Virtual Private Networks

[4u2mad]

I upgraded to a 3Mb TOT plan a couple of months ago to improve my download speed for movies etc. Everything went fine, and I was impressed by the increase in speed, even logging on to Thai visa was quicker!

At the beginning of December the picture changed, downloads resumed their original snails pace. Not a result of the size of swarms, I might add.Many calls to TOT service (1100) resulted in immediate increases in speed, often while I was online to the service centre, alas after a couple of hours, d/ls would revert to their original state.

I asked for, and got, a reduction in broadband cost for the month, reasoning if I got 50% service, payment should be pro-rata.

The technicians duly arrived to check my equipment and could find no problem, no surprise there! I explained that it wasn't only d/loading that was suffering, which to some extent I could live with, but also the ability to video chat with a son and daughter in the USA. This was done mainly at low traffic times due to the time difference.

With broken Thai and english, I asked the techies if perhaps TOT were turning the speed up and down. Sly smiles were exchanged as they admitted this was the case. Due to my location I cannot switch service providers, so it looks like I may have to put up or shut up!

Then a feint ray of hope. I read several articles about vpn's (virtual private networks) and their ability to bypass traffic shaping/packet sniffing. I'm no expert, and it may take me a while to set up. My question is do any of you guys have experience in this, does it work?

Sorry for the long post and a happy new year!

[keeniau96]

VPN's still need a network to run on, so cannot get away from TOT. As a peculiar Thai note, the interior security law passed several years ago, and which required logging in of all users on internet cafes (and other networks), included a provision that makes VPNs illegal. As many things Thai, this was an ill-conceived measure created by persons with extremely limited tech knowledge (tuned down from my original phrasing).

[Crushdepth]

It can work *if* the slowdown is actually caused by your ISP discriminating against certain kinds of traffic, as it prevents them from being able to see what the traffic is. But it won't help you if TOT are blindly throttling everything, or if they simply don't have the bandwidth available.

You can subscribe to commercial VPN providers (which basically gives you an encrypted link through to the provider in the US or wherever). If you have access to another computer with a better internet connection you could also set up your own VPN with something like the free version of Hamachi (very simple to use).

Podcast about Hamachi (16 MB download).

Alternative low-quality podcast about Hamachi for the bandwidth impaired (4.1 MB)

[phazey]

VPN's can also be shaped, so you can't really get around any restrictions an ISP may have in place. Most ISP grade packetshapers also have the ability to dynamically shape streams based on a certain set of policies.

If you can get a link a speed increase would be seen if the link was using compression.