Switched Internet Connection

[cmjantje]

More than a week ago I switched my internet connection from TOT to CAT. Reason: TOT was slow..Very slow and the answer from the callcentre was always the same: We can only guarantee the speed inside Thailand.

Internet is Inter..But even inside Thailand the speed was really ver low.

As said I switched to CAT, they promised me I only share with tops 10 people. I did speedtests and was astonished. I found out that TOT is Jusr sqeezing the connection and is sqeezing more and more. The speed during the night was the same as during day time.

CAT realy shares, it means during peak hours My connection is less but during normal and night hours I have almost maximum.

Just want to tell you

[angiud]

I'm 3 year happy CAT customer. You did the right move!

[bluweyze]

I have TOT.How much is CAT? Is there any other cost involved? My TOT is OK until weekend comes then it goes snail pace

[lannarebirth]

I have both TOT "Cyber Gold" and TT&T "Maxnet Premier" internet. TOT is better and by a wide margin (at least in my area, YMMV). Ttill, it drops out frequently, but is seldom "offline". I had the CAT representative out to my home and he tried his wireless doohickey and said it would work fine for me (in the same way as TOT) but could provide no more "stability" than any of the others. He said the only way to have a "stable" connection in Thailand, and by that I think he meant do data drop out, is to run a dedicated line all the way from the switchiing servers (if that's what they're called) to your home or place of business. I saw no particular upside with switching at that time so decided to stick with the devil I know.

Edited July 1, 2009 by lannarebirth

[elektrified]

All I know is that my Maxnet Indy 3 MB is getting worse by the day - no joke. At this point I don't know what to do. We can only use the Internet perhaps 70% of the time now and when we do, we have nothing but problems. Having the head technical engineer come to the house (after 3 months of complaining, 30 calls, etc.) was not fruitful.

We already went to CAT and they said that they do not service this area of Sansai.

About 2 weeks ago one Sunday morning, one of those annoying trucks with all the speakers came through the moobaan. This one was a TOT truck. They were advertising that their TOT ADSL service will soon be available in our moobaan. Anyone have any experience with TOT ADSL?

[mnbcm]

All I know is that my Maxnet Indy 3 MB is getting worse by the day - no joke. At this point I don't know what to do. We can only use the Internet perhaps 70% of the time now and when we do, we have nothing but problems. Having the head technical engineer come to the house (after 3 months of complaining, 30 calls, etc.) was not fruitful.

We already went to CAT and they said that they do not service this area of Sansai.

About 2 weeks ago one Sunday morning, one of those annoying trucks with all the speakers came through the moobaan. This one was a TOT truck. They were advertising that their TOT ADSL service will soon be available in our moobaan. Anyone have any experience with TOT ADSL?

I'm paying for Indy 4MB. I called and complained about the speed the other day and rather than having a technician call me like usual, I noticed I now have a 5MB connection. Too bad connecting overseas has been almost impossible this week.

Have you tried changing your ADSL router? As soon as I switched to my own from what TTT gave us, I saw an instant improvement in speed.

[Puwa]

A tip for TOT customers. If you're having frequent data dropouts, slow service, and trouble accessing some pages, check that your DNS is 203.113.127.199

The TOT technician told me that the downstream SNR margin on your line should be 20 or above. Much below that and the phone line has too much interference and ADSL will be painfully slow. You can check this on your router's setup page.

[toptuan]

A tip for TOT customers. If you're having frequent data dropouts, slow service, and trouble accessing some pages, check that your DNS is 203.113.127.199

The TOT technician told me that the downstream SNR margin on your line should be 20 or above. Much below that and the phone line has too much interference and ADSL will be painfully slow. You can check this on your router's setup page.

Thanks for that little tip. After months of painfully slow computing on the internet, it's like I have a new provider! From tortoise back to hare!

I'm curious as to where you obtained that DNS server number? Is that DNS server owned by TOT? (or is that even a valid question?)

Edited July 1, 2009 by toptuan

[Puwa]

A tip for TOT customers. If you're having frequent data dropouts, slow service, and trouble accessing some pages, check that your DNS is 203.113.127.199

The TOT technician told me that the downstream SNR margin on your line should be 20 or above. Much below that and the phone line has too much interference and ADSL will be painfully slow. You can check this on your router's setup page.

Thanks for that little tip. After months of painfully slow computing on the internet, it's like I have a new provider! From tortoise back to hare!

I'm curious as to where you obtained that DNS server number? Is that DNS server owned by TOT? (or is that even a valid question?)

I got it from the TOT tech who came to the house a couple of weeks ago. He said that lots but not all customers were affected.

Glad to have helped you out.

Edited July 1, 2009 by Puwa

[meadish_sweetball]

I had both TT&T and CAT for three months to try them out (March - May)

CAT proved to be more stable at the end of the test run, but throughout June I've had quite a few dropouts and also packet problems on CAT.

[elektrified]

All I know is that my Maxnet Indy 3 MB is getting worse by the day - no joke. At this point I don't know what to do. We can only use the Internet perhaps 70% of the time now and when we do, we have nothing but problems. Having the head technical engineer come to the house (after 3 months of complaining, 30 calls, etc.) was not fruitful.

We already went to CAT and they said that they do not service this area of Sansai.

About 2 weeks ago one Sunday morning, one of those annoying trucks with all the speakers came through the moobaan. This one was a TOT truck. They were advertising that their TOT ADSL service will soon be available in our moobaan. Anyone have any experience with TOT ADSL?

I'm paying for Indy 4MB. I called and complained about the speed the other day and rather than having a technician call me like usual, I noticed I now have a 5MB connection. Too bad connecting overseas has been almost impossible this week.

Have you tried changing your ADSL router? As soon as I switched to my own from what TTT gave us, I saw an instant improvement in speed.

No, quite honestly I haven't switched routers. I have been thinking about getting a new router that also has WiFi so we can use the notebook downstairs.

But honestly, the connection has been deteriorating over time. Six months ago the connection was not this bad, so I don't think the router has been slowly failing. The technician checked the router when he was here.

[elektrified]

A tip for TOT customers. If you're having frequent data dropouts, slow service, and trouble accessing some pages, check that your DNS is 203.113.127.199

The TOT technician told me that the downstream SNR margin on your line should be 20 or above. Much below that and the phone line has too much interference and ADSL will be painfully slow. You can check this on your router's setup page.

Thanks for that little tip. After months of painfully slow computing on the internet, it's like I have a new provider! From tortoise back to hare!

I'm curious as to where you obtained that DNS server number? Is that DNS server owned by TOT? (or is that even a valid question?)

I tried the OpenDNS as per the recommendation of another TV member. Some members reported substantial improvements when they switched to OpenDNS DNS numbers. It did not result in any noticeable improvement for me.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

All I know is that my Maxnet Indy 3 MB is getting worse by the day - no joke. At this point I don't know what to do. We can only use the Internet perhaps 70% of the time now and when we do, we have nothing but problems. Having the head technical engineer come to the house (after 3 months of complaining, 30 calls, etc.) was not fruitful.

We already went to CAT and they said that they do not service this area of Sansai.

About 2 weeks ago one Sunday morning, one of those annoying trucks with all the speakers came through the moobaan. This one was a TOT truck. They were advertising that their TOT ADSL service will soon be available in our moobaan. Anyone have any experience with TOT ADSL?

I'm paying for Indy 4MB. I called and complained about the speed the other day and rather than having a technician call me like usual, I noticed I now have a 5MB connection. Too bad connecting overseas has been almost impossible this week.

Have you tried changing your ADSL router? As soon as I switched to my own from what TTT gave us, I saw an instant improvement in speed.

No, quite honestly I haven't switched routers. I have been thinking about getting a new router that also has WiFi so we can use the notebook downstairs.

But honestly, the connection has been deteriorating over time. Six months ago the connection was not this bad, so I don't think the router has been slowly failing. The technician checked the router when he was here.

this is a good topic. For example I have the standard Billion DSL router for Maxnet. Is upgrading to a better router improve performance? has anyone upgraded the Billion?

[elektrified]

All I know is that my Maxnet Indy 3 MB is getting worse by the day - no joke. At this point I don't know what to do. We can only use the Internet perhaps 70% of the time now and when we do, we have nothing but problems. Having the head technical engineer come to the house (after 3 months of complaining, 30 calls, etc.) was not fruitful.

We already went to CAT and they said that they do not service this area of Sansai.

About 2 weeks ago one Sunday morning, one of those annoying trucks with all the speakers came through the moobaan. This one was a TOT truck. They were advertising that their TOT ADSL service will soon be available in our moobaan. Anyone have any experience with TOT ADSL?

I'm paying for Indy 4MB. I called and complained about the speed the other day and rather than having a technician call me like usual, I noticed I now have a 5MB connection. Too bad connecting overseas has been almost impossible this week.

Have you tried changing your ADSL router? As soon as I switched to my own from what TTT gave us, I saw an instant improvement in speed.

No, quite honestly I haven't switched routers. I have been thinking about getting a new router that also has WiFi so we can use the notebook downstairs.

But honestly, the connection has been deteriorating over time. Six months ago the connection was not this bad, so I don't think the router has been slowly failing. The technician checked the router when he was here.

this is a good topic. For example I have the standard Billion DSL router for Maxnet. Is upgrading to a better router improve performance? has anyone upgraded the Billion?

They furnished us with a Hatari router.

[Thaihog]

A tip for TOT customers. If you're having frequent data dropouts, slow service, and trouble accessing some pages, check that your DNS is 203.113.127.199

The TOT technician told me that the downstream SNR margin on your line should be 20 or above. Much below that and the phone line has too much interference and ADSL will be painfully slow. You can check this on your router's setup page.

Thanks for that little tip. After months of painfully slow computing on the internet, it's like I have a new provider! From tortoise back to hare!

I'm curious as to where you obtained that DNS server number? Is that DNS server owned by TOT? (or is that even a valid question?)

I got it from the TOT tech who came to the house a couple of weeks ago. He said that lots but not all customers were affected.

Glad to have helped you out.

How do you switch the DNS setting? Idiots guide please....

Cheers

[bluweyze]

Go to Control Panel>Network Connections and select your local network.

Click Properties, then select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

Click Properties.

You will see a window l - this is the Internet Protocol window. Select "Use the following DNS server addresses" and enter the desired DNS server(s) in the space(s) provided.

[

[elektrified]

A tip for TOT customers. If you're having frequent data dropouts, slow service, and trouble accessing some pages, check that your DNS is 203.113.127.199

The TOT technician told me that the downstream SNR margin on your line should be 20 or above. Much below that and the phone line has too much interference and ADSL will be painfully slow. You can check this on your router's setup page.

Thanks for that little tip. After months of painfully slow computing on the internet, it's like I have a new provider! From tortoise back to hare!

I'm curious as to where you obtained that DNS server number? Is that DNS server owned by TOT? (or is that even a valid question?)

I got it from the TOT tech who came to the house a couple of weeks ago. He said that lots but not all customers were affected.

Glad to have helped you out.

How do you switch the DNS setting? Idiots guide please....

Cheers

I think it would be best to make the changes at your routers software. I can access my routers software by going to http://192.168.1.1

You will be asked for a user name and password. Most routers come from the factory using [admin] as the user name and [1234] as the password. From there you may need to search through a few pages until you see the settings for DNS servers. It sounds a little more complicated than it really is.

[Steve2UK]

All I know is that my Maxnet Indy 3 MB is getting worse by the day - no joke. At this point I don't know what to do. We can only use the Internet perhaps 70% of the time now and when we do, we have nothing but problems. Having the head technical engineer come to the house (after 3 months of complaining, 30 calls, etc.) was not fruitful.

We already went to CAT and they said that they do not service this area of Sansai.

About 2 weeks ago one Sunday morning, one of those annoying trucks with all the speakers came through the moobaan. This one was a TOT truck. They were advertising that their TOT ADSL service will soon be available in our moobaan. Anyone have any experience with TOT ADSL?

I'm paying for Indy 4MB. I called and complained about the speed the other day and rather than having a technician call me like usual, I noticed I now have a 5MB connection. Too bad connecting overseas has been almost impossible this week.

Have you tried changing your ADSL router? As soon as I switched to my own from what TTT gave us, I saw an instant improvement in speed.

No, quite honestly I haven't switched routers. I have been thinking about getting a new router that also has WiFi so we can use the notebook downstairs.

But honestly, the connection has been deteriorating over time. Six months ago the connection was not this bad, so I don't think the router has been slowly failing. The technician checked the router when he was here.

this is a good topic. For example I have the standard Billion DSL router for Maxnet. Is upgrading to a better router improve performance? has anyone upgraded the Billion?

After a week of connection problems (following many months of OK performance), the TOT tech told me that I should get a new modem (free) from their office to replace the Billion model that they first supplied. They gave me another new example of the exact same model - curiously they didn't want the old one back. Result - same connection problems. I went out and bought a D-Link DSL-2640T (4 ports and wireless connectivity) for - I think - about 1,200 baht. Big improvement in speed and stability. Just about no-one has a good word to say for the freebie Billion modems; in this case, you get what you pay for.

BTW, when I later had reason to call TOT service about something else (new username/password), they asked me which modem/router I was using and had all the necessary step-by-step configuration instructions to hand for my D-Link model. Seems they are used to people switching to better kit than they supply.

Incidentally, many people (including myself) think using Open DNS (Google it) is generally better than using less-than-great ISP (TOT, Maxnet etc) DNS servers.

[tjansen]

A tip for TOT customers. If you're having frequent data dropouts, slow service, and trouble accessing some pages, check that your DNS is 203.113.127.199

The TOT technician told me that the downstream SNR margin on your line should be 20 or above. Much below that and the phone line has too much interference and ADSL will be painfully slow. You can check this on your router's setup page.

Thanks for that little tip. After months of painfully slow computing on the internet, it's like I have a new provider! From tortoise back to hare!

I'm curious as to where you obtained that DNS server number? Is that DNS server owned by TOT? (or is that even a valid question?)

I got it from the TOT tech who came to the house a couple of weeks ago. He said that lots but not all customers were affected.

Glad to have helped you out.

AMAZING and thanks for that tip as well. My story might help others since it is so simple and commonplace. About four months ago I had to buy a new computer because my old one crashed. I just plugged it into my TOT Billion router and off I went, experiencing the great speeds that I expected from my carefully selected computer. As the weeks have rolled along, my connectivity has gotten worse and worse. However, at times it was still solid and no problem. I actually thought someone in my apartment building was disconnecting my phone line and using my internet, then reconnecting.

Last night when you posted that DNS number, I glanced at my TOT paperwork, since I had it readily at hand for my daily calls to TOT to get them to fix my problem. LO AND BEHOLD, on my original paperwork from a year ago, was the identical DNS to the one you provided on your post, that TOT had given me to set on my control panel. When I looked at my Control Panel "Network Connections", my settings for DNS were in the default "Auto Selection" mode. So I inserted the proper DNS settings as provided by you (and TOT). This morning, as I post this note, at the time of day when my problems usually have been starting, my connection is rock-solid and very quick.

By the way, I only had to change my Computer settings because the router is still set with its original settings that TOT set up for me when I subscribed last year, which is fortunate because the Username and Password I have written down to access the Router don't work.

For convenience, here is what I did:

Go to Start, single click

Go to Control Panel, single click

Go to Network Connections, double click to open

Go to Local Area Connections Icon, right click

Go to Properties, left click

Go to Internet Protocol, TCP/IP, select with cursor

Go to Properties, left click

Go to General Tab if not already there

Select with your cursor, "Use the following DNS server addresses"

Type in 203 113 127 199 in the "Preferred DNS server" space

Type in the same number except for the last block, which has to be less than 255 and should be something different from 199. I used 203 113 127 209

REMEMBER, this is only for TOT as I understand.

Bear in mind, this is the Idiot's Guide, as requested above, and ironically, it is being written by an idiot, so if there are any errors in my understanding, scathing chastisement is welcome. One lurking precaution is that in my elation at finding a solution and wanting to share the information, I haven't done a time-test, but it seems to me that the problem is obvious and fits all of the descriptions.

As a side note, a Google search on what DNS means is rather enlightening.

Tom

Edited July 11, 2009 by tjansen

[BigSnake]

My Two Baht worth, they are both about the same had CAT for two years, some fast times and then at times very slow, call center was the PITY, switch to TOT things were better at first, but same as CAT very slow at times, call center is so so, put you on hold for five minutes or more waiting for an English speaker, a real DOWNER!! For me I will stick with TOT for now, I've heard some good reports about other ISP, but just not sure if it is worth the time and effort to switch again.

[lukeskywalker]

I live in Sansai and am getting TT&T installed today.

Fingers crossed it's fast and solid!!!!!

If you live in a mooban where the houses are close, chances are there are a number of unsecured wireless networks around. If you're just a casual internet user then this is good (I guess I just suggested and condoned stealing bandwidth!). Anyway, it is so cheap for an internet connection, might as well get your own.

I had TOT down in Lamphun and it was fast and only occasionally would drop out and only then for a second or two.

Side note: I had to sign a 1 year contract when I was in Lamphun, but after only 3 months, I moved so I was very worried about the penalty, well, when I went in to pay the bill and ask them to disconnect, they only charged me up to that day. NO extra charge for disconnecting before my year was up. After I paid, I grabbed my receipt and ran out the door. I thought for sure I would have to pay for the remaining 9 months I did not use. I don't know if just lucky or they don't charge for early disconnect.