420 Kbps To 120 Kbps!?!

[radigast]

DISCLAIMER: **Sorry about the long post...I wanted to thoroughly explain the problem and all actions I have taken to try to remedy the problem.**

I have had great luck with True since I got my internet connection in February. I purchased the 4 mbps package, and have consistently for the past 2 months received a combined torrent download of 420 Kbps.

However, as of Monday, my total limit suddenly went down to around 120 Kbps and stays at this plateau ALL the time. I saw this change happen, and all of the configuration on my end remained the same as it did prior to the speed drop. I checked my domestic and international download bandwidth on Speedtest: Domestic = 3.5 mbps and International = 0.6 mbps.

I am computer literate, so I:

1. double-checked all the port forwarding/packet encryption/uTorrent settings/firewall/etc...

2. changed my utorrent port to port 21 (figured they wouldn't throttle the ftp port)

3. rebooted the computer and modem

4. connected computer to modem via a LAN line

5. checked the ADSL statistics in the modem for any interference or weak signals

6. finally, called their "helpful" hotline.

My speed still remains at 120 Kbps! I want the 420 Kbps back, dang it! The customer support guy told me that: 1. My international bandwidth is not guaranteed, and 2. That my speed is fast enough to browse webpages, to which I responded 1. I know. But why the sudden, unexplainable 300 Kbps drop?, and 2. I'm not paying for a 4 Mbps package to simply browse webpages. He deferred action to the technicians, who will call me back tomorrow. I won't hold my breath. In the meantime, I requested that my connection be increased from 4 to 8 Mbps (for 100 Baht cheaper per month...sweet promo!). Apparently, that will take about 3 days to go into effect.

Anyhow, the only explanation I can think of is that True suddenly jacked down my international bandwidth allotment.

Questions:

1. Has anyone else experienced this sudden drop in download speed?

2. What other explanations could there be for this drastic decrease?

3. Any more suggestions to remedy this?

4. Anyone have any successful experiences dealing with True on issues like this? What did you do?

Thanks in advance!

PS: Sorry for the numbered lists. I wanted to make it easier on your eyes while reading this long post.

Edited April 29, 2009 by radigast

[Prasert]

First look at your solution to circumvent throttling:

Port 21 for ftp is only used for the commands, to transfer data an additional session is opened on port 20 (if no NAT is used!) or on high-port numbers. Any decent firewall will immediately block p2p traffic over port 21 as this traffic doesn't conform to the ftp standard.

The same goes for port 80 - p2p traffic over port 80 can be easily blocked by a decent firewall. And in this case, decent firewall means 'stateful inspection'.

Another factor involved is the cold fact that you have to share your download speed with a number of other people. So if there are more people downloading p2p your speed will go down.

I know that this will (again) lead to the discussion - I pay for 4Mbps so I want to use 4Mbps all the time, all for myself.

But: you're not paying for 4Mbps dedicated bandwidth, you're paying for 4Mbps shared bandwidth.

A very well-known P2P traffic characteristic is that it immediately floods the total available bandwidth, affecting other traffic severely. To prevent a situation like this, ISPs should at least prioritize traffic (QoS policies) and if p2p users still flood the major lines, shape this traffic.

On the other hand, 120kbps is quite slow. Unless you mean 120kBps...

If I download a Linux CD image with bittorrent, I usually get speeds of 1500kbps.

[radigast]

I understand that I am sharing this bandwidth with every other True user, and I am not complaining that I am not getting the advertised speed. What I am complaining about is that SOMETHING happened that throttled my download speeds from a steady 420 KBps to a steady 120 KBps. I also understand that traffic fluctuates, causing speeds to fluctuate. However, as mentioned, I am always getting a non-fluctuating 120 KBps at ALL times of the day, whereas before I would always get a non-fluctuating 420 KBps. This "something" is not a variable that was changed by me (I changed nothing prior to the speed drop), is not related to time of day/traffic variables (get a steady, non-fluctuating 120 KBps download rate), and is not a variable on my actual physical connection (ADSL modem/router test numbers showed great signal strength and minimal interference). The only variable left that I can think of is True.

Sorry...I didn't know know about port 20 being the actual data port. BUT I did try several other random ports on top of that one too, all properly forwarded through . I also use a Slackware torrent as my benchmark, and still am limited to 120 KBps now...I do know that before the magical 300 KBps drop, Slackware would also max out at 420 KBps.

Thanks for your thoughts and input, though!

Anyone else have any solutions/comments/similar experience/advice?

[penta]

I understand that I am sharing this bandwidth with every other True user, and I am not complaining that I am not getting the advertised speed. What I am complaining about is that SOMETHING happened that throttled my download speeds from a steady 420 KBps to a steady 120 KBps. I also understand that traffic fluctuates, causing speeds to fluctuate. However, as mentioned, I am always getting a non-fluctuating 120 KBps at ALL times of the day, whereas before I would always get a non-fluctuating 420 KBps. This "something" is not a variable that was changed by me (I changed nothing prior to the speed drop), is not related to time of day/traffic variables (get a steady, non-fluctuating 120 KBps download rate), and is not a variable on my actual physical connection (ADSL modem/router test numbers showed great signal strength and minimal interference). The only variable left that I can think of is True.

Sorry...I didn't know know about port 20 being the actual data port. BUT I did try several other random ports on top of that one too, all properly forwarded through . I also use a Slackware torrent as my benchmark, and still am limited to 120 KBps now...I do know that before the magical 300 KBps drop, Slackware would also max out at 420 KBps.

Thanks for your thoughts and input, though!

Anyone else have any solutions/comments/similar experience/advice?

shot in the dark since its mostly likly throttling on the isp(and not much u can do about it) side but you could always try turning on utorrent encryption, also randomize port, and use upnp port forwarding if your router supports it

[jeffer]

Sure you haven't limited your uploads... to say 20 kB/s...

[monty]

I understand that I am sharing this bandwidth with every other True user, and I am not complaining that I am not getting the advertised speed. What I am complaining about is that SOMETHING happened that throttled my download speeds from a steady 420 KBps to a steady 120 KBps. I also understand that traffic fluctuates, causing speeds to fluctuate. However, as mentioned, I am always getting a non-fluctuating 120 KBps at ALL times of the day, whereas before I would always get a non-fluctuating 420 KBps. This "something" is not a variable that was changed by me (I changed nothing prior to the speed drop), is not related to time of day/traffic variables (get a steady, non-fluctuating 120 KBps download rate), and is not a variable on my actual physical connection (ADSL modem/router test numbers showed great signal strength and minimal interference). The only variable left that I can think of is True.

Sorry...I didn't know know about port 20 being the actual data port. BUT I did try several other random ports on top of that one too, all properly forwarded through . I also use a Slackware torrent as my benchmark, and still am limited to 120 KBps now...I do know that before the magical 300 KBps drop, Slackware would also max out at 420 KBps.

Thanks for your thoughts and input, though!

Anyone else have any solutions/comments/similar experience/advice?

You are now talking about 420 kBps, which is close to the best you can get through a 4 Mbps line. (8 bits to the byte, so you get almost 3400 kbps or about 85% out of the theoretical 4092, which probably is as good as you'll ever get through ADSL).

Which means you were eating all bandwidth available. so most probably somebody else on the system sharing the same 4 Mbps has been complaining that he is getting only 50 kbps out of his 4000, so they decided to throttle P2P, so at least a few people can get usable, albeit far from maximum speeds.

In short, getting maximum line speed through P2P clients is cheating on the fact that your line is shared. If you want to go back to full line speed, you'll have to pay for a premium package, instead of letting others subsidize your internet.

[Gary A]

I wish all the ISP's would limit P2P. P2P is probably the reason most connections suck. The lucky subscribers have high speed and the rest of us have diddly squat.

[monty]

I wish all the ISP's would limit P2P. P2P is probably the reason most connections suck. The lucky subscribers have high speed and the rest of us have diddly squat.

I would like they put a download cap, in line with the speed and package you have.

Not some ridiculous low amount either, say 20 GB/month on the very cheapest packages going up to 100 GB for more expensive packages, up to unlimited for those who need it (at a price). 20 GB are still some 25 full length movies.

There is too much downloading going on off stuff people never ever look at or will use. Lots of them have the compulsory need of letting their connection going full blast 24/7, otherwise they eel they didn't get their monies worth

Don't forget, a 3Mbps connection going full blast pulls in 1 GB/hour. That's almost 750 GB/month...

Put a cap and people will start downloading what they need.

I'm a heavy downloader, additionally lots of people in my place (resort) use the internet, and the highest amount of data transfer ever in one month was 63GB.

I would not mind paying a premium for that, actually I'm already doing that as I'm on a premium SME package.

[opalhort]

I wish all the ISP's would limit P2P. P2P is probably the reason most connections suck. The lucky subscribers have high speed and the rest of us have diddly squat.

I can only second that

The first one I would like to throttle is my son! Whenever he is using P2P I get a better speed using the good old dial-up.

opalhort

[RLM2008]

radigast, I have the 8m connection and I've noticed similar drops this week.

Youtube last night was unusable. For a ten minute stream I had to wait approx 15 minutes for it to download. Rapidshare that ordinarily gives me 100kbps+ was only at 15-20 kpbs.

With the trueinternet speedtest, the Bangkok test was giving me close to 10,000 kbps and last night was as low as 2,500. Even techsupport commented that I should be getting 6000+ for that test.

Seems to be all over the place at the moment. While I write this, the Bangkok test just gave me 4,500, 10,100 and 6,300.

With speak easy, last night I was getting a max of 300 kbps from various servers and today midday I'm in the 900-1100 region.

RLM

[JohanBKK]

Same problem here but i'm not download P2P but direct downloads.

350 ko/s to 30 ko/s after a call to the technician 420 ko/s and after only one day again 30 ko/s

[Nagatus]

Same problem here but i'm not download P2P but direct downloads.

350 ko/s to 30 ko/s after a call to the technician 420 ko/s and after only one day again 30 ko/s

Johan must be Swedish with the ko's and all (no pun/harm/anything intended), but anyway...

If you pay for a 4Mb connection it is _NOT_ stealing from someone else to use the whole 4Mb, that is what you paid for, right?

On the other hand, it _IS_ the job of the ISP to limit the speed of some user interfaces that are using excessive amounts of _limited_ international speed, keeping in mind that all the users need to be serviced.

All in all the problem is not with the users but with the service providers.

Edited April 30, 2009 by Nagatus

[radigast]

True upped my speed to the 8 mpbs package today, which brought my downloads almost back up to what they used to be on the 4 mbps package. Thanks for your responses all. As of now, I'll just cross my fingers and hope that these speeds continue. It would be a nice bonus if the speeds shot up even more given that I am now purchasing double the bandwidth, but I'll just be satisfied that I'm nearly back to what I used to be.

I'm still fairly convinced that True simply throttled ALL of my international bandwidth (torrents, web browsing, ftp, etc...), given the speed tests and such. My connection must have been reset when they applied the new package.

Thanks for your responses and discussion all!

Personally, I think that True should simply put a cap on your max download per month. The higher your package, the larger your cap. When heavy users have quickly used up their cap, then the strain of their high bandwidth usage on the limited international lines is finished for the month. This would ensure that everyone gets access according to their bandwidth scheme. Of course, this creates additional problems in that:

1. Who decides what a fair amount is per speed package? I guarantee you that nobody would ever find their allotted "chunk" of download availability fair!

2. After the heavy users no longer have additional bandwidth, the people who have bought the low packages get ridiculous speeds for the rest of their available download amount, which hardly seems fair given they are not paying for those higher speeds. Then, speed caps would need to be placed on their download speed to make it fair, and we are back to where we started: bandwidth throttling and capping.

Edited April 30, 2009 by radigast

[Crushdepth]

1. My international bandwidth is not guaranteed

I soooooo hate this. Yes, its true. Yes, its in the contract. But when you consistently get less than 25% of the rated speed, that's *unreasonable*. There should be a minimum guaranteed bandwidth. I don't care what it is (40%?), so long as there is an official 'crap out' point where they reduce the fee to compensate for lack of service.

Here's how ridiculous it gets: According to INET's service agreement for our work connection, if they can squeeze a single packet through the line then the connection is defined as 'working', and you have to pay (40,000 baht a month, plus 6 months fees if you cancel!).

(We got that clause removed after 6 weeks of arguing).

Edited April 30, 2009 by Crushdepth

[Prasert]

If you pay for a 4Mb connection it is _NOT_ stealing from someone else to use the whole 4Mb, that is what you paid for, right?

No it's not stealing.

But maybe this example is easier to comprehend:

Give a bag with 50 pieces of candy to one child in a group of 10 kids and tell him to share with his friends. Mathematic will tell you that each kid gets 5 pieces of candy, implying that these kids understand the concept of sharing.

But...

The kid that got the candy only gives each of his friends 1 piece, thus keeping 41 pieces of candy all for himself. And then this kid goes onto the internet to complain he only got 41 out of 50.

On the other hand, it _IS_ the job of the ISP to limit the speed of some user interfaces that are using excessive amounts of _limited_ international speed, keeping in mind that all the users need to be serviced.

All in all the problem is not with the users but with the service providers.

So when the ISPs take action to prevent their available bandwidth being flooded with p2p traffic, discussions like these start on a forum.

[radigast]

But maybe this example is easier to comprehend:

Give a bag with 50 pieces of candy to one child in a group of 10 kids and tell him to share with his friends. Mathematic will tell you that each kid gets 5 pieces of candy, implying that these kids understand the concept of sharing.

But...

The kid that got the candy only gives each of his friends 1 piece, thus keeping 41 pieces of candy all for himself. And then this kid goes onto the internet to complain he only got 41 out of 50.

Prasert: I don't agree with your analogy. There is a difference between being given something and buying something. If somebody decided to give me an 8 mbps connection, I would not complain about slow download speeds. However, True is not giving me an internet connection;I am buying it. Hence, I do expect an acceptable download speed. Do not misread this: I completely understand that purchasing an 8mbps connection in Thailand does not mean I receive an 8 mbps download speed, and this is a shared connection. However, there must be a certain baseline QOS for people who have decided to buy higher speed packages. Is 140 KBps an acceptable download speed on an 8 mbps line? I think not. I could buy (and have access to) a 2mbps line that receives the same download speed.

[Gary A]

If you live somewhere where you have a good land line then you most likely have a good choice of service providers.

There are those of us who live where there is NO land line available. We have a choice of the ultra pathetic Ipstar, GPS EDGE or if just a bit lucky, CDMA EVDO. The three choices we have available are ALL more expensive than high speed land line connections.

Some of us prefer living out in the boonies but it is at the expense of VERY limited Internet connection choices.

[Prasert]

Prasert: I don't agree with your analogy. There is a difference between being given something and buying something. If somebody decided to give me an 8 mbps connection, I would not complain about slow download speeds. However, True is not giving me an internet connection;I am buying it. Hence, I do expect an acceptable download speed. Do not misread this: I completely understand that purchasing an 8mbps connection in Thailand does not mean I receive an 8 mbps download speed, and this is a shared connection. However, there must be a certain baseline QOS for people who have decided to buy higher speed packages. Is 140 KBps an acceptable download speed on an 8 mbps line? I think not. I could buy (and have access to) a 2mbps line that receives the same download speed.

The analogy was aimed at the concept of sharing, regardless of wether the bag of candy was given or bought.

If you agree that on adsl you share bandwidth with a number of other people, take a look at that. 4Mbps bandwidth shared between 20 people entitles each subscriber to a minimum of 200kbps. That's a number that seems very slow.

Now take an average internet cafe with 10 computers. Traffic consists (from my experience) of skype, msn and webtraffic. It's all short bursts of data and this hardly ever peaks over 200kbps. Each internet cafe can peak up to 4Mbps and it would still be very fast for every single computer.

So 80 computers are sharing the total bandwidth. Now one of those computers start a torrent download. That single computer will be able to use 4Mbps for downloading, and not just in small peaks, but continuously. The person behind this computer is very happy with his download speed while 79 other internet users are not amused at all that it takes ages to put a webpage on their screen.

Fill in yourself what happens if 7 other people decide to start downloading torrents as well. They would each get around 60kBps.

Personally I would never go for an 8Mbps line in Thailand, unless it's ADSL2 or ADSL2+. With ADSL, it's a matter of dividing the total bandwidth in a number of slots, and each slot has it's own signal quality. On a 4Mbps line, the router negotiates with the DSLAM which slots are the best and uses those for the line. For 8Mbps, all slots have to be perfect. And that's not very often the case.

Edited May 1, 2009 by Prasert

[radigast]

...which brings us to the root of the entire issue: bandwidth being ridiculously oversold. There is really only one piece of candy, and True keeps telling everyone that they can get the whole piece, when in reality everyone simply gets to share that piece. More and more people keep signing up to get their piece, which further subdivides the fractions of pieces that everyone else gets.

What is the permanent solution to this problem? More international bandwidth being installed/purchased (get more pieces of candy!). Not going to happen in the magnitude it needs to.

What is a temporary solution to the problem? Share nicely.

[Nagatus]

I think many people are having the wrong idea about internet usage and sharing.

When you get an internet connection from a service provider, you get a land telephone line that is connected to a DSLAM on the ISP's end. That line is not shared in any way, only you. The DSLAM is connected to the backbone of the ISP, there you share the available bandwidth with all of the other users, well all the ones connected to the same network anyway, but this is usually the local network which has amble bandwidth available.

Whether or not the ISP decides to limit your connection speed, or whether the limitation is only due to the fact that the ISP is grossly overselling their available bandwidth is, of cource, completely up to the ISP.

There is nothing wrong in using all the available speed of the line you are paying for, that is your right. Until the ISP's change their billing according to a monthly cap, limit your speed and inform you about it, or actually charge real expenses for what you get, feel free to use your line as you see fit and complain if you are not getting what you pay for.

You can make up all the analogues you want, the fact is that you are paying for a service and if you are not getting what you agreed on and paid for, you are right to complain.

[monty]

...which brings us to the root of the entire issue: bandwidth being ridiculously oversold. There is really only one piece of candy, and True keeps telling everyone that they can get the whole piece, when in reality everyone simply gets to share that piece. More and more people keep signing up to get their piece, which further subdivides the fractions of pieces that everyone else gets.

What is the permanent solution to this problem? More international bandwidth being installed/purchased (get more pieces of candy!). Not going to happen in the magnitude it needs to.

What is a temporary solution to the problem? Share nicely.

Their main problem is in their marketing strategy.

Their promotional material should clearly state the contention ratio (i.e. how many people are sharing the international bandwidth).

They are not overselling bandwidth per se, they are just not telling people how heavy they share the bandwidth.

In short their strategy was (and still is today) to offer high bandwidth for a very low price with as main customer target Thai nationals who access Thai servers maybe 80% of the time.

Those cheap packages are brilliant for those Thai customers, heck even the p2p/torrent downloading they do is mainly between Thai based PC's as it is those PC's holding Thai content!

The one company actually stating things as they are is Maxnet. On their promotional material it clearly states that this package is best used to access Thai based content (Thai surf they call it) and that they will not guarante speeds for p2p/torrent applications, they even won't gurantee VOIP usage!

When subscribing they will normally tell foreigners that the better package for them is the Premier one (but more expensive), but then they take the indy one anyway and start complaining how their speed sucks during peak hours

And be honest, the prices don't make sense. Due to it's location (physical distance from the US) international bandwidth is very expensive. Yet access is unlimited and dirt cheap.

Let's be honest, 1199 Baht/month for 8Mbps? This is about the same price of the cheapest package in my home country (21 Euro) BUT this only includes 4GB of data transfer. With an extra 150 Baht per GB over your cap. Download 30 GB and you're looking at almost 5,000 Baht/month! And this is a 6Mbps connection, yet they will only guarantee 512 kbps!!!

So are they running things properly over here? In general I would say yes. They set up a system where Thai people can get dirt cheap blistering fast internet sa long as they surf Thai based websites. Which makes the local population a happy bunch!

Who's complaining? The foreigners who are buying those dirt cheap packages aimed at the Thais and the realize that they are not so fast on international sites...

Admittedly, again, most ISP's are not making this very clear, but even if they would I reckon most foreigners would call it double pricing or something like that

[RLM2008]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think the service is dirt cheap, I think instead we're being fleesed.

I have the 8M service, and to get the 1199 I had to also have a gold truevision package. I think in fact it's actually 1300 a month, I need to check the bill.

The service this last week has been abysmal, with average downloads being slower than when I was on my previous 2m service. I mean I'm sitting for a minute at a time waiting for jpeg images to download. rapidshare downloads are crawling in at around 10 kbps. Music downloads that would normally come in at 200 kbps are coming in at around 20-50 kbps.

Back in the UK last year my sister subscribed to the virginmedia bundle. That was highspeed internet and a 100 channels of digital cable showing a far superior range of programming to that offered even with crummy platinum. it also had an element of interactivity with services such as catchup.

The cost 30 pounds a month, which at current exchange rates comes to 1500 baht. Compare that to True at 1300(internet)+1600(Gold), which is what 2,900 baht. Close to double the cost. Also take into account the employees of True are probably paid far less that virgin media's employees.

I mean just checking virgin media's site now the current bundle package being offered is 36 pounds a month. That includes 10MB fibre optic broadband + 100 digital channel TV and V+ HD box with Pause, rewind and record live TV. That's all for 1,900 baht.

for internet only they are offering 10mbps at 5.00 pounds a month, 20mbps at 10.00 pounds a month and 50mbps at 35.00 pounds a month.

As I say maybe I'm missing something, but I think they're well and truly taking the p$ss here.

RLM

[TAWP]

If you agree that on adsl you share bandwidth with a number of other people, take a look at that. 4Mbps bandwidth shared between 20 people entitles each subscriber to a minimum of 200kbps. That's a number that seems very slow.

Correct, but not correct.

As the connections isn't 4Mbps for an area and then 20 subscribers sharing it.

The maximum bandwidth to the first three hops to the ISP is of much higher bandwidth, for example 1Tbps shared over 5 000 people. One user blasting his 4Mbps to the fullest will not drain other others as average usage per customer is still much lower. It's the concept of overlapping bandwidth allocations. If 70%+ of the users tried to use the bandwidth to the fullest it would drain the connection, but that rarely happens for private customers.

However, for example True has been known to over-sell their bandwidth and then upgrading it in steps when it becomes to obvious. Last week my average 200-250kb/s download speed has sunk to 70-100kb/s. I can only surmise that they tacked on another area on my [closest] main pipe, as was the case some years ago.

[TAWP]

And be honest, the prices don't make sense. Due to it's location (physical distance from the US) international bandwidth is very expensive.

Uh, no, the distance to the sites doesn't matter for the cost for the ISP in general, as the deals on ISPtoISP levels isn't about miles, but about traffic sharing/exchange and hooking up to other ISPs pipes. It's not about distance, it's about locations. And the US is not a remote location with very few ISP-connections.

Yet access is unlimited and dirt cheap.

Let's be honest, 1199 Baht/month for 8Mbps? This is about the same price of the cheapest package in my home country (21 Euro) BUT this only includes 4GB of data transfer. With an extra 150 Baht per GB over your cap. Download 30 GB and you're looking at almost 5,000 Baht/month! And this is a 6Mbps connection, yet they will only guarantee 512 kbps!!!

Back home I had a 100Mbit connection for 945baht. No cap, no negative traffic shaping, good QoS, UDP prio for gamers.

So...

[monty]

Uh, no, the distance to the sites doesn't matter for the cost for the ISP in general, as the deals on ISPtoISP levels isn't about miles, but about traffic sharing/exchange and hooking up to other ISPs pipes. It's not about distance, it's about locations. And the US is not a remote location with very few ISP-connections.

Not too sure about that. True, AT&T's bandwidth gets billed the same to whoever it might be buying it, only here in Asia we can only get that bandwidth through very expensive sea bottom cables. The same cable running between Europe and the US is much shorter/cheaper.

Indeed a big part of the bandwidth is bouht through other ISP's such as Singtel and NTT, but they themselves pay a lot for the onward connections to the West.

Back home I had a 100Mbit connection for 945baht. No cap, no negative traffic shaping, good QoS, UDP prio for gamers.

And where was "back home"? The only places I know of offering that kind of speed (must be fiber directly into the home) are in Asia (Japan),and there the high speed is within Japan only, although international speeds are quite impressive as well. But you have a massive subscriber base there, and even more so then Thailand the majority of all traffic is between domestic Japanese servers!

I checked the Virgin internet offers RLM2008 mentioned, and the 5 Pound/month was with a phone combo package (additional 11 pound) and only for the first 3 months after it goes up to 14 Pounds! It also states that the speed is "up to" 10 Mbps, so nobody can complain, no cap but subject to "fair usage" which is even worse judging by heaps of people suddenly getting throttled to 128 kbps because of a breach of the fair usage policy!

Which is still cheap but very close to what True offers.

And here you can see Telenet's offer (Belgium), where access starts at 20 Euro/month (over 1000 Baht), for 1 Mbps/128 Kbps with a whopping 1 GB data transfer cap. Not exactly cheap methinks.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello.

I have noticed tis, too, since last week Wednesday. At first at the office (True LEASED LINE) and then, starting Saturday, at my place as well (True ADSL, apparently bumped up to 3Mbps from 1.5Mbps). While i am getting "full blast" locally, the international speed has dropped so low it's a joke.

I can't complain about torrent speed at home - i still get decent speed there due to the nature of torrents, i.e. a little bit from here, a little bit from there etc, however WEB SITES have slowed to a total crawl. I often get "page load timeout" and similar errors, specifically with sites hosted in the U.S.A.

This again is worse at the office despite that line being a leased line which GUARANTEES the speed (and costs money accordingly). According to speedtest.net i get 33 Kbps (!!!) download and 120 Kbps (!!!) upload on that line to a server in the U.S.A., the line being a really expensive 2 Mbps up/down leased line.

Needless to say, to a server in Thailand i get the full speed.

Here at home, according to uTorrent, i get in excess of 2 Mbps down and full 400+ Kbps up, however web sites time out or need several minutes to load (even with uTorrent being deactivated).

There is probably a cable damaged somewhere once again.

Best regards.....

Thanh

PS using Open DNS makes it worse!

[livinthailandos]

I'd figure I put my input here on a few things that were said

1. I know it really sucks that no matter what using internet in thailand flat out sucks, but have to be realistic on this companies like Maxnett, True, TOT, Cslox, and others, the majority of their customers are thai, and most thai's only browse websites and servers that are mostly in thailand.

2. All the advertising you see should coming from ISP in thailand should state clearly

THE ADVERTISEMENT YOU SEE FOR SPEEDS ARE ONLY FOR DOMESTIC SERVERS AND DOMESTIC WEBSITES ONLY, CONNECTION TO INTERNATIONAL SERVERS OR WEBSITES WILL SEE A MORE THAN 50% REDUCTION IN SPEED ( i know thats to much to ask especially in thailand )

3. the amount of users in thailand both thai and foreigners using internet is very low.

4. Bandwidth caps you want to see were the future of that is going look at australia and the US, and other countries, the moment companies here start imposing this, will be the day I hope I have FTTH. Besides by then will all have to start watching how much info we download otherwise you'll be charged by the GB

5. Quality of infrastructure on internet is still very bad.

6. anyone reading this should be somewhat happy thailand even has any internet period. Many areas in thailand still have to rely on dialup. DIAL UP internet no way I could go back to that

7. Lets not forgot besides speed, websites have also gotten bigger

8.

[Whale]

Mine has been so low this last week with True as to be virtually unusable (averaging about 7k) - this morning it crept back up about 50K. Still a long way to go before I get what I pay for.

[naughtybadfurrimunki]

I'm experiencing the same thing.

I can usually get 250-300kbps incoming with Newsbin on 20 simultaneous connections.

I first noticed a problem at the beginning of the month. My incoming speed was down to @120kbps early last week, then it got even worse... @30kbps towards the end of the week.

I've tried reducing the number of connections, restarting, flushing the stack etc, but nothing has worked, so I've given up and switched the dam_n thing off - it needed a rest anyway.

I'm out of BK this weekend, so I just hope it's back to normal when I get home on Monday.