How Can I Get A Better Internet Package In My Apartment?

[davejonesbkk]

I live in a serviced apartment so I dont have my own sperate phone line. I have internet that I pay 600 baht a month for, I have a hard line and wireless too but both of them are crap. On avergae in the daytime I get about 400kbps and in the evening I get between 200-300 and thats if Im lucky, last night it was down to 100 kbps.

There is a guy that does all the internet for this place, he doesnt work for the apartment owners but I believe he has his own company and sets up the internet for a number of places like mine.

I have been asking for faster net for ages and he always says its not possible, but I have told him Im willing to pay more, if I could just get about 1mbps I would be happy! I live on Rama 9 soi 31 (near the mall Ram) and he's always saying its something to do with this area and True cant do it blah blah but I dont see what that has to do with anything and there seem to be other apartments in this area which offer a choice of net speeds.

So what can I do? I am going to speak to the manager of the place, she is really nice but doesnt like being bothered with problems and just nods her head says 'yes' to everything and then nothing happens. I am considering telling her that I'll move unless I get a better net package but that is a total bluff cos I really like this room and dont want to move, so Im in a tight spot if she calls my bluff!

I am thinking perhaps I could go and find other companies that setup the internet for apartments and then let the manager know about them. I was looking at an apartment around On Nut last week and they had some fantastic packages on offer ranging from 500kbps for 600 baht all the way up to 4mbps for 2,200 baht!! Shame the place was shabby and old though....

Any advice/info on this would be much appreciated.

Edited July 12, 2008 by davejonesbkk

[niller74]

Getting your own connection probably wont solve your problem. It is far from a guarantee that you will experience anything close to the connection you are buying. When you say 100 kbps. on which kind of traffic is that? It could very well be that your condo provider is shaping the traffic. That's what I would do.

Edited July 12, 2008 by niller74

[niller74]

P2P is any administrators nightmare. Very few people limit their usage in the software itself and this makes shared connections unusable to everyone else. One way is to bandwidth limit ports P2P programs are using, but these programs dont respect any standards, so they will just switch to other ports and eat up more and more bandwidth until there is no more.

You can also limit on a package level, but this is much harder and require more sophisticated hardware/software to do so.

Doing traffic accounting on a IP basis where each IP have a certain bandwidth available is a common used alternative, it cause much of the connection to be idle at times though, where it could be used by others.

IF people could only change their down/up limits in the software to respect everyone else on the shared connection, everyone would be more happy.

davejonesbkk, I'm not saying you are using P2P, but I'm sure there are people on your shared connection that do.

[davejonesbkk]

Ive asked about my own connection and I cant cos I dont have my own totally separate phone line and I cant get my own phone line cos Im in a serviced apartment and they cant or wont let me get one.

I want to know why this guy is always saying I cant get a faster package, like I said I was at another apartment the other week and they had loads of packages on offer...I dont understand the problem, I have the money and I am willing to pay! Heck I am even willing to pay say an extra 500 baht per month over the price that True or Buddy Broadband charge just so I can get it!

You kinda lost me a bit talking about P2P, I would like to be able to download stuff but Im not one of these guys who is gonna have is computer on all day clogging up the bandwidth with downloads, one of the main reasons I want a faster connection is that I like to play on Xbox live and connecting to games outside of Thailand is a nightmare!

[niller74]

Ive asked about my own connection and I cant cos I dont have my own totally separate phone line and I cant get my own phone line cos Im in a serviced apartment and they cant or wont let me get one.

I want to know why this guy is always saying I cant get a faster package, like I said I was at another apartment the other week and they had loads of packages on offer...I dont understand the problem, I have the money and I am willing to pay! Heck I am even willing to pay say an extra 500 baht per month over the price that True or Buddy Broadband charge just so I can get it!

You kinda lost me a bit talking about P2P, I would like to be able to download stuff but Im not one of these guys who is gonna have is computer on all day clogging up the bandwidth with downloads, one of the main reasons I want a faster connection is that I like to play on Xbox live and connecting to games outside of Thailand is a nightmare!

Ok, now we got a little closer. P2P is a general name for Edonkey, Bittorrent etc. Programs used for filesharing.

In regards to your Xbox Live, bandwidth most likely isn't the issue. What you want when playing online is low latency, which has nothing to do with bandwidth.

Latency is the time it takes a package to travel to and from the server you are connecting too. Here in Thailand you will have high latency (long time) to a server in the US. This mean that when you push a button it will take ~500-1000 ms before the other end receive it. This is a long time when doing online gaming. There really isn't much you can do about this except try to move the US a little closer to Thailand

Getting latency down to ~250-300 ms. is possibly, but it wont be consistent.

What you should try is to connect to Asian game servers. I'm not familiar with how the Xbox network is build, but I'm guessing there should be Asian game providers.

Furthermore IF your connection provider is shaping (prioritizing) traffic and online game traffic isn't prioritized up there along interactive applications and VoIP you can expect a high latency.

Edited July 12, 2008 by niller74

[cowman1]

It's true, your better off finding fellow asian game players. I found this site (dvdgameonline) a while ago. It's all in thai, but if you can get your head around it.... It's basically a thai game site - you can go into the xbox section and find some new online buddies to add, this is what I did with my ps3. I have about 50 online friends now, and I know the games won't lag cause they are all based in asia.

[davejonesbkk]

Niller74 - Ok thanks, I am aware of latency and that due to my location I will never get a perfect game with my friends in the UK.

But lets say I went from an average connection of 512kbps up/256kbps down to 2mbps up/1mbps down (approx.) there would be be NO CHANGE at all?

I would be interested to hear from all other online gamers in Thailand (PS3, Xbox, PC whatever) about what kind of net speed packages they have and what kind of connections they get with their online games.

Note: It also seems on Live my NAT setting is on strict so I need to change that to open but apparently that only affects finding people to connect with and not the actually quality of the connection once in the game....

Cowman- Yeah I dropped into a cod4 game last night with a bunch of Thai lads so I added a couple of them as friends and the connection was green all the way its just not the same of course with the language barriers....

[samsara]

dave, youll need a latency of 350 or better to enjoy xbl with non-asian gamers. download needs to be at least 600 and upload at least 80. if you can get that, its playable. i used a 2m/512, latency of 320-330 with my old box and could play (with us gamers) without much lag from around 11pm to 7 am like clockwork. upload and latency is what matters most when it comes to gaming, not download. keep that in mind.