Tot Adsl.. Lowest Contention / Good Packages

[LivinLOS]

Have to admit over the years havent had the greatest luck with TOT.. Poor lines, couples with oversubscribed services.

Now moved into a new house.. Has a TOT ADSL setup, which I understand to be platinumcyber.

Upgraded the modem, and the line is actually looking stable.. Pings working all day and the line not up and down.. So the physical part of my connection might be ok. Its a new exchange and new cabling in the area so may be lucky on that front.

However even on the platinum package I am getting very up and down speedtests.. And skype video is fairly low def.. Basically I am not getting the speed of the package (expected really) and having had a superb 3bb premier line in my last place, where I got rock solid and high speed net all the time I am just spoilt.

Does TOT offer any better contention packages ?? If the lines stable seems to me like I just need to pay for a better ISP part of the equation ??

I just battled around the awful TOT sites.. Cant find a page with summary information on packaged and pricing ? What are the 8/1 packages like, its line stability and contention I am most bothered by, a 3 - 5 Mbit line is fine, if its got 99.999 uptime.

[Wavefloater]

TOT has been absolute garbage lately for me in Ban Amphur. It's very slow and the line drops about 25-50 times a day. I've never bothered to change it from the original 2-Mb / 512-Kb (goldcyber) package and was wondering if that's part of the problem. I actually had pretty good performance with this setup for a long time, but over the past few months it's been getting worse and worse. Today, I'm thinking of going to the office and getting it changed to a 4Mb or 6 Mb package. Has anybody been in a similar situation, and if so, did changing to a faster speed help?

[LivinLOS]

TOT has been absolute garbage lately for me in Ban Amphur. It's very slow and the line drops about 25-50 times a day. I've never bothered to change it from the original 2-Mb / 512-Kb (goldcyber) package and was wondering if that's part of the problem. I actually had pretty good performance with this setup for a long time, but over the past few months it's been getting worse and worse. Today, I'm thinking of going to the office and getting it changed to a 4Mb or 6 Mb package. Has anybody been in a similar situation, and if so, did changing to a faster speed help?

For me its always been better to pay for lower contention than higher speeds..

Sharing 6Mbit lines 100:1 or a 3Mbit line 5:1 I know which I want.

[Pib]

I can't say for sure, but in my googling/reading ISP web sites/etc., I think the TOT contention/user ratio is around 50 to 1 and to the best of my knowledge they don't have special, lower contention packages unless you go with one of their business packages/leased lines. When I was on the TOT Goldcyber 2Mb package a couple years ago, it sucked!...I canceled after about 6 weeks. Switched to a JI-NET 2Mb Bizconext package that had a 10 to 1 contention ration, worked good, but it was a pricey at almost 2000 Baht/month. After about 15 months I decided to give TOT another try since they had just come out with their new 4Mb package at 590 Baht....was hoping they had upgraded their system...and the 4Mb plan worked fine for me. They recently automatically upgraded me to the 6Mb speed which is also 590 Baht now...and it also works fine. I get 5.2Mb speeds in-Thailand and consistent 1-2Mb speeds (sometimes higher) to international sites...and on the 6Mb plan YouTube type video pause a lot less...they still paused pretty frequently under the 4Mb plan...and even the JINET 2Mb low contention plan. When using a download manager I easily pull down 3-4Mb speeds on the TOT 6Mb plan. But to sum it up, both the TOT 4Mb and 6Mb plans have worked just fine and been 99% plus reliable here in western Bangkok. I don't have any choice other than using TOT, or one of its ISP concessionaires like JINET, because TOT owns/rules the lines in my area. But your results may vary as location, location, location makes a big internet difference in Thailand for people on the exact same plan due to local equipment/lines/bandwidth the ISP has in that location.

[lomatopo]

All this talk of contention ratios used to be valid when there was a single/dual E1 uplink on the back of the DSLAM. Now as most are on GE uplinks its really not a factor. Almost any port on your TOT serving DSLAM can be provisioned all the way up to 24 Mbps/1 MBPS. If you want better performance you'll have to look at an ISP who can provide service on your TOT fixed line. You may be able to get acceptable performance but will be costly.

[Wavefloater]

Thanks for the replies to my questions.

I'll go see the TOT people today and try one of the faster connections.

If I don't see any improvement, I'm sure you'll hear me whimpering about it.

[Pib]

All this talk of contention ratios used to be valid when there was a single/dual E1 uplink on the back of the DSLAM. Now as most are on GE uplinks its really not a factor. Almost any port on your TOT serving DSLAM can be provisioned all the way up to 24 Mbps/1 MBPS. If you want better performance you'll have to look at an ISP who can provide service on your TOT fixed line. You may be able to get acceptable performance but will be costly.

Not to argue your statement about "almost any port can be provisioned all the way up to 24Mb/1Mb," I wonder why the ISPs, including TOT, just don't go this route for all areas with all their DSLAMs currently inplace. The max speed to my Bangkok moobaan (which is high end homes with almost everyone being VERY well off Thai's) is 6Mb...and up to less than two months ago it was only 4Mb. This 6Mb max speed has been confirmed with the TOT main service center, a local TOT branch, neighbors who have tied to get higher speed packages, and several times face to face with different TOT technicians that I see in the neighborhood every week or so do some kind of work. The lines and junction boxs in the moobaan look to be in good shape. I know me and several of my neighbors on the same street frequently bug TOT about getting a higher speed package but the answer is almost always something along the lines of "coming soon." But the only thing that came semi-soon was the moobaan going from a 2Mb max to 4Mb max about a year ago...and a few months ago from 4Mb to 6Mb max.

Wonder what the answer is? Equipment, quotas for an area, etc.? I don't know. But it seems like if there are people who have even submitted paperwork for highspeed packages like 8Mb or 12Mb (like me) and ready to pay the increased price, TOT would make that happen quick unless the equipment in my local area is limited for whatever reason, not cost effective to upgrade/replace right now, etc. Don't know...just wondering. Cheers.

[LivinLOS]

Well while the TOT web pages are information lite.. I can clearly see they have 'cyber type packages with 512 uplink.. and more advanced packages with 1Mbit uplink..

Usually the high cost ones are by definition lower contention.

Otherwise will install a 3BB line and load balancing router.

[sarahsbloke]

TOT stopped working at my house, 1 month later it wasn't working after calling every day.

I canceled, still had to pay for 2 months of no service though.

They are useless at fixing problems, but good when it works.

Edited December 7, 2010 by sarahsbloke