As title suggests. Does anybody know whether 3BB (formerly maxnet) throttle some connections, as I am trying to download from rapideshare, and it is so slow! Before it was really fast in relation to the connection speed of 4 meg, now it downloads fast for a little time, then just hangs!

If I download from newsgroups, and get a constant relative to the time of day. Still with me peeps?

It depends on the torrents. Remember that torrents downlaod form other people's computers and if the files you want are on a computer that is switched off, or their connection is slow, then your download speed will be slow.

I do not do torrents, as I do not trust them. I just do rapideshare, and newzbin

Edited May 16, 201016 yr by Forkinhades

I'm getting rapidshare at full speed, but need to use a download manager to open multiple connections. Only works when you have a rapidshare premium account.

From 4 connections upwards my speed tops out at 450-480 kbps...

On Maxnet 5Mbps/1mbps premium account...

Thanks monty. I can use a download manger on XP, but as of yet vista is still lacking, anyway I am only trying to download 1 file of 200 megs, so dont really need a manager. Will try the same file on my XP machine through the manager, as there are a few settings.

@ monty are you using vista and a download manager? if so what one?, on my xp machine i use flashget, but was always getting problems when I tried with vista. Albeit nearly a year ago now, never had use it on my vista machine.

Firefox Add-On "DownThemAll" works on Vista.

Orbit Downloader works on Vista.

Free Download Manager works on Vista.

Since changing from TOT to 3BB a couple of months ago in the hope (actually,.. solid expectation) that the connection and speed would be better it has if anything proven to be equally as poor and on many occasions worse.

Here's the thing though,.. all this business of 2 meg, 3 meg, 4meg, 6meg etc is total BS. What counts is the ping rate and the packet loss especially when you're accessing pages outside Thailand and SE Asia in particular.

Generally (OK,.. in US, AUS, UK etc) a poor ping rate is considered to be about 150ms. An average rate would be around 80 to 100ms and a good one 30 to 60ms. With TOT I could never get better than about 330ms and a jitter rate of about 5%. In the first few weeks with 3bb I noticed really slow page loads and upon running a ping test (you can Google that to get the test sites up) I noticed ping rates to the US (Texas,.. LA and Washington) of 700 to 900ms. Later that worsened to 1200 to 2,000ms+ (that's a turn off and watch the telly instead rate). That was on the 4meg plan. We called the tech out here and he showed up (that in itself was amazing,.. something TOT could never accomplish) and he said we needed the premium package. We tested that whilst he was here (and on 3 meg and 4 meg premium and premium+) it was all still around 300ms at best.

There are still days that it goes AWOL and whenever that happens you can bet London to a brick that the ping rate is up around 600+ again. Problem lies in the Interenational gateways that 3bb purchase bandwidth on. The real explanation is that they focus on giving good internal/domestic connection and that can be shown when you do a ping test to any of the SE Asian countries and you'll get around 170 190ms usually. It seems most people focus on doing "speed" tests rather than "ping and packet loss" tests (which are the only tests that tell the real story). The thing is that both TOT and 3BB aren't interested in serving the 1 to 3 % of geeks like me,... just the 97-99% of domestic plebian surfers that are sold on the packaged "meg" services bundles that they assume in blissful ignorance must be excellent because the company told them so! Purchasing reliable and good International Bandwidth can be costly,.. and why go to such added expense when its only the occasional geek like me that'll notice or whine?

Oh how I long for consumer rights and the opportunity to sue incompetent (and manipulative) service providers for damages arising from their breaches of contract,... but on the other hand there are too many nice things about Thailand to forfeit such privileges for!

Yeah ping is important, just done a test a pingtest.net

Also got my flashget to work with vista, now downloading the files with ease.

Generally (OK,.. in US, AUS, UK etc) a poor ping rate is considered to be about 150ms. An average rate would be around 80 to 100ms and a good one 30 to 60ms. With TOT I could never get better than about 330ms and a jitter rate of about 5%. In the first few weeks with 3bb I noticed really slow page loads and upon running a ping test (you can Google that to get the test sites up) I noticed ping rates to the US (Texas,.. LA and Washington) of 700 to 900ms

Partly true, but not entirely.

Ping times get affected by two things:

Routing: how many hops to the destination, each hop will increase the ping time, and one overloaded server on the way can massively increase the ping time.

Physical distance: Internet data either travels over electrical cable or over fiber optic. Both travel about the same speed. But still, the USA, where the majority of the websites are hosted, is bang on the other side of the globe. The longer the distance, the longer the signal travels. And more likely then not, more hops to get there as well.

The first indeed can be affected by how much your ISP spends on bandwidth. A direct line to the US will result in low ping times, but is very expensive. Most of the traffic uses a bit of a middle way, and gets routed for example over Singapore (which has big pipes to the outside world).

The second thing, nothing much we can do about that

So basically, US ping times from Thailand are considered low if they are under 250 msec.

Within Thailand, 30 to 60 is acceptable.

Most of Asia should come in at under 100 msec.

Europe, this will depend a lot on routing. Obviously the biggest pipes run to the USA, so you'll often find Europe bound traffic routed over the US, which is a pretty big detour. Result: 400+msec. If routed directly, you can expect around 200 msec or lower...

When experiencing high ping times, you should always do a tracer to the destination. You'll immediately know if your IS is the problem, or if there is a bottleneck somewhere else on the way...

ah, pings, hops, and packets, now it is all clear

Edited May 18, 201016 yr by Forkinhades