Upgraded To ...?

[JusMe]

I've been on the TOT 1MB package for almost a year, but noticed that they've got a promotion which offered 6MB for the same price.

Stopped by the office and "upgraded" to this:

I'm not sure I'm reading it correctly. Does this really mean that I'm getting a new upgraded speed of just above ten percent of the promotion price?

Is this good or should I try to "speak" to them?

[Pib]

Nope, they probably haven't complete the upgrade action yet, which requires them to make some changes on their server and at the local switching station/DSLAM relating to your account/line. Give them a few days to complete the action; if no change, then call TOT.

[oldgeezer]

Please be aware:

I believe MB (capital letters) refer to Megabytes. Mb refers to Megabits. 8 megabits make 1 Megabyte.

For instance, If you are testing .67 Mb, multiply by 8 and that gives you 5.36 MB. the value quoted when being sold

That would be 5 or 6 times your previous package.

However, bandwith will ultimately determine your internet speed.

I believe this is correct. But this is what I have been told and I'm certainly no expert.

[Gigabyte]

Try the ThaiVisa Speedtest; it displays in kbps which is the number you would expect to see. In my case I have a 8 MB package and ThaiVisa Speedtest (both Bangkok and Singapore servers) will show me usually 7,700 ~ 8,000 kbps.

If you don't get close to that, call TOT. At my old place I used to have a 2 MB connection and I was always getting only 1 MB. I called and called many times, and they called me back to "please try again" many times, and finally I got the speed I was paying for. Until I got my 2 MB speed, TOT agreed to charge me only for the 1 MB package. They are OK to deal with in general, much better than TRUE...

[Gigabyte]

Please be aware:

I believe MB (capital letters) refer to Megabytes. Mb refers to Megabits. 8 megabits make 1 Megabyte.

For instance, If you are testing .67 Mb, multiply by 8 and that gives you 5.36 MB. the value quoted when being sold

That would be 5 or 6 times your previous package.

However, bandwith will ultimately determine your internet speed.

I believe this is correct. But this is what I have been told and I'm certainly no expert.

Hi,

My maths are a bit rusty but if 8 megabits make 1 Megabyte, then 0.67 megabits should make... 0.08375 Megabyte.

Or maybe I got it all wrong?

[Pib]

Please be aware:

I believe MB (capital letters) refer to Megabytes. Mb refers to Megabits. 8 megabits make 1 Megabyte.

For instance, If you are testing .67 Mb, multiply by 8 and that gives you 5.36 MB. the value quoted when being sold

That would be 5 or 6 times your previous package.

However, bandwith will ultimately determine your internet speed.

I believe this is correct. But this is what I have been told and I'm certainly no expert.

To convert from bits to bytes you divide by 8; to convert from bytes to bits you multiply by 8. One byte equals 8 bits. A lower case "b" refers to bits; an upper case "B" refers to bytes. The letter preceding (i.e., M, m, K, or k should be a capital letter but lower case is sometimes seen). 0.67 Mb (as in bits) equates to approx 0.084MB (as in bytes) or 84KB.

Internt packages are quoted/sold in reference to "bits" as in 2Mb, 4Mb, 5Mb, 6Mb, .....16Mb, etc. The speedresults shown by the OP are 0.67Mb (or 670Kb) down and 0.53Mb or (530Kb) up. Sounds like his current 1Mb package he trying to upgrade from. Speed test type programs almost always report results in "bits."

Once the OP gets upgraded to 6Mb and assuming he has a good physical DSL/phone line (i.e., low attenuation and a high signal to noise ratio) his speedtest results should/will probably report a max "IP" down speed of around 5.5Mb to the Bangkok speedtest server (if the server is not loaded down). He probably will not get a full 6Mb speedtest result since DSL "control/overhead" bits take away from the max IP data flow measured in speedtest. Another example is a TOT 4Mb package would report an speedtest result IP speed of approx 3.5Mb with a good DSL connection and the Bangkok speedtest server is not loaded down.

Now once he is upgraded, his modem "sync" downspeed should report the full 6Mb (actually around 6.144Mb)...sync speed don't care about the DSL overhead/control bits. The OP would go into his modem setup menu and find the submenu that reports on sync speed, attenuation, signal to noise, etc. It varies from modem to modem as to where this device info/stats submenu is located but it's usually not to hard to find. This modem sync speed is the "important" confirmation he has been upgraded and his line is working properly.

[doctormann]

I've recently upgraded to the ToT 6Mb/512kb package - in fact I made a post on this forum about it a few days ago. I initially had a problem as ToT had neglected to change my settings on the DSLAM and I was still only getting my former line speed. A phone call soon sorted it out and I now get, typically, 5.5Mb/s down and 480kb/s up, using Speedtest.net to their Bangkok server. Speeds can be a lot lower than this at some times of the day and international speeds are usually lower too, as might be expected.

By the way, I'm in Pattaya and trying to get through to ToT on their ADSL fault number - 1177********* - is a waste of time as you just get put in a queue and never get to speak to anyone. The general 1100 fault reporting number works much better, here at least.

DM

[JusMe]

Aaah, bits and bytes. Learn something new every day.

I'll spend some time going through the posts here and maybe eventually understand it all.

I only upgraded because I saw that the upgrade was the same price as I am (was?) paying for the 1MB service.

I'd much prefer reliability than a supposed speed increase.

[JusMe]

By the way, I'm in Pattaya and trying to get through to ToT on their ADSL fault number - 1177********* - is a waste of time as you just get put in a queue and never get to speak to anyone. The general 1100 fault reporting number works much better, here at least.

DM

I'm in Rayong Province (Ban Phe). Oh yeah, getting through to their fault number. I've got a set of Call Centre numbers. 038-617406 etc. & 038-615165 etc

For English, press 2. for DSL, press 1. Enter your phone number followed by the pound sign. All our agents are busy. Please listen to this crap music for a loooong loooong time. Eventually it just disconnects.

I have redialed those numbers for over an hour without getting a person on the line. Maybe I'll try that 1100 number next time.

[doctormann]

By the way, I'm in Pattaya and trying to get through to ToT on their ADSL fault number - 1177********* - is a waste of time as you just get put in a queue and never get to speak to anyone. The general 1100 fault reporting number works much better, here at least.

DM

I'm in Rayong Province (Ban Phe). Oh yeah, getting through to their fault number. I've got a set of Call Centre numbers. 038-617406 etc. & 038-615165 etc

For English, press 2. for DSL, press 1. Enter your phone number followed by the pound sign. All our agents are busy. Please listen to this crap music for a loooong loooong time. Eventually it just disconnects.

I have redialed those numbers for over an hour without getting a person on the line. Maybe I'll try that 1100 number next time.

Yes, exactly the same as what I was getting. Very irritating and the 'Hot Line' numbers just seem to put you in the same queue and, as you say, eventually the line disconnects.

If you dial 1100 and then press '9' you should get an English speaking person on the line. A friend of mine has been having the same problem with his upgrade as I was. Phoned 1100 and an engineer is going to check the DSLAM. We live in hope.

DM

[mightyharriss]

you can't get through because we aren't worthy of their customer service as foreigners in this country. True however usually are very efficient if you can get a condo/house that hasn't been bribed to use TOT and only TOT

[PattayaParent]

By the way, I'm in Pattaya and trying to get through to ToT on their ADSL fault number - 1177********* - is a waste of time as you just get put in a queue and never get to speak to anyone. The general 1100 fault reporting number works much better, here at least.

DM

I'm in Rayong Province (Ban Phe). Oh yeah, getting through to their fault number. I've got a set of Call Centre numbers. 038-617406 etc. & 038-615165 etc

For English, press 2. for DSL, press 1. Enter your phone number followed by the pound sign. All our agents are busy. Please listen to this crap music for a loooong loooong time. Eventually it just disconnects.

I have redialed those numbers for over an hour without getting a person on the line. Maybe I'll try that 1100 number next time.

When I use the 1100 number and press 9 for English it automatically cuts off so I use the Thai serviuce and they have to transfer me to an English speaking person.

[Pib]

Tonight I was messing around with my ADSL modem and separate router and noticed my modem sync speed was 6144 Kbps (ie., 6Mb) versus the plan I had originally signed up for which was the 4Mb plan (i.e, a 4096 Kbps sync speed). Now I know for sure that at least a week ago I was still on the TOT 4Mb plan since I had checked my modem's sync speed. And it was about 6 weeks ago when I (along with the Thai wife) started bothering TOT about doing a free upgrade to the 6Mb plan since it was now the same price as the 4Mb plan I had originally signed up for. The answer at that time was "No Can Do" because of two reasons: my 1 year contract was not up until early next year and my moobaan lines were limited to 4Mb. Now I have asked TOT techinicans working in moobaan before (to include a month ago) about the max DSL speed to the moobaan and the answer was always 4Mb.

Well, either TOT upgraded the DSLAMs in my moobaan; OR they could do the free upgrade, the lines were not limited to 4Mb, and it just took them a couple of months to get around to automatically upgrading me. I just paid my monthly internet bill a few days ago and it was still the same price....hopefully next month's bill will be the same price. So far from doing some speedtests the 6Mb Jetpack plan is only a little faster than my previous 4Mb Simple Basic plan, but it is still in the part of the night when a lot of people are online...maybe it will get into the 5-6Mb speed range at low usage times of the day/night. I do more speed testing tomorrow.

But regardless, at least I've got a 50% speed increase on paper; would be nice if turns out to be a significant real world increase. I willl say from the Youtube testing tonight I didn't get any pauses in the video's which was common on my 4Mb plan. More testing to do over the coming days....

[Pib]

After doing some speed testing last night and this morning, my 6Mb JetPack gives me a hair over 5Mb for in-Thailand speed when using the various Ookla speed test programs running on the TOT, 3BB, and True web sites. Since these Ookla speedtest programs are run directly on the TOT/3BB/True in-country servers they always seem to give me the highest/steadiest speed results when I want to checkout my DSL line. My international speed tests to the USA using speedtest.net gives me in the 1 to2Mb range on the average...same as my 4Mb plan.

But setting aside these speed tests results my browing seems snappier and when viewing YouTube video's they don't pause on me anymore...when the video immediately starts up and as it smoothly plays you can see the time/buffer bar is sucking down the video and maintaining a good buffer reserve (30-60 seconds and more buffer...the file is definitely downloading much faster than needed to play the video). Now this YouTube testing is only from last night and this morning...but I've never been able to do this much testing/viewing of various YouTube video's without a good portion of the video's pausing and rarely getting getting more than 5-15 seconds of buffering.

Using Orbit (a download manager) to download test files from thinkbroadband.com, which I think is in the UK, I'm getting around 300KB (i.e., 2.4Mb) download speed. This was the same that I got on the 4Mb plan. Can't tell you anything about torrents as I'm not into that (yet).

Going from 4Mb to 6Mb "has" made a noticeable improvement in my browsing/viewing videos and hopefully it was a free upgrade. I also noticed my DSL modem is now reporting it's using "ADSL2+, Annex M" protocol versus the earlier plain jane ADSL, Annex A protocol...this tells me they have just done some DSLAM upgrades for my moobaan....that is, going from plain jane ADSL to ADSL2+, which is capable of much higher speeds.

Heck, maybe I can now even get a plan faster than 6Mb....I'll have to ask about their 9Mb Jetpack plan which cost 890 baht/month versus the 6Mb plan which goes for 590 baht...plus the 9Mb plan comes with 1Mb upload speeds versus 512Kb for the 6Mb plan. Just happy my moobaan here in western Bangkok has apparently got a DSLAM upgrade. I may now be crawling out of the internet dark ages. The coming weeks will tell me more as to if the ADSL2+ 6Mb plan is reliable and steady...and if it maintains it's current speed for more than a few weeks.

[Phil Conners]

When I use the 1100 number and press 9 for English it automatically cuts off so I use the Thai serviuce and they have to transfer me to an English speaking person.

This is interesting. Exactly the same thing happens if I call TT&T's 1103; After pressing 9 for English you get a couple other choices, but regardless of which you press, the line hangs up. It's been like this for months. I also went through their Thai service and pointed this out but they haven't fixed it. Wonder if there is any significance to this.

[JusMe]

Curious about the help lines. Whenever I call 1100, wait a couple of seconds until the music starts, and then press 9, almost immediately I get an English speaking answer. And it's pretty good standard of English, too.

When I went to the JetPack, I noticed a significant change in both up and down speeds. Made me regret what I'd been missing in the past.

However, something happened on Friday. Telephone has been completely dead since about mid-day, and although the DSL is on the same line, I do have internet, although very very slow. Latest was ping of 224ms. Down of 1.84Mbps, and Up of just 0.06Mbps

Sure hope it gets fixed today. Weekend nobody was working, and of course, yesterday was a holiday, soooo ....

[JusMe]

Techs stopped by this afternoon. Connected a couple of clips to my telephone socket, looked at something, then drove off.

About ten minutes later, back up to full speed on my modem and phone working.

Guess it's one of those times that TOT does the right thing.

[Mosha]

Phone has been off since thursday pm, internet takes hours to connect. Problem was reported Friday morning and everyday since. TOT are the worst communications company in the area. I can't move to the best cos there isn't one

[Pib]

Heck, maybe I can now even get a plan faster than 6Mb....I'll have to ask about their 9Mb Jetpack plan which cost 890 baht/month versus the 6Mb plan which goes for 590 baht...plus the 9Mb plan comes with 1Mb upload speeds versus 512Kb for the 6Mb plan. Just happy my moobaan here in western Bangkok has apparently got a DSLAM upgrade. I may now be crawling out of the internet dark ages. The coming weeks will tell me more as to if the ADSL2+ 6Mb plan is reliable and steady...and if it maintains it's current speed for more than a few weeks.

Well, it's a no go on upgrading past 6Mb as by chance the two TOT technicians that work my moobaan came by the neighbor's house this morning. The techs said yes TOT had upgrade equipment to provide 6Mb speed to the moobaan but that was the top speed for now. Well, at least 6Mb is better than the 4Mb limit before...and two years ago the limit was 2Mb. At the rate the TOT upgrades are happening for my moobaan, they seem to add 2Mb in speed every year or so. Maybe in another year or so I can upgrade to the 9Mb JetPack or whatever they call their lastest and greatest plan at that time.

After two days of testing, the 6Mb plan is noticeably more responsive than the 4Mb plan, especially for in-Thailand web sites; international web sites are maybe just a little faster but not much. But YouTube videos continue to stream with no pauses; on the 4Mb plan videos would pause most of the time...they would pause so much a person would just didn't want to veiw YouTube videos. Nice change to be able to watch video streaming again without the video pausing every few seconds. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the 6Mb plan continues to work good. It appears I have made another small step out in getting out of the internet dark ages...I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

[Pib]

6Mb JetPack still working good for me. When doing speed tests using the TOT and 3BB in-country speed test links I'm getting around 5.25Mb (i.e., approx 85% of 6Mb).

Now for those of you who are thinking I'm falling short of the 6Mb advertised speed, please keep in mind my modem is reporting the full 6.144Mb Sync speed (i.e., layman's 6Mb) and there is approx a 15% DSL overhead which subtracts/decreases your maximum data flow speed. See this web link for a short and sweet explanation of DSL overhead. http://pflog.net/dsl_overhead/

[thaicbr]

Well you lot are SOOOO lucky. This was the speed test to bangkok using the thaivisa speed test.

Download Speed: 251 kbps (31.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 58 kbps (7.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 511 ms

10/29/2010 11:09:10 PM

singapore

Last Result:

Download Speed: 254 kbps (31.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 56 kbps (7 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 559 ms

10/29/2010 11:13:39 PM

This is my apartment internet. TOT say this is a 3mb business line. so the apartment server must be throttling it big time. 

[Pib]

Well you lot are SOOOO lucky. This was the speed test to bangkok using the thaivisa speed test.

Download Speed: 251 kbps (31.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 58 kbps (7.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 511 ms

10/29/2010 11:09:10 PM

singapore

Last Result:

Download Speed: 254 kbps (31.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 56 kbps (7 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 559 ms

10/29/2010 11:13:39 PM

This is my apartment internet. TOT say this is a 3mb business line. so the apartment server must be throttling it big time.

I wouldn't use the ThaiVisa Bangkok and Singapore speedtest servers--they are s...l....o....w. Use the 3BB or TOT Ookla speedtest programs at http://speedtest.3bb.co.th/ and http://speedtest1.totbb.net/index.aspx, respectively, for "in-country" speed tests. For "international" speed tests I would just use speedtest.net at http://www.speedtest.net/

Keep in mind the in-country speedtests are the only thing TOT really kinda guaranetees/will try to fix if you have a slow connection; they don't guarantee speeds for international sites...I've always got in the 1-2Mb speed range on my earlier 4Mb TOT package and the current 6Mb TOT package.

Also keep in mind that due to DSL overhead/control bytes & bits your speed test results will be approx 13-15% lower than your modem "sync' speed. Ex: on the 6Mb TOT package (modem sync of 6.144Mb if you have a good connection), your in-country download "maximum" data speed/speedtest result will be approx 5.25Mb and upload speed approx 0.43Mb (with a 512Kb modem upload sync speed). I do get both of these speeds consistently on the 3BB and TOT speedtest sites the majority of the time; during peak times I will get a little less but usually rerunning the test a couple of times I will get the max speeds on a couple of the tests even during peak use times....running the test during non-peak times I will get the max speed almost every time.

[Pib]

Regarding my mention of how the ThaiVisa speedtest server is s.....l......o.......w, below are two speedtest.net tests run a minute apart here on a Saturday night (approx 9:30pm) with my TOT 6Mb package.

On the first speedtest result the hosting server was "STS Group"; on the second speedtest result the hosting server was "ThaiVisa."

Whenever you click on a speedtest.net location to do a speedtest be sure to look and see what server is hosting that particular test...you'll see a block in the upper right hand side of the testing window that will say "Hosted By" with the server's/company's name. Each speedtest.net location could have more than on server/company doing that particular speedtest....even on those speedtest locations that only show one star or pyramid. You may need to completely close the speedtest.net web site and reopen for it to pick a different server for the Bangkok location versus just hitting the Test Again or New Server buttons.

For whatever reason when testing the Speedtest.net STS Group server in Bangkok I get a fast result; when testing the Speedtest.net ThaiVisa server in Bangkok I get a slow result. I also always get a slow result when testing directly from the ThaiVisa menu/link which uses the Ookla speed test program. Like I said, I always get s...l....o.....w speedtest results on the ThaiVisa servers.

STS Group Server Hosted

ThaiVisa Server Hosted

[thaicbr]

This the latest speed test to the STS server... still crap!

[Pib]

When you say it's your apartment internet and it's a 3Mb business line, are you saying this internet line is used "only by you" and "you pay TOT directly" for the internet. Or, are you paying the apartment owner for internet service and it's internet service shared by other apartments. If it's the later, I can understand why you internet is really slow...the 3Mb line is probably being shared by too many apartments. Plus, I've never heard of a TOT 3Mb business line, but it could very well exist but I expect it's an older plan.

3Mb going to only one apartment might be slow since most Thai ISPs basically advertise 6Mb and up now days even though they do have lower speed plans. Sometimes I wonder if the lower speed plans might not start getting intentionally throttled (more than other plans) to get people to want to upgrade to higher speed and pricier plans. Problem could also very well be a bad physical phone/DSL line outside and/or inside the apartment building.

[thaicbr]

its shared by all. but also we have worked out that they are running it through a server computer down in the office. it look like an antique Pentium 

[Pib]

A 3Mb main line which is then shared among apartments sounds like a fine recipe for slow internet access regardless of the ISP, especially in this internet age of videos, audio, torrents, etc. Kinda like hooking up multiple water hoses to one spigot and wondering why the water pressure from each hose is so weak. Unless you can get a some dedicated internet service to your apartment or maybe get Wifi service, you are probably stuck with the low pressure internet hose.