Tot And Sophon Disaster

[vediovis]

I recently moved in a nice house in Nongprue and unfortunately, I started to have big problems with my TOT web connection here. It's difficult to have phone and Internet at the same time, and the Adsl connection can crash very often, and sometimes during long hours. It was quite a big surprise as the previous connection I had in Soi Bongkot was very good. I called technicians a lot of time and they told me they have problems with the big cable in this area. I asked the previous technician who took care f me before and he confirmed me TOT still tries to fix a lot of things in the Nongprue area.

Bad luck, I didn't know that before moving here, and I need the web. I use Skype to call my family in Europe (!!!) and I have some professional contacts there as well. I have some servers in the U.S. (!!!) to take care and I need to access them sometimes. Internet is a must have for me, mostly outside of Thailand (!!!).

So after reading some post on ThaiVisa, I decided to give SOPHON Cable a chance. Here is the report:

My wife gave them a call a Thursday at 5pm to ask of we can use their services in our place. It was no problem, they will send technicians the day after at 11am. Only point, we have to pay all the package in advance. I chose a 8Mb for 6 months, it was around 7,500Baht to pay to the technicians the day after when they come to install their cable. And here we go.

The staff is very friendly and good technicians. They are so good willing that they come I advance. Imagine you make appointment at 11am and see them coming at 10am when you just woke up and still had no shower : it is a lot of fun for you and your wife...... Anyway they are quite good, and installed the cable in a few minutes. They have excellent communication skills and work very professionally. For that part, it is a real pleasure. They took the money, 7,500 Baht and left 20 minutes after coming.

Then the troubles began: impossible to access youtube and facebook. We complained on the phone, where people certified us they block no websites and no services. Technicians came back 20 minutes after the call, to be sure I could access these websites. It was very nice from them. A that point, I could access facebook and youtube. Hmmm, part of it. I still can't play MafiaWars and some Facebook urls still seem to be inaccessible. Difficult to tell them It was very slow, they just plugged the cable and it seems it was necessary to wait for a while for everything to be OK.

So I decided to wait for a few days, as maybe it took time to finish the installation in their system. But it is more than 10 days now. And here is the situation:

When it works, TOT is cheaper then Sophon and work very much better than them in my place. Sophon became my second and emergency connection but is quite impossible to use for anything. To throw 7,500 Baht by the window would have been the same for me.

- I cant access several websites. For example, the domain name ThaiVisa is impossible to reach from my Sophon connection. Unhappy people from Sophon don't complain on the ThaiVisa forum for the simple reason they cannot access it. I use my TOT connection to read the classifieds, the forums and to post his message. It's very funny to see http://speedtest.thaivisa.com/ working fine on TOT and crashing with Sophon. Not only the domain name is unreachable, but the applet is refused as well

- Facebook and its applications are working.... like with an old style RTC Modem. Hmmm, no. Facebook is not working. I switched to Sophon 4 hours ago today and I still can't read my facebook page or access any game [Google Chrome error message: Error 101 (net::ERR_CONNECTION_RESET): Unknown error.]

- I certainly have 8Mb for websites located inside of Thailand. If my wife tries to surf on sanook , she has no problem. But we cannot do anything else with it. When I make some speed test with http://speedtest.adslthailand.com/ , I can see I have very poor connection with the rest of the world. I have 0.1Mb with the U.S. and not a lot of more with the UK. The good days, I can reach 0.280Mb in UK but I never had better than this result. The test crashes all the time at the upload part as I cannot upload anything anywhere.

- So, I an confirm I have NO upload capacity. The other day I needed to upload by ftp a 6Ko file to one of my website. Filezilla is still trying to do it. I had to wait for my TOT connection to come back to upload the file. I had the same problem to upload a picture in a website to update my profile: my pic never reached the concerned websites. I had to do it with my other connection. Even web forms are difficult to submit. Same for emails. My Thunderbird regularly refuses to send anything during hours, my wife has the same problem with her outlook. There's no upload capacity with my Sophon connection. I cannot send anything anywhere.

- In these conditions, Skype is useless. Impossible to call my grand mother or anybody else on my Skype. I can chat by Skype with people, but I cannot call them. This is very disappointing for me.

- For a reason I ignore, I can't have MSN from Pidgin using the Sophon connection. This is very strange for me. There's no problem to use the Messenger protocol from a Windows 7 machine and the official messenger, but MSN with Pidgin under my Linux Ubuntu is a no no with Sophon. This is more than strange.

It is ifficult to blame the technicians who came in my place, or the lady on the phone. They are wonderful professionals. But there's obviously a problem with everything international with the Sophon packages, and I'm quite an international Internet user.

So, this is the situation today. In the Nongprue Area, TOT has big problems with their backbone or whatever and they have to regularly reset ports. The technicians came twice and said everything was OK in my house but the problem was on their infrastructures. So the Internet connection is very unstable with them. When it works, it works very well, but these moments are quite rare. Just now, when I write this message, my router has only one light of three switched on, it means it cannot reach ADSL and Internet even if I reset it and reboot it. This is for more than 2 days now. The day before, their connection worked only during 1h even with 4 phone calls to the support during the day. I don't use filter anymore as I renounced to have phone to privilege the ADSL connection. The internet cable is direct to the socket but it changes nothing.

At the same time, Sophon cable cost me 7,500Baht to try it, and it is impossible to do anything with it. It's totally useless for me. The money is totally lost and was paid for nothing.

I don't know what to do at this stage: try another provider? Buy a third Internet connection? But i's impossible to test before trying, nobody can guaranty a minimum bandwidth and once you start something you have to stay for month or years.

Edited December 4, 2010 by vediovis

[patsfangr]

Same for me with 3BB here in Nongprue. I switched to 3BB several months ago, following a "nightmare" year with the very expensive (nearly DOUBLE!), and woefully undependable C.A.T. (which,as you may know, is supposedly the source for ALL other ISPs here in Thailand). Not only did I have constant speed problems with them; I had frequent disconnects which sometimes lasted for hours!

I had no significant problems with 3BB for a few months. The "guarantee" for my Premium International Service is 3 MB for international servers. I never got that. But I did average about 1.7 MB; which was fast enough for Skype, HD streaming of NFL games, and Mafia Wars (yes, me too!).

About 3 weeks ago, the trouble began. My speed dropped to a consistent .4 MB. Dozens of calls to BKK produced no results. Last week, 3 techs came from the local office. They checked my connection; the connection at tht pole outside; and the integrity of the cables in the surrounding neighborhood. They found no problems, and verified and reported to BKK that I was only getting just over .4 MB. They said BKK would call back; which, of course, did not happen.

I called BKK again 3 days later. After a couple of fruitless reports (and more unfulfilled promisses of a call back), I finally spoke with one of the rare techs there who speaks reasonably good English. He told me that they are having problems all over this area with international connections. However, they have not identified the specific problem; and have no estimate of when they'll do so.

Meanwhile, I continue to pay for 3 MB "Premium" service; and get .4 MB! I'm still more fortunate that you; because this speed does, at least, allow me to use Skype, play Mafia Wars (albeit with frustratingly slow response time), and watch the NFL games (albeit with far less than HD quality of video).

TIT! And it SUCKS!!! This country has some version of all sorts of "modern technology". But NONE of it works even half as well as what we grew used to in the USA or UK; and, when something needs repair, good luck finding a capable source for that!

[frenchfarangjomtien]

The only way to have a chance to always be connected is to pay for 3 internet services, Tot, 3bb, an True...

But it's ok, because it finally cost less than 2000 thb for all and you will be permanently online except big disaster !

I knew from the beginning that it was a stupid idea to pay for any premium or better connection in Thailand, just pay the minimum to any provider and you will be fine, because they are not able to guaranty any faster connection...

Edited December 4, 2010 by frenchfarangjomtien

[miksguevara]

had TOT for a year with no problems the service wasn't available twice in this time...not bad considering all the nightmare stories you hear , the speed was comparable to uk broadband

[JSixpack]

With Sophon you might try using different DNS servers, like OpenDNS or Google. Sorry I don't have time to write details (do some some research), but I've seen a number of similar such problems fixed that way.

[PattayaParent]

Nongprue is a big area, where specifically are you that you are experiencing problems?

Are there others in that specific area with the same problems.

I live in a condo in Nongprue and don't have a problem with TOT service.

[vediovis]

Hi

I'm lucky to have TOT connection today so I can explain a little bit what I learnt these last days.

1/ It seems the TOT problem in the East of Nongprue area is global. We are a lot of people suffering problems here.

2/ It's non sense to go to ask TT&T or 3BB as they rent their equipment from TOT to resell it with their own service.

3/ TRUE seems a good alternative with independent lines and cables and happy users but they don't cover our area in Nonprue. We are near the bridge to the highway, after crossing the railway, and it is too far for them.

4/ It is possible to use an independent provider and to ask for a private line. An independent line at 1MB costs 14,000Thai Baht per month + installation fees. It's very expensive and impossible to test before. You have to sign for 1 year.

5/ CAT can offer an alternative solution but their rates are much higher than the others. I still don;t know if they can cover my area, I will have news this Wednesday. Cat confirmed me Sophon is for Thai Internet and they have poor international bandwidth.

6/ TOT dropped my line during 5 days. They said their offer was for normal usage. We answered we will be happy to have normal usage as for now, we have no usage at all. By the way, we don't download movies or anything,l I'm not a torrent user, I just want to access international pages, my skype and read my emails.

7/ A technician (God bless him) told us yesterday night more reliable and friendly details. He said our line was too weak and he could try to reduce our bandwidth to 3Mb to see if it works. It worked. This morning it was crashed, but we called again to ask to the same and today was OK. I'm happy with 1MB or 2MB when it works, don't need 6 or 8 if it is to have them 1h every 5 days. I pray it will continue working like that.

Anyway I had 2 very useful answers in the forum here: To use 3 connections to switch from one to the other is a very, very good idea. I think I'm going to do that, it will be cheaper than the dedicated line at 14,000 Baht. And yes, I should have tried to use another DNS provider for the slow Sophon connection...

Maybe more news soon

[patsfangr]

Hi

I'm lucky to have TOT connection today so I can explain a little bit what I learnt these last days.

1/ It seems the TOT problem in the East of Nongprue area is global. We are a lot of people suffering problems here.

2/ It's non sense to go to ask TT&T or 3BB as they rent their equipment from TOT to resell it with their own service.

3/ TRUE seems a good alternative with independent lines and cables and happy users but they don't cover our area in Nonprue. We are near the bridge to the highway, after crossing the railway, and it is too far for them.

4/ It is possible to use an independent provider and to ask for a private line. An independent line at 1MB costs 14,000Thai Baht per month + installation fees. It's very expensive and impossible to test before. You have to sign for 1 year.

5/ CAT can offer an alternative solution but their rates are much higher than the others. I still don;t know if they can cover my area, I will have news this Wednesday. Cat confirmed me Sophon is for Thai Internet and they have poor international bandwidth.

6/ TOT dropped my line during 5 days. They said their offer was for normal usage. We answered we will be happy to have normal usage as for now, we have no usage at all. By the way, we don't download movies or anything,l I'm not a torrent user, I just want to access international pages, my skype and read my emails.

7/ A technician (God bless him) told us yesterday night more reliable and friendly details. He said our line was too weak and he could try to reduce our bandwidth to 3Mb to see if it works. It worked. This morning it was crashed, but we called again to ask to the same and today was OK. I'm happy with 1MB or 2MB when it works, don't need 6 or 8 if it is to have them 1h every 5 days. I pray it will continue working like that.

Anyway I had 2 very useful answers in the forum here: To use 3 connections to switch from one to the other is a very, very good idea. I think I'm going to do that, it will be cheaper than the dedicated line at 14,000 Baht. And yes, I should have tried to use another DNS provider for the slow Sophon connection...

Maybe more news soon

Thank for the excellent follow up, Vediovis! I live very close to Wat Suttawat, and concur completely with the points and information you presented in items 1-3 in your note. As I noted earlier, I had CAT here for about 2 years, before switching to 3BB, CAT was nearly double the cost; and about 1/2 as productive in both time, and frequency of disconnections. (In fact, moreso on the latter, since 3BB, while running VERY slow for the last 3 weeks, rarely disconnects - i.e., lights going out on the modem, as CAT did.

What I find most frustrating is the fact that I can get no information from 3BB as to the specific problems causing our poor service here; nor any information as to any estimated schedule to identify and repair those problems. I'm paying 1610 baht per month for a "guaranteed" speed of 2-3 MB for international downloads. I WAS getting about 1.7 up until 3 weeks ago; which covered all of my needs. Now, I get .4 MB; which BARELY allows me to DL what I use most, but at frustratingly slow speed.

If anybody out there here's anything reasonably substantive about any plans to resolve the problems we have in Nongprue, please pass it along. For now, Vediovis, I'm afraid we're stuck with barely adequate service in this "Black Hole" called Nongprue!!

[vediovis]

Hi

After 6 months, I think it is time to give updates about this matter now.

TOT decreased my bandwith saying the line was too weak. We still have a lot of crash, sometimes during days. They have recurrent technical problems in this area. This is not reliable.

Sophon is expensive but works very well for me. It's quite painful to see coming invoice of 10,000Baht for 6 months for a 2Mb/1Mb line, but I have to say it works. It REALLY works. And the support is very good. Technicians are brilliant, smart and competent. Phone support is efficient and can see in real time everything from their infrastructure to my internal wifi. They are good.

After what I wrote 6 months ago, I wanted to say that. The secret is to take the highest package, which is good for international bandwidth.

For the future, we can have hope as I just read:

http://www.pattayaone.net/pattaya-news/26740/ultra-high-speed-internet-coming-to-pattaya/

They promise between 10Mb and 100Mb guaranteed. As it comes from a company everyone seems to be happy with at the moment, we are maybe heading to a very good news for the end of the year.

Cheers to every Internet addict in the area

Edited May 13, 2011 by vediovis

[gguy]

I think all internet providers have problems in certain areas. Sophon is good if you are within 2 or 3 km from office. I do not know about out areas.

It is a good idea to ask the neighbors for the best connections.

All providers have poor international coverage.

[gguy]

Hi

After 6 months, I think it is time to give updates about this matter now.

TOT decreased my bandwith saying the line was too weak. We still have a lot of crash, sometimes during days. They have recurrent technical problems in this area. This is not reliable.

Sophon is expensive but works very well for me. It's quite painful to see coming invoice of 10,000Baht for 6 months for a 2Mb/1Mb line, but I have to say it works. It REALLY works. And the support is very good. Technicians are brilliant, smart and competent. Phone support is efficient and can see in real time everything from their infrastructure to my internal wifi. They are good.

After what I wrote 6 months ago, I wanted to say that. The secret is to take the highest package, which is good for international bandwidth.

For the future, we can have hope as I just read:

http://www.pattayaone.net/pattaya-news/26740/ultra-high-speed-internet-coming-to-pattaya/

They promise between 10Mb and 100Mb guaranteed. As it comes from a company everyone seems to be happy with at the moment, we are maybe heading to a very good news for the end of the year.

Cheers to every Internet addict in the area

I had True ADSL for 2 years and it sucked. Internet was always down. Service was bad.