ultimately you'll be left with a neutered internet service that benefits the mobile providers, not your customer.

Veazer:

Be a bit more carefull what your write, read completly before answering please!

Just to clear: I wrote ""Some of the Apparmet Building with limited connection, special VoIP, it's because the App. make business with the in house telephone, they charge a quite high rate for calls over the house lines to public lines, like THB 5 per min!!"" which means that the Appartment building/Owner of the../Manager of the... doing this NOT ME! Is that clear now? I wrote That I know some buildings who doing that!

I limit the traffic at my customer place if I get the order for to do so, that is a part of my job and my contracts I've to full fill.

Personally I don't like if an Appartment makes Business on this way but that is the choice of the App./Owner/Manager. If I or some one don't like it it's our choice the rent a different place!

[Kyosuken]

Not to fool around, but :

Port blocking, service blocking = Zero communication !

Traffic shaping = Slowing down to a "crawl" the communication !

Once again theses things are 2 kind of beasts, the first one is easily achieved with whatever junk you find in consumer products (even from great "brands") : routers (with firewalls), hardware firewalls, and even software firewalls.

The second one asks for more advanced knowledges: automatic bandwidth limiting, dynamic services detection, firewalling, networking topology, QoS (quality of service) packet scheduling, delayed packet transmission, with a centralized server (be it hardware only or hardware + server software) and a real network management, and you have to add layers of security if you want to do wifi.

The first one is inexpensive sh*t, the second is a nightmare if you don't know what you are doing, first one can likely run "unattended", second one needs monitoring.

So yeah : you may have some appt blocks that want to "disable" some services because they have partnered with whatever and want to strip money from their customers. But this is easy to do, i fail to see who in their "right" mind would go into the trouble of using traffic shaping inside an appt block, why ? because it's useless generally they will install one or two adsl line and after, they won't pay "much" for the bandwitdth used, you always pay the same price with adsl, whatever you do : not using much bandwidth or downloading like a pig.

On the other hand, the ISP loses money, the more you download/share your bandwidth the more the ISP got to pay for his leased lines, and thus traffic shaping is a very likely viable solution to do that, but it needs to be done "well" - see TT&T maxnet for the bad way to do it.

So Mr Reimar, indeed you are very knowledgeable in your field, but look at the figures you don't see much of theses kind of Appt doing traffic shaping, of course i don't deny that in the examples given (which is basically port/service blocking) for whatever reasons (and you gave a very valid one) they can and indeed do it. But the problem is frankly very different. And i think that you "might" have missed the point .

Regards

[Veazer]

Some of the Apparmet Building wit limited connection, special VoIP, it's because the App. make business with the in house telephone, they charge a quite high rate for calls over the house lines to public lines, like THB 5 per min!!

So you block VoIP service with the intent of forcing tenants to use overpriced phone service? Sounds like a shady extortion scheme to me and it saddens me that you're so willing to be a part of it by helping apartment owners implement these systems.

If a tenant was using voip for overseas business or keeping in touch with family (or anything else that's none of the apartment's business), how is some unreasonably priced apartment-provided service going to be of any use? It's not, they'll maybe use it a few times before they realize that it's far cheaper to use a decent cell phone plan or just move somewhere without these absurd restrictions. Ultimately you'll be left with a neutered internet service that benefits the mobile providers, not your customer.

Veazer:

Be a bit more carefull what your write, read completly before answering please!

Just to clear: I wrote ""Some of the Apparmet Building with limited connection, special VoIP, it's because the App. make business with the in house telephone, they charge a quite high rate for calls over the house lines to public lines, like THB 5 per min!!"" which means that the Appartment building/Owner of the../Manager of the... doing this NOT ME! Is that clear now? I wrote That I know some buildings who doing that!

I limit the traffic at my customer place if I get the order for to do so, that is a part of my job and my contracts I've to full fill.

Personally I don't like if an Appartment makes Business on this way but that is the choice of the App./Owner/Manager. If I or some one don't like it it's our choice the rent a different place!

My apologies, i misread your original post.

I guess if I were in your position I would tend to encourage the customer to implement a usuable voip system for tenants rather than interfering with their service. In the long run, they're likely to make more money renting and supporting voip equipment than they would with high rates.

In the end, you need to do whatever they want and whatever pays the bills.

[Guest Reimar]

My apologies, i misread your original post.

I guess if I were in your position I would tend to encourage the customer to implement a usuable voip system for tenants rather than interfering with their service. In the long run, they're likely to make more money renting and supporting voip equipment than they would with high rates.

In the end, you need to do whatever they want and whatever pays the bills.

That's ok But I'm NOT in the Real Estate Busines or Renting or so, I doing Installation, Implementation and Services for WAN and LAN for the Manufacturing Bussiness and don't want to get the headache with semi-private customers.

[Guest Reimar]

So Mr Reimar, indeed you are very knowledgeable in your field, but look at the figures you don't see much of theses kind of Appt doing traffic shaping, of course i don't deny that in the examples given (which is basically port/service blocking) for whatever reasons (and you gave a very valid one) they can and indeed do it. But the problem is frankly very different. And i think that you "might" have missed the point .

Regards

I don't think that I missed the point because in the openeing Post wasn't the info about the Student! Ok, I later didn't talked about that student but answered just to the miss interpretation of my answers.

And you're right the problem is different because as Veazer wrote later:

She said the internet is informally run by a student in the apartment who offers it for 150฿ per month. She's going to ask him if he does any special 'traffic management'. Perhaps his service is his way of getting other people to pay for his online gaming and torrents. I'll bet I can guess what priority the traffic from his pc has.

That's a complete different situation! I would even start to think about to how many "customers" this Student "sell" the service and how he mange the traffic?! To get the system running , if he has more than just 1 customer, with relaiable service outcome he need to "balance" the traffic. Would be interesting to know how he handle that! May it's a quite "good" business for this Mr. Student?!

Cheers