Star Connext/ip Star

[ChiangMaiThai]

A friend lives in the middle of nowhere and wants hi-speed internet. Is this the best there is right now:

http://www.ji-net.com/index.php?lang=en&pid=78

Is this Star Connext a result of Thaksin's new sattelite or is that not providing service yet? The top speed is 512/128. Is this the best you can do with satellite?

Also, what happens when it rains?

[monty]

It seems to be a result of the new satellite, since before the launch the other offerings (mainly from CSCOMS) were more expensive and had a much smaller download limit (750mb versus star connext's 2048 mb)

In heavy rain you lost signal, but this was when they were using Thaicom 1 or 3, this might be improved on Thaicom4 (Ipstar).

It's just a natural effect of water droplets absorbing the microwaves satellites use, and not just a local Thai phenomena!

They could get much faster speeds through the satellite, but it seems they won't be offering this to regular users at the moment although the transceiver box they use supports up to 2 mbps!

Anyway, one thing they will not be able to improve is the lag involved with satellite connections (unless they make the signals go faster then the speed of light )

Unfortunately this lag places a big damper on the browsing experience, as well as creating annoying delays in VOIP applications...

[ChiangMaiThai]

It seems to be a result of the new satellite, since before the launch the other offerings (mainly from CSCOMS) were more expensive and had a much smaller download limit (750mb versus star connext's 2048 mb)

In heavy rain you lost signal, but this was when they were using Thaicom 1 or 3, this might be improved on Thaicom4 (Ipstar).

It's just a natural effect of water droplets absorbing the microwaves satellites use, and not just a local Thai phenomena!

They could get much faster speeds through the satellite, but it seems they won't be offering this to regular users at the moment although the transceiver box they use supports up to 2 mbps!

Anyway, one thing they will not be able to improve is the lag involved with satellite connections (unless they make the signals go faster then the speed of light  )

Unfortunately this lag places a big damper on the browsing experience, as well as creating annoying delays in VOIP applications...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I understand how VOIP would be affected, but aside from that, how is the browsing experience affected?

[croftrobin]

JINet are provided their current service by CSLoxinfo.

From the end of next month (OCTOBER) (or when the new IPSTAR Satellite is in final position and is working) CSLoxinfo will offer an umlimited package on IPstar for only 1500 baht.

This will be a massive saving for me as I currently subscribe to the 9500 unlimited package.

The new satellite was launched succesfully but is not yet in position (It will replace Thaicom 1 at 120°E) So all current Satellite Internet Users still have their dishes pointing at the Thaicom 2/3 Satellites.

More details once CSLoxinfo roll out the details near the end of this month.

[ChiangMaiThai]

JINet  are provided their current service by CSLoxinfo.

From the end of next month (OCTOBER) (or when the new IPSTAR Satellite is in final position and is working)  CSLoxinfo will offer an umlimited package on IPstar for only 1500 baht.

This will be a massive saving for me as I currently subscribe to the 9500 unlimited package.

The new satellite was launched succesfully but is not yet in position (It will replace Thaicom 1 at 120°E) So all current Satellite Internet Users still have their dishes pointing at the Thaicom 2/3 Satellites.

More details once CSLoxinfo roll out the details near the end of this month.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So is there any reason to go through Ji-net then or are we better off going straight to Loxinfo?

[monty]

Haven't heard yet of any upcoming promotions from Csloxinfo, but it is indeed sound advice to hold of a bit more until the satellite is actually operative!

I'll try to explain why the lag makes surfing the web slow...

Each roundtrip of a data packet from your PC, over the satellite, to Csloxinfo's servers in Bangkok takes 600 msec...

As a comparison, a roundtrip from Pattaya to Csloxinfo's servers in Bangkok takes roughly 50 msec through adsl... A saving of 550msec!

When you type for example www.thaivisa.com in your internet browser, your computer will send a request to your ISP's DNS server to find out the IP adress from the server hosting Thaivisa.com.

The DNS server sends the IP adress back to your PC. First roundtrip of 600 msec...

Then your PC will request the index.html file from that IP adress. I think Thaivisa is hosted in Canada, so count this roundtrip at 1000 msec (=600msec to Bangkok + the 400msec to Canada)

Now your explorer (or firefox) has the html file from Thaivisa, which only holds the layout and the text content from this page.

All other content, such as advertisements (google ads), graphics (all buttons, smileys, etc...) are just links to the servers where these graphics are hosted!

In the case for google ads, another request for the google ip adress has to be sent to the dns server, which means another 600 msec roundtrip, plus 1000 msec roundtrip to get the ad from google's servers...

An average webpage might need more then 20 of these requests going back and forth between your PC and your ISP.

A complex webpage (e.g the msn webpages) can hold more then 50 of these links!

If you count the extra 550msec per roundtrip over satellite, you can see an extra 11 seconds loading time over satellite compared to an adsl line.

Or a whopping 27 seconds extra for a complex page!!!

If the size of the page(in kBytes) is not big, but there are a lot of links in the webpage, you'll get it much faster through a 56k modem then through a 512k satellite link, since your PC will lose more time waiting then actually transferring data!

[croftrobin]

Monty

You are obviously not using IPSTAR yourself as these times are just theoretical.

Here are the ping responses I get when I ping thaivisa.com, and I am using IPSTAR.

C:\>ping thaivisa.com -t

Pinging THAIVISA.COM [69.93.125.25] with 32 bytes of data

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=965ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=815ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=913ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=940ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=804ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=875ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=800ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=932ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=794ms TTL=40

So although there is a delay it as not as long as you are implying.

Certainly ADSL is faster at retreiving pages. But you can not get ADSL (or even a dial up 56k in many places).

I have used IPStar for over 2 1/2 years and am very happy with it.

I use GPRS as a backup or when travelling around Th.

I will be even happier when the prices falls. I spoke to CSLoxinfo earlier this week and thats when they told be about the new prices that will be coming.

Haven't heard yet of any upcoming promotions from Csloxinfo, but it is indeed sound advice to hold of a bit more until the satellite is actually operative!

I'll try to explain why the lag makes surfing the web slow...

Each roundtrip of a data packet from your PC, over the satellite, to Csloxinfo's servers in Bangkok takes 600 msec...

As a comparison, a roundtrip from Pattaya to Csloxinfo's servers in Bangkok takes roughly 50 msec through adsl... A saving of 550msec!

When you type for example www.thaivisa.com in your internet browser, your computer will send a request to your ISP's DNS server to find out the IP adress from the server hosting Thaivisa.com.

The DNS server sends the IP adress back to your PC. First roundtrip of 600 msec...

Then your PC will request the index.html file from that IP adress. I think Thaivisa is hosted in Canada, so count this roundtrip at 1000 msec (=600msec to Bangkok + the 400msec to Canada)

Now your explorer (or firefox) has the html file from Thaivisa, which only holds the layout and the text content from this page.

All other content, such as advertisements (google ads), graphics (all buttons, smileys, etc...) are just links to the servers where these graphics are hosted!

In the case for google ads, another request for the google ip adress has to be sent to the dns server, which means another 600 msec roundtrip, plus 1000 msec roundtrip to get the ad from google's servers...

An average webpage might need more then 20 of these requests going back and forth between your PC and your ISP.

A complex webpage (e.g the msn webpages) can hold more then 50 of these links!

If you count the extra 550msec per roundtrip over satellite, you can see an extra 11 seconds loading time over satellite compared to an adsl line.

Or a whopping 27 seconds extra for a complex page!!!

If the size of the page(in kBytes) is not big, but there are a lot of links in the webpage, you'll get it much faster through a 56k modem then through a 512k satellite link, since your PC will lose more time waiting then actually transferring data!

[monty]

Croft,

I've been using ipstar for a long time until adsl came along in my area

And yes, I was very happy with it, it was indeed an improvement over dial up...

But once you are used to adsl, ipstar seems very slow...

Any page on the forum is completely loaded with graphics/google ads et al within 1 second from hitting enter with my adsl...

This often took 3 to 10 seconds on ipstar, eventhough the speed was rated the same!

And my times are rougly correct. I stated 1000msec roundtrip for Thaivisa, it's a bit quicker at between 815 and 965 msec according to your test...

And you have to remember, a ping command uses ip adresses, which it will first get from the dns server (600msec) and then do the test. The time needed to fetch the ip is not included in the ping time result...

And as I stated before, downloading a page does not consists of 1 roundtrip, but a whole lot of them. Thats what creates the delays...

I never said surfing was impossible with ipstar, its just that a lot of people are dissapointed that they will not get the flashy response times adsl can give you...

As a comparison:

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=265ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=190ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=209ms TTL=40

Reply from 69.93.125.25: bytes=32 time=204ms TTL=40

Cheers,\

Monty

[Nam Kao]

Anybody know if your liable if someone steals your dish?

Thanks

nam

[monty]

Nam Kao,

You've asked this question before...

In short yes, you are liable...

But I simply don't see why anybody would want to steal it....

It's an utterly useless peace of stuff, almost impossible to exchange for cash.

Even if they would steal your transceiver box, it will remain completely useless, as the subscriber numbers are hard coded in the box...

The dish is aluminium coated with plastic, so the old metal dealer would not even buy it. Removing the plastic coating would cost more then the metal is worth....

And it has these big markings IPSTAR on it...

[Nam Kao]

Thanks Monty, tell all that to the locals near me will ya, they are not the brightest bulbs on the tree

How much will replacement cost

nam

[mouse]

From the end of next month (OCTOBER) (or when the new IPSTAR Satellite is in final position and is working) CSLoxinfo will offer an umlimited package on IPstar for only 1500 baht.

Source please! ipStar is mum and will say nothing. I presently pay 5,000 baht a month for the 512/128 package and receive a measely 1.5GB bandwidth per month. It would be nice to get more and be one of the big boys.

[monty]

I'm a bit scared that when they are going to offer cheap unlimited prices, they will also introduce contention...

[girlx]

"they will not get the flashy response times adsl can give you..."

so if you have 256/128 ADSL and you have 256/128 satellite, the satellite will be slower? is it much faster than dial up? do i just misunderstand? i don't care about technical jargon, i just want to know if i visit a site is it going to load faster if i go there with IPStar or if it is basically not much better than dial up. I also do a lot of FTP'ing...

thx

[monty]

Girlx,

Any site wich is heavy on graphics and the works will load faster through ipstar compared to dial-up...

A very simple page such as google will come a bit slower, because you have to wait the initial one or two seconds before things start moving.

It is definately an improvement over dial-up, but not so spectacular as adsl...

In the case of ftp transfers, the ipstar system is simply perfect. It works a charm for downloading one big chunk of data!

on the 256/128 you can expect transfer rates of 30 kBps (=240kbps), which will be at least 6 times faster then dial-up...

Just keep track of the allowed data transfer amount, which at least with Ji-net's offering is relaxed a bit (2Gb)

[girlx]

Excellent, thanks. I would love to hear where the guy above heard that the price is going down in October...?

[croftrobin]

Excellent, thanks. I would love to hear where the guy above heard that the price is going down in October...?

If you read my post then you would have seen the lines:

I will be even happier when the prices falls. I spoke to CSLoxinfo earlier this week and thats when they told be about the new prices that will be coming.

I called them to complain that JINet was offering a cheaper service than the unlimited service I currently have with the them - 7500 compared to 9500 Baht.

Thats when they told me about the new offerings.

But the new sattelites not even in its final position yet - so it may be longer.

[married2surin]

Just how bad is VOIP over satellite ?

I am looking to relocate to Thailand but will need to get Sat (no adsl in my area) in order to work, and would be easier to convince my business partners if I could get a VOIP phone connected and could still work as if I am in the office in the UK ?

Cheers

Mike

[croftrobin]

I would say its workable, - I use various VOIP progs, net2phone & skype primarily and play and discard with others as they appear, I am using IPStar and have done so for nearly 3 years.

Skype can allocate you a Skype IN number and you can try it for a month to suck it and see for only a few quid.

Another company is Vonage, and they are American....nuff said.

I have not tried their service as the last time I looked I had no interest in a New York number!

However for reliable business purposes, I would say at present, it (VOIP from Thailand) can not be relied upon soley, As a back up - just use the mobile - its only 7 baht a minute to call the UK on your mobile. If you use the 009 prefix.

And for the UK to call you (if they use Telediscount to call your mobile (I am assuming that like me you will not be able to get a landline) then its cheaper for them to call you in Thailand than it is for them to call anyone in the UK on a mobile!

Many people are unaware of this, but if you do have a marginal mobile coverage signal in your area, just put up an arial, and buy either a clip on/over attachment (about 95% of modern phones) or plug in type.

*NOTE* You must buy the correct arial for your service provider - DTAC AND AIS are different.

*NOTE 2* This is also a great solution for people using gprs if your coverage is patchy, as the unlimited package from DTAC is only 999 per month,

The cost is minimal (probably about 2500 baht including pole, cable & beer for hole digger, etc)

You wll benefit enormously (from 0-1 bars going up to 3-5 bars) providing the arial points in the correct direction (after storms & strong winds please check that it has not changed -One of my neighbours has expereinced this, Helmut!!)

Voip works for me, BUT I call them, when it suits me (And when the connection suits me)

If you have any questions just pm me.

cheers

Just how bad is VOIP over satellite ?

I am looking to relocate to Thailand but will need to get Sat (no adsl in my area) in order to work, and would be easier to convince my business partners if I could get a VOIP phone connected and could still work as if I am in the office in the UK ?

Cheers

Mike

[Mali_in_CM]

Since the speed of propogation is essentially the same in cable as in free air, I guess the delay through ipstar is the ISP's funky routers.

[monty]

Mali in Cm,

speed of propagation is indeed the same through cable or through air!

However, in the case of iPSTAR, the signal has to travel from your home dish to the iPSTAR satellite, and back down to the iPSTAR servers in Bangkok.

This roundtrip is a whopping 72000 km!!!

A geostationary satellite (such as our communication satellites) are 36000km high when standing right under it, even further if you have to look at an angle.

If you live for example in Phuket, you have a roundtrip of roughly 2000km through adsl, compared to 72000km with iPSTAR or exactly 36 times longer.

In the case of Pattaya the distance trraveled by the signals would be some 340 times longer!

Even at the speed of light this is a difference of some 600msec...

[married2surin]

CroftRobin,

Thanks for the reply, I currently use Skype Out to call Thailand mobiles and landlines from the UK and it is actually better for us than using the local telephone suppliers..... I just home things do not go downhill with them now ebay have bought them.....

The VOIP I was thinking of using would be VPN'd over the Sat to my office in the UK, I have a VOIP handset but it has to VPN'd to the switch inside my office LAN, I have read on here that there are issues with VPNing over sat, is that really the case ? I just wonder if trying to VOIP over VPN is just a step too far for SatDSL...

Vonage BTW now have a .co.uk website and you can choose numbers from pratically any major town in the UK, however it is no-where as cheap as Skype, they do however have a call redirection to another number service if they cannot get you on VOIP which is useful, and may well be the way too go for me if VOIP over VPN is not possible with SatDSL

Cheers

mike

[monty]

Unfortunately, VPN over the iPSTAR system is virtually impossible...

Satellite internet connections use a system called IP spoofing (basically to alleviate some problems in the ip/tcp protocol generated by the high latency), which you have to be able to bypass to establish a VPN connection.

For this you'll need some special help from the iPSTAR engineers, which is close to impossible to get

Read following articles for more info:

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/vpn/f/vpnandsatellite.htm

In short, the only way to establish a decent VPN connection over satellite is to use specialized hardware (expensive...)

http://www.virgintechnologies.com/encore_vpn.htm

[The Coder]

The more I learn about IpStar, the more problems that come out. Even though it may be possible to sort of limp along and do it, it is basically crap when it comes to VOIP, video conferencing, gaming, VPN, browsing rich web sites. One can expect daily outages during the rainy season and you have to be wired to a bulky dish and other hardware. Are there any more skeletons in the closet? And then to hear IpStar customers are going to start getting played the international bandwidth contention game too. Is there a step forward somewhere in all of this? Gotta wonder if it would have been lower cost to blanket the country with WiMax rather than go the Thaicom 4 satellite route, not to mention the associated advantages.

[simey]

I have used IPstar for the last month, and use VPN to connect to my mainframe. Other tahn having to kill Zonelabs while negotiating security properties there is no problem at all. I also use Skype (pc to pc) with a small lag but nothing that is worrying.

[mouse]

In our house in Thailand we have also have used ipStar for more than 2 years now. The recent notification sent out to all customers said that for 5,000 Baht a month we will now receive unlimited monthly bandwith rather than the 1.5GB we were limited to before. We was also told that the new customers will have the same available to them at the slightly higher price of 6,500 Baht per month.

When using the system, we regularly visit heavy content websites and have had no problem getting there quickly and enjoying the material. Download capabilities are more than satisfactory.

Due ot my travel our live video connections also have not suffered while using ipStar.

We are regular Skype user that have rarely had any problems although when calling remote areas the lag can be more noticable. However, when making calls to and from London or New York, we get a better signal then when talking from a GSM connection.

If you look at http://www.ji-net.com/index.php?lang=en&pid=78 and compare their offer of Heavy 2, 512/128kbps, 12,000 Baht, Unlimited Bandwidth, I would certainly wait the few more days to allow ipStar to offer you the same for 6,500 Baht per month. Then for approximately $30 you go to a place like this site and get a domain and at least 20 email boxes, instead of the five offered by ji-net.com.

In the end you will still save substantially. Just be patient! The new offers will be published within a short period of time.

Edited September 25, 2005 by mouse

[girlx]

Then for approximately $30 you go to a place like this site and get a domain

mouse have you used this hosting service? if so, what has been your experience? i need cheaper hosting than i have now but this place accepts payments only via paypal which makes it seem sketchy to me.

does anyone know of cheap hosting that supports cold fusion?

[ChiangMaiThai]

Vonage BTW now have a .co.uk website and you can choose numbers from pratically any major town in the UK, however it is no-where as cheap as Skype, they do however have a call redirection to another number service if they cannot get you on VOIP which is useful, and may well be the way too go for me if VOIP over VPN is not possible with SatDSL

Vonage is so far superior to skype. I pay $25 a month for unlimited calls to the US and Canada and cheap calls to many other countries. Not as cheap as skype, but it always works and the sound quality is 100%. And you can call 800 and 888 numbers which you can't with Skype. I also like that you don't have to talk through your computer. Connects directly to your phone. The big thing is that customers can call us for a cost of a local call in the US and we pay nothing more on this end. (Like skype in). We have 3 numbers in three different states which we pay an extra $5 a month each for. All around, very satisfied. But I use ADSL. Not Satellite.....

[mouse]

Then for approximately $30 you go to a place like this site and get a domain

mouse have you used this hosting service? if so, what has been your experience? i need cheaper hosting than i have now but this place accepts payments only via paypal which makes it seem sketchy to me.

does anyone know of cheap hosting that supports cold fusion?

Oh yes! and they are great but just talked to them and no sorry no Cold Fusion support unless you buy the software. Seems there is no demand and it would cost upward of $800 to install it for one customer.

I mentioned your PayPal concerns to them and they stated that just for you they will make special arrangements.java script:emoticon(':P')

smilie

I think for a total of $26.88 per year, you get the domain and the Starter package which is more than sufficient for most users. Their top of the line packages are $180 a year but have two domains and everything your little heart could desire other than Cold Fusion support. Look for yourself at http://www.99cent-host.com/prices.html

They do support the following (this is copied out of my cpanel):

Blogs

b2evolution

Nucleus

pMachine Free

WordPress

Drupal

Geeklog

Mambo Open Source

PHP-Nuke

phpWCMS

phpWebSite

Post-Nuke

Siteframe

Typo3

Xoops

Customer Relationship

Crafty Syntax Live Help

Help Center Live

osTicket

PHP Support Tickets

Support Logic Helpdesk

Support Services Manager

Discussion Boards

phpBB2

SMF

E-Commerce

CubeCart

OS Commerce

Zen Cart

F.A.Q.

FAQMasterFlex

Guestbooks

ViPER Guestbook

Image Galleries

4Images Gallery

Coppermine Photo Gallery

Gallery

Mailing Lists

PHPlist

Polls and Surveys

Advanced Poll

phpESP

PHPSurveyor

Project Management

dotProject

PHProjekt

Site Builders

Soholaunch Pro Edition

Wiki

TikiWiki

PhpWiki

Dew-NewPHPLinks

Moodle

Noahs Classifieds

Open-Realty

phpAdsNew

PHPauction

phpCOIN

phpFormGenerator

WebCalendar

[Guest RealEstateBroker]

Vonage BTW now have a .co.uk website and you can choose numbers from pratically any major town in the UK, however it is no-where as cheap as Skype, they do however have a call redirection to another number service if they cannot get you on VOIP which is useful, and may well be the way too go for me if VOIP over VPN is not possible with SatDSL

Vonage is so far superior to skype. I pay $25 a month for unlimited calls to the US and Canada and cheap calls to many other countries. Not as cheap as skype, but it always works and the sound quality is 100%. And you can call 800 and 888 numbers which you can't with Skype. I also like that you don't have to talk through your computer. Connects directly to your phone. The big thing is that customers can call us for a cost of a local call in the US and we pay nothing more on this end. (Like skype in). We have 3 numbers in three different states which we pay an extra $5 a month each for. All around, very satisfied. But I use ADSL. Not Satellite.....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>