So Many Internet Problems..

[ThaiLife]

It seems just looking at the constant numbers of postings relating to Internet Connectivity Problems, may be its time for a new sub section on the Internet, computers, communication, technology in Thailand section , where we can all post our collective Problems and advice in one place ........ may be call it.. Internet in Thailand

Just a Thought ....

Mod’s how about it .. ?

[Petch01]

Good idea .

Petch01

[hp8000]

It will be a section where all the threads would speak about low speed, hanging connection and bad customer service.

A boring section.

[monty]

I'll propose it in our moderator forum. It definitely will clean up the section, on the other hand, in my experience nothing much can be done to improve your connection apart from upgrading your package!

International bandwidth is woefully inadequate, and badly managed on top of it...

Do check out Praserts excellent post on troubleshooting an ADSL connection. It definitely helps to know where your problem is, so you can complain to the relevant departments!

Found here in the pinned topics...

[spot]

Yeah, good idea.

Might be boring to some, but scams need to be highlighted.

[Mumbo Jumbo]

All in All I think a dedicated section to what must be one of the most posted topics here , sounds a good Idea at least you will not have to trawl through all the posts to may be find a snippet of information or comment that may in some way help you out, It may be boring but at least you will be able to find same topic posts all in one place.

Mumbo

[GlutinousMaximus]

Although there is a lot of info on TV, it tends to be unstructured and difficult to find.

A sub-forum is a good idea, but unless there was some kind of order, I fear it's likely to end up being a lot of "voices crying in the wilderness" with much "wailing and gnashing of teeth".

Another TV poster started a topic once suggesting a website with speed test results recorded and posted in graphs etc. but not sure if that got off the ground. It's a good idea in principle though.

When I've tried to do research, I've found it difficult to work out:

* What ISPs operate in my area

* What products they offer - ADSL, DSL, Leased Line, costs of each etc.

* Where there are multiple ISPs to choose from, which is better and what product offering I should choose

* Possible options/permutations - e.g. landline from Company A and ADSL from Company B

* What their performance might be like before I sign the contract

* How well a particular package will support different requirements - Skype, P2P torrents etc,

I would also say that it's not all bad - in my case I've used TOT ADSL and more recently Maxnet. TOT was not as good as Maxnet (in my subjective opinion). After starting off on the Indy package, I'm now on Maxnet Premiere 1536/512 and on the whole am quite happy with it.

Also, sites like Speedtest.net probably hold a lot of historical information & have a rich data set They know for example:

* what date/time tests are conducted.

* roughly the area where tests are being run from

* who the ISP is

* how fast the speedtest was within the country (if tested)

* how fast to international servers (if tested)

* ISP rating (if provided)

If TV could affiliate with them or anopther speed test site in some way to get that info provided in an easy-to-read tabular format, it could tell you an awful lot at-a-glance & it's objective fact at a macroscopic level.

[Prasert]

The reasons above for a seperate section are very valid, however it would be just providing information without the need for a discussion. So to my opinion another subforum would not be a good idea.

The idea for an information page to find out which ISPs are offering their services is very good. Simply type in your postalcode and get a list of ISPs with their packages and prices that are available. It doesn't exist yet....

But there's two sides to the networking story. The most common one is the consumer side, the situation basically everyone is in. People don't care about the technology behind their connection, it just has to work and it has to be fast. Period.

Unfortunately speeds are not determined by the upload and download speeds of your internet connection. Besides these numbers, the delay and type of traffic determine the actual speed that you get.

The best example is bittorrent traffic; open 5 torrents at the same time and your router is probably handling over 500 connections at the same time. Bittorrent pieces are usually small, so the router has to handle quite a big amount of packets every second. And not only yours, but also the rest of all the routers on the internet, which handle one of those sessions.

Technology is another often difficult issue. Very few end-users know (or care) how tcp/ip actually works. Over a decade running a small network, so you can share your internet connection, has been a headache for the majority. The typical router has a web-based setup to make this easier, Microsoft build internet connection sharing into XP but still it's difficult judging by the number of questions asked about this subject.

So where is that vague border between getting done what you want to have done without too high knowledge requirements and having more insight information? It's different for everyone and this forum is already a good place to simply describe your situation and get the information you're looking for from other members.

But....... the problems we experience in Thailand are due to the fact that those on the other side of your dsl connection should have all the knowledge about networking. Should.

But the Thai engineers don't have it and don't care about it. The generation of Thai now in university are learning to think different, to ask questions and to consider the results of their decisions before carrying them out. And it will take many more years before they have replaced all the current engineers. Until that time things won't change.

[lomatopo]

I confess I don't read every thread but it does seem like a signficant percentage of posts involve a subscribers inability to access a particular website at a certain time. Further it seems like these issues almost always involve DNS issues at the subscriber's ISP.

I usually find that I can connect to the website in question; I have CSLoxInfo DSL and I use a five DNS servers, hard-coded in my router, including those (2) at OpenDNS.

Many of the other issues involve unsatisfactory/varying speeds.

Re: broadband availability, check out www dot adslthailand dot com, which has a comprehensive list of offerings from the various providers. You can check availability by phone number, in the case of DSL, by checking the "Coverage Area" links. (Scroll down, lower left)

[Prasert]

Re: broadband availability, check out www dot adslthailand dot com, which has a comprehensive list of offerings from the various providers. You can check availability by phone number, in the case of DSL, by checking the "Coverage Area" links. (Scroll down, lower left)

This website has no English version, and the DSL availability information is seriously outdated. Apart from that, you have to check availability per ISP. And each of those links will give you a page in Thai....

[lomatopo]

Re: broadband availability, check out www dot adslthailand dot com, which has a comprehensive list of offerings from the various providers. You can check availability by phone number, in the case of DSL, by checking the "Coverage Area" links. (Scroll down, lower left)

This website has no English version, and the DSL availability information is seriously outdated. Apart from that, you have to check availability per ISP. And each of those links will give you a page in Thai....

ADSL Price and Coverage Area are of course in English on the adsltahiland page. Each link does take you to a Thai page, but all offer an English page link. Further the coverage area selections seem to work, for each ISP, and the DSL packages seem up to date, again at each ISP's English-language website.

I agree it's not perfect but certainly one of the best sites to identify providers, their packages and prices and availability. Not sure what more you need? Most people are going to be limited to service options because of locale or fixed-line provider. And some providers are already maxed out on some of their DSLAMs so no new subscribers.

I only mentioned this valuable site, used as a starting point, as someone in this thread asked where they could find this information. If you have a better solution please share.

Edited March 4, 2008 by lomatopo

[GlutinousMaximus]

Re: broadband availability, check out www dot adslthailand dot com, which has a comprehensive list of offerings from the various providers. You can check availability by phone number, in the case of DSL, by checking the "Coverage Area" links. (Scroll down, lower left)

This website has no English version, and the DSL availability information is seriously outdated. Apart from that, you have to check availability per ISP. And each of those links will give you a page in Thai....

I'd have to agree. I came across these sites when I was originally looking. While they provide snippets of info here and there they suffer from:

* Inconsistent Thai/English switches - ideally you would set a preference/cookie once on the Home Page and thereafter the whole site displays in English. Never seen one working example of that yet.

* The bling-bling style of web layout favoured over here rather than helpful UI design that guides the eye properly to key content.

* adslthailand dot com appears to be a useful site, yet the "Coverage Area" links are way down "below the fold" on the Home Page and require some serious scrolling to get to - these are very useful links and may be overlooked by many site visitors.

* Missing content - 404 errors etc., URLs moved

As an example, I was toying with the idea of getting a CAT product which was theoretically available in my town. I finally got through to the local CAT office and in my broken Thai managed to establish that the product was available but probably not where my residence was located as it was too far out. As a farang, it was difficult to get at that info - required a fair bit of sleuthing.

Whether or not there is a market for a well-organised Broadband site properly done in Thai & English is a moot point. Not sure if they exist elsewhere - they probably do. Well-organised consumer comparison sites can change hands for big bucks in the West.

All I was really saying in my previous post is that it's tricky to gather all the answers you need about ADSL options in Thailand and to get the information in an accessible way that helps you make informed decisions, and the number of TV posters who constantly ask the same kind of questions would suggest I'm not alone. When I upgraded my Maxnet to Premiere, I only really did it on the basis of mental exhaustion and "better the devil you know" and so far, it's been OK. However had I been apprised of all the available options and well-informed about how a differing product from another provider was likely to perform, I may have gone for it.