True Ultra Hi-Speed Internet

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Is it possible to sign up for the Ultra Hi speed internet package or ADSL package without having a 12 months contract in Bangkok? Can I transfer the contract to another condo for example after 6 months if I sign up for a 1 year deal? Assuming that both condos have true cable TV or whatever one uses to connect the modem/router to.

The True Online internet and TrueVisions Cable TV services are separate services.... both run by True.

The way they intersect is... you can have access to TrueVisions cable tv and possibly not have access to True Online, depending on if True has provisioned the Internet service to your neighborhood.

But if you have access to True Online Internet (which comes into your home via the same cable as their cable TV service), then you certainly would also have access to TrueVisions cable TV.

I don't think True Online has any problem with transferring a customer's service from one location to a new location after moving, assuming they also service the new location. As long as you're still paying the bill, I don't think they mind.

As for the issue of 12 month contracts, I'm not sure where True Online and TrueVisions are on that point these days. Best to inquire with their CSRs... They may have contract periods for a customer's initial service. But once you're already with them, it's not like they keep rolling over new one-year contracts year after year.

AFAIK, once you've already been with them for more than one year, you can do whatever you want -- unless you've made some kind of service agreement to the contrary somewhere along the way.

I recently canceled by True DSL service after having had it for some years, and there was no complication. Just call and cancel. They didn't even ask for the old True modem back. Likewise, when I canceled TrueVisions a year or so back after having had it for some years, again no complication. Just took a month or so to get my original cable box deposits returned.

[muratremix]

i get 20/2 trueultra in my mooban, which is far from farang populated areas. i get full speed when i download from usenet or http. Ping times to us/eu also nice!

[tinfoilhat]

dns resolution seems to be hit and miss lately even using google's servers. today it is intermittently painfully slow, yet files are banging down from my seedbox at 33.3 mbps (full speed)

[infernalman7]

True is not cheating; the problem is with the speedtest programs.

If all speedtest programs were written to prevent files from being downloaded from cache servers and instead download from the server at the intended location then the results would be accurate/real world. Nothing wrong in employing cache servers in a network as these type of servers really speedup internet use; speedtesting programs like Speedtest.net just need to improve/fix their programming.

I would much rather be with an ISP that does use cache servers which speeds up things versus one that does not spend the extra money on cache servers. A person just needs to be aware that when using some speedtest programs like Speedtest.net that the speedtest results can be skewed/fooled/inaccurate.

This is the best post I've seen in a while on ThaiVisa. I'm sick of people conjecturing on about things they can't even comprehend.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

We might debate as to whether True is "cheating" or not... But suffice to say, I think they're happy to let the current situation and the very widespread misinterpretations of their speed test results persist.

[negreanu]

Anyone in Sukhumvit 103 wit DOCSIS?

The availability list that they give online in no way represents where is actually available. Especially the sukhumvit soi's mentioned.

Edited September 6, 2012 by negreanu

[muratremix]

Anybody having transparent proxy problems whn surfing? That is, not being able to load some images, css files, partially loaded websites, websites may not open in first try etc?

My only solution is using a proxy server on usa to avoid transparent server.

[kotsak]

dns resolution seems to be hit and miss lately even using google's servers. today it is intermittently painfully slow, yet files are banging down from my seedbox at 33.3 mbps (full speed)

Had the same problems lately until I swtiched to OpenDNS servers.. Looks better now..

[mikewet88]

Saw a new package came out 15mbps down / 1.5mbps up for 899baht +vat.

Wife called and ask for upgrade from current 10mbps. Free Truevision decoder +knowledge package, free installation on 2nd point. CS said installer will came sometime this week.

Will update more.

Link: http://trueonline.truecorp.co.th/packagedetail/234/%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%B4%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A8%E0%B8%A9%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%8B%E0%B9%87%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B8%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%B8%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%A1_15_Mbps.%E0%B9%81%E0%B8%84%E0%B9%88_899_%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%97_%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%B7%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%99_%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%9F%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B9%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%B1%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%AA%E0%B9%8C_72_%E0%B8%8A%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%87

[tinfoilhat]

Saw a new package came out 15mbps down / 1.5mbps up for 899baht +vat.

Wife called and ask for upgrade from current 10mbps. Free Truevision decoder +knowledge package, free installation on 2nd point. CS said installer will came sometime this week.

Will update more.

Link: http://trueonline.tr...72_ช่อง

watch them, they will try to overlap service and nail you for both packages, apparent billing cycle starts on the 3rd, try to be as close to that as you can. i speak from experience.

[muratremix]

Since yesterday True is testing / implementing new policy on True cable internet.

My line is 20/2 mbit and I can download from usenet 2.5 MBytes/sec. Now my line can burst up to 5Mbytes/sec for short intervals to make up to the seconds I download less than 2.5 Mbytes. So if somehow my download speed falls from my average, it bursts over 3-4Mb/sec to help me achieve 2.57 Mb/sec download speed.

The interesting thing is, when I do speedtest via speedtest.net, I get 43 Mbit (and 5-7 ms ping of course) download speed and 2.1 mbit upload speed (upload speed not affected). It seems by allowing burst speed, True aims us to improve surfing / video loading speed dramatically. This is a huge step, if it stays this way.

[Pib]

Good info...thanks for noticing this. Actually, there has been some bursting capability there for a while, at least for me on the upload speed...at least for 6 months but nothing like the result you show for the download speed. I use to have the DOCSIS 20Mb/2Mb plan but I switched to their DOCSIS 14Mb/1.4Mb plan about a month ago under a B699/month promotion...under this promotion the monthly cost for the 20Mb/2Mb plan stayed at the current B1,299/month...don't know why they didn't lower that plan's cost also.

Anyway, while on the 20Mb plan and the 14Mb plan I didn't see any download bursting speed as shown by speedtest.net on a Bangkok server test (I'm also in Bangkok), but it was not uncommon for me to see my 2Mb upload readout speed burst up to 3Mb during the test, a few times approach 4Mb and one time almost 5Mb. Email with attachments of a few megabytes have always uploaded so fast for me with my DOCSIS plan.

However, but just before speedtest would finish its upload test you would see the upload speed drop to approx 2.4Mb and the final result would report approx 2.4Mb. And when testing on my new 14Mb plan I wouldn't see any download bursting but once again see the upload bursting in the 2-3Mb ballpark for my 1.4Mb upload speed and the end result would be approx 1.6Mb. Note: if a person watched the graphical display during the tests you could see download bursting spikes but the spikes were brief and the numerical readout didn't change during the test to reflect these spikes like it would change for the upload.

OK, I was going to do a speedtest.net test and do a screen capture while the upload test was running to visually backup my words above, but when I did the speedtest I didn't see the bursting of upload speed that I always see/was talking about...and what I got instead on my DOCSIS 14Mb/1.4Mb plan is shown below....that is, a 22.6Mb download and 1.5Mb upload with no bursting noticed on the upload but obviously the download did some serious bursting which was long enough to cause a high speedtest result. I did below test with the True proxy server turned Off to avoid any impacts of the proxy. Note: With the True proxy server turned off Speedtest.net Flash-based tester can be easily fooled.

DOCSIS 14Mb/1.4Mb Plan Results With True Proxy Off

OK, now time to do the test with the Proxy server On which would always prevent the bogus results, especially for testing international sites. Wow, download speed got even faster and I didn't see any upload speed bursting like I use to see.

DOCSIS 14Mb/1.4Mb Plan Results With True Proxy On

OK, I mentioned speedtest results to international sites....let me run tests to San Francisco with the Proxy Turned On and then Off. I won't post the results display but what I got was download and upload speeds real close to above results but with bogus/faster-than-light ping time with the Proxy turned Off (like 15ms...like the server is across the soi) but with Proxy turned On I got a valid ping time of 225ms. So, it appears this download bursting is also occuring if using their proxy.

As mentioned Flash-based speedtester like Speedtest.net can be easily fooled by cache servers and result in bogus results. I went to http://testmy.net/ speedtester which is not flash-based and also randomizes the data flow to prevent result skewing by cache servers and got below result to the Central U.S. (Default Location) server...this is about normal for this time of day...later on, at least for me, by testmy.net result will climb up to around 2.5Mb down....or at least it has in the very recent past (i.e., last few days)unless this new True bursting is affecting international speeds in some strange way.

I agree it sure appears True DOCSIS is now doing something to cause this download bursting which is a good thing, very good thing, because if the content/web page you are going to happens to be on a local server then bursting the info to you at a speed much higher than you plan's normal speed is a very good thing. But then again, maybe there isn't any new bursting going on; instead, it's just some system change that confuse/skews Flash-based speedtester like Speedtest.net. But I'll be on the positive side and say I sure hope this apparent bursting is indeed real and not just a speedtester being fooled.

Again, thanks for noticing this. For web browsing this bursting capability can really speed up how fast a web page loads on you computer, especially if the content happens to be cached/mirrored on a local server. And it can kinda make you feel like you are getting the advantages of a higher speed plan while only paying for a lower speed plan. All good.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Pib

[kotsak]

Since we're talking about True internet services, just a word of advice related to the monthly bills. True charges for services that will be provided in the coming monthly billing cycle, in other words you pay in advance. If you cancel a service seems it's the customer's responsiblity to request the refund for services not rendered, otherwise they won't say a word. At least that's what I found out from personal experience.

Edited October 22, 2012 by kotsak

[Pib]

Since we're talking about True internet services, just a word of advice related to the monthly bills. True charges for services that will be provided in the coming monthly billing cycle, in other words you pay in advance. If you cancel a service seems it's the customer's responsiblity to request the refund for services not rendered, otherwise they won't say a word. At least that's what I found out from personal experience.

You are basically paying for the current month in advance but you have until around th 25th of that month to pay the bill, or at least that the way it is for me on the TrueOnline and TrueVisions accounts. Like the current month of October, both bills showed up in the mail box around the 10th with payment due no later than date of 25 Oct for the TrueOnline acct and 24 Oct for the TrueVisions account.

Now for me, I've never had an issue in in the bill being prorated if cancelling/switching during the month, if done early enough in the month. I didn't have to ask...in fact they pointed it out to me what would happen. But if you cancel/switch plans later in the month you very well may not get prorated or refund for the unused days....that's what happened to me with switching from TrueVisions Satellite to TrueVisions Cable. Seems like a lot things bought on a monthly/annual premium (even auto insurance) won't be prorated/partially refund unless canceled say during the first half to three-quarters of the bill cycle.

In closing, I won't go into two horror stories I've had with TrueVisions in getting back settop box deposits. They will tell you approx 30-45 days after the box is turned in, but for me (actually the TrueVisions account is in the Thai wife's name) it took almost 6 months the first time and exactly 100 days the second time...and without several visits to their service center to follow-up on the status of the refunds we may not have ever got the refunds. Maybe just bad luck; you see other posters who got their deposit refunds promptly.

[Pib]

You know, whether any downloading bursting is occurring or not my web browsing sure is more zippy today....it's always pretty zippy to most sites, but today/right now web pages just seem to blam!!!--pop on the screen. I noticed this earlier on the morning before I read muratremix's post about the apparently bursting. And the more I think about it, yesterday was a good and fast internet day also browsing-wise.

Hopefully it's just not True DOCSIS having a few really good speed days; instead, it's some DOCSIS upgrade that will result in permanent, faster performance--but I'm not holding my breath. What I wish True (and all Thai ISPs) would upgrade is their international speed....probably no hardware/international gateway upgrade really required...just a matter of buying more international bandwidth....one can hope.

[negreanu]

but today/right now web pages just seem to blam!!!--pop on the screen.

DNS server performance.

[Pib]

but today/right now web pages just seem to blam!!!--pop on the screen.

DNS server performance.

Could be...who really knows...could be Speedtest.net is getting really confused, but as mentioned in my earlier post it's never been confused before from basic testing between my Bangkok residence and the speedtest Bangok server. But I use the True default DNS servers...I've tried Google and OpenDNS servers before and I got faster results with the True DNS servers according to various DNS benchmarking programs like NameBench and DNSBenck. Plus even local/in-Thailand web sites are popping on the screen faster where DNS server performance would probably be less of a factor.

Did a few more Speedtest.net tests a few minutes ago....that download burst is still occuring even at this peak internet usage time of around 8pm in Thailand. For example, getting almost 24Mb download speed on my 14Mb/1.4Mb DOCSIS plan.

[muratremix]

Pib,

Could it be your wifi signal is limiting your speedtest result? My speedtest result doubled from 20 Mbit to 40+ mbit, as yours should (if you have docsis 3.0 modem perhaps?).

[Pib]

My True-provided Thomson Wifi modem/router is a DOCSIS 2.0 version...it was provided to me when I was on still on the 20Mb plan, and I kept it on the switch to the 14Mb plan. It could just be the different speed plans...it could be the Wifi router...and of course it could be just some DOCSIS change that is really not causing bursting but instead just making Speedtest.net think there is a faster, short term speed. It's hard telling with these flash-based/OOKLA speed testers that seem to give noticeably different results to servers in the same city sometimes.

My Wifi router is laptop are on different ends of my concrete house and on different stories of the house....router upstairs shooting the signal through two concrete walls and a floor to reach my laptop downstairs...so maybe this reduced signal strength is also having an effect. Later on, I'll take the laptop upstairs next to the router, and maybe do a hard wire connnecton, to see what I get....if the speed gets up to around 28Mb then that means about a 100% increase like you are getting versus my current 70% increase. But before when putting the laptop close to the router it would only sometimes increase the speed by a hair since the signal strength I was getting downstairs was still good....but I check later and see what happens.

But doing a test just now/this morning with the concrete still separating my router and laptop, below is what I'm getting for my 14Mb/1.4Mb plan according to Speedtest.net and also the TOT Speedtester at Link. Whether there is bursting going on or not, these two speedtester sure think so and could very well be right....they sure never reported results like this below where I'm achieving so much above my plan's advertised in-Thailand speed...below they would only report about 5% above the max speed (e.g., 14Mb plan reported 15Mb and 20Mb plan report 21.4Mb) compared to the current 70% above.

OK, I decided to get off my butt and carry my laptop upstairs and do a Speedtest.net test again standing next to the router....below is what I got...basically the same as being downstairs...as mentioned this Thomson 802.11g router gives good signal coverage. I may try a hard wired connection between the router and my laptop later on today to see if get an approx 100% increase like you are seeing on your 20Mb plan....but I'm already tickled to death in getting an apparent 70% increase on my 14Mb plan...don't know if I could stand to be even more tickled.

[Pib]

Ok, it's a little after 3pm and ran below tests with a hard wire connection vs a Wifi connection.

Result was Yes, I'm getting over a 100% increase in speed on my 14Mb plan due to the bursting or whatever is going on such as the flash-based tests possibly being fooled due to the DOCSIS system tweak. When using Speedtest.net the needle actually climbs up to around 40Mb and the tapers off to a final reading of approx 30Mb. And on the TOT speedtester the needle climbs to around 45Mb and then tapers off to around 30Mb. I sure hope this speed increase don't hurt my computer.

[muratremix]

Speedburst is noticable when you download somethings. When your download speed falls below average, burst comes in and increases your download speed. Thats how I maintain 2.57 mb/s avg. download speed on usenet. Before, it was 2.54 mb/s max, not average.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Not sure what the above results are supposed to mean, other than more silliness from Speedtest.net....

Here's what I got 9 am this morning with a direct hardwire connection to my True cable modem on the 14 Mbps plan. Nothing different or special about the outside Thailand results.

Though the local Speedtest.net results do, as others posted above, show about a 50% higher number than my plan's supposed rated speed...

Speedtest.net to BKK server

TestMyNet to West Coast U.S. server

Microsoft to U.S. Data Center

DSL Reports.com to Palo Alto, CA

Edited October 27, 2012 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Pib]

TallGuy,

Any idea what that "....of about 36.8Mbps" represents in the MS Data Center image? Maybe the max/peak bursting speed it sensed, but then excluded all these peaks/bursts along with the dips/valleys in speed to give the average Achieved Download Speed of 1.40Mbps?

Pib

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Pib, I believe that figure you're asking about in the MS test results is related to their "capacity" calculation for the Internet connection being tested. I don't think it has any direct relation to the peak download speed attained during any particular testing sequence.The MS test website includes the following mention:

Capacity: This test measures your potential maximum download and upload speeds. It uses UDP/8090.

Edited October 27, 2012 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Pib]

Pib, I believe that figure you're asking about in the MS test results is related to their "capacity" calculation for the Internet connection being tested. I don't think it has any direct relation to the peak download speed attained during any particular testing sequence.The MS test website includes the following mention:

Capacity: This test measures your potential maximum download and upload speeds. It uses UDP/8090.

To determine capacity I guess MS is evaluating something they measure during the test. Have you seen such a high capacity figure before this apparent bursting began to appear on the DOCSIS connection? I just did a test to the MS Singapore server and got 10Mb download speed out of a 26Mb capacity. Then I immediately did a Speedtest.net test to Singapore and got a 24Mb download speed. Each test pretty close on that high 24-26Mb number taking in consideration testing to the same city/location but of course on different servers and using a different test programs. Maybe the capacity of the connection MS is calculating is basically determined by the bursting speed it measures during the test...the same bursting speed showing up on Speedtest.net . I don't know...just guessing now. Cheers.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Not sure this will help clarify things any, but I re-ran the MS speed test tonight using my Wifi N connected laptop, and looked more closely at the details..

This time the figure I got relative to your question above was 28 Mbps, which the results describe as "estimated download bandwidth." Maybe the maximum theoretical potential of the connection? But there's also "download capacity" of 8.7 Mbps and "upload capacity" of 1.48 Mbps. (See the first image below.)

The MS results' details section lists a bunch of different figures, but it's not immediately clear what exactly they're all supposed to mean, or how they interrelate.

What I took away from the results was that 9 pm on a Satursday night, I was getting speed test results of 738 Kbps down and 1.53 Mbps up to the USA.

But, I had an idea and ran a different measurement to see about your "burst" hypothesis, and my results don't show any indication that's the figure MS is measuring. After the first speedtest above, I ran the same test a second time, and using my Speed Meter program that records, among other things, the "maximum transfer rate," which came in at only 928 Kbps for an overall speedtest download rate of 700+ Kbps on the second speed test. In other words, during that speedtest, the peak download rate topped out at 928 Kpbs... Hardly a 28 Mbps burst of anything...

Edited October 27, 2012 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Pib]

Interesting. I reinstalled NetWorx (I had uninstalled it before because I thought it was causing me problems). Anyway, what I did was to use Speedtet.net to their Bangkok server and then just used the NetWorx to clock the speed during the Speedtest.net download. Repeat, during the download only.

So, I used the Networx Speed Meter like a stopwatch...clicked start at the being of the Speedtest.net download test and clicked stop at the very end...didn't care about the upload portion...if I let the Networx stopwatch continue to run during the upload test it started lowering part of Networx results for the download test .

As you'll see on the results below I was getting a maximum transfer speed (a.k.a., bursting) of over 3 MegaBytes (or 24 Megabits)...and a little over 24Mb was what the Speedtest.net result posted. It would have probably been up around 28-30Mb if I had taken the laptop upstairs right next to the Wifi router or did a hardwire connection like I did in earlier tests which I posted about. Remember, when viewing below Networx results, disregarded the Outgoing and Total Results as I had already stopped the Networx test at he end of the Speedtest.net download test...only look a the Incoming results which show the speed during the download portion of the Speedtest.net test....results which appear to show bursting with a measurement of over 24Mb (a.k.a., 3MB)

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Pib, try the same test using some non-Thailand test source other than Speedtest.net.

I reran the same test last night a second time using the same Speedmeter app to measure the MS USA speedtest download, and got a 176 KBytes per second maximum/peak download rate, which is equal to about 1.375 Mbps. Nothing remarkable there.

The average download rate for that brief test, about 15b seconds, rate was 68.4 KBytes.

BTW, you can set that app to measure in either bytes or bits under its Settings menu... I tend to set it to bits in order to be comparable with the ISP plan measurement amounts.

Edited October 28, 2012 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[mikewet88]

I too have the higher speed than my package (15mbps down and 1.5mbps up)

it seem like the uncapped speed. I tested on my sister inlaw place. Same mooban. Also 23MB/s download. She is on 599 baht package.

[Pib]

TallGuy,

No, I'm not trying to saying anyone will get extended, faster access to all international sites....I don't expect they will although they should see certain internet browsing activities and small file downloads speed-up somewhat to international websites. I know I have since this bursting on DOCSIS apparently began very recently. But to in-country/some regional sites people should see very noticeable speed increases in how fast their websites are displayed...and even download speeds for smaller files.

When I do a speed test to a faroff international site and say it gives me 2Mb, Networx will report approx the same Average Transfer Rate. Since Networx is basically a speedtester with its own algorithm which disregards certain highs and lows in calculating its "average" speed, its results will be somewhat different that what another speedtester like Speedtest.net would report which uses its own algorithm, how many times it samples the transfer rate, etc. Different measurement algorithms means different results....but at least the Speedtest.net results and Average Transfer Speed result for Networx seem to be well within the same ballpark for "short time periods like in the up to 10-15 second ballpark" which is proabably about the length of time this DOCSIS bursting continues to occur before stops the bursting. Oh, at least that the results I'm getting on my connection.

It's just the bursting appears to occur when the content you are going after is cached/mirrored on in-country/regional servers which is becoming more common. For example, what I did just now was to do a Speedtest.net test to Bangkok, Singapore and San Francisco. I used the the Networx SpeedMeter like a stopwatch to measure the download speed while Speedtest.net was doing it's test but during download speed portion only. I Started the SpeedMeter right after the Speedtest.net Ping test completed and then Stopped the SpeedMeter upon the completion of the download test....I would click the stop button when the little ball on line going between the Speedtest Pyramid and Man reached the man and made him flash. I then waited a few more seconds to let the Speedtest complete it upload test, which I was not clocking/measuring on the SpeedMeter, since I didn't want that test to affect the "Average" download speed obtained during the download test.

Below is what I got. I placed the Speedtest.net and Networx results side by side in below images....remember, when looking at the Network results only look at the Incoming Results since I stopped the Speedmeter upon completion of the Incoming tests. Notice I got bursting from my home location/Bangkok to the Bangkok and Singapore servers...with high a high "Maximum Transfer Speed" (a.k.a., Bursting) and a high "Average Transfer" speed which was pretty close to the Speedtest.net final Download speed result. Now, when doing this testing to San Francisco (out of country/region) there was little to no bursting with the SpeedTest.net download result falling between the Networx Average and Maximum Transfer rates.

One final note on the use of the word bursting, I don't necessarily mean like a burst in the milliseconds only, but it can actually be much longer...say over 10 seconds....which is great for browsing/surfing the internet since single web pages of only a few megabytes can get download & displayed much faster. In my googling on bursting I found others who said they ISP was apparently using bursting up to 10-15 seconds to improve their service. And I guess this extended bursting period is why Speedtest.net and other Flash/OOKLA based testers are now reporting these much higher speeds on True DOCSIS since these speedtesters usually complete the download portion of their test in less than 10 seconds, be it a slow or fast connection.

Here's my Speedtest.net and Incoming NetWorx results from on my DOCSIS 14Mb/1.4Mb plan at around 11am this morning.

Bangkok to Bangkok

Bangkok to Singapore

Bangkok to San Francisco