Routers-Internet Reception

[Raindancer]

I have a simple question and I hope that this is the correct forum. Does the type of router you have affect the speed of download or upload from the internet.

Grateful for any knowledge that might be imparted. I have the basic 3BB router provided by this company and purchased as a package with my 6MB deal.. I am using an IMAC ( apple) computer.

Many thanks

Edited March 29, 2011 by Raindancer

[garyh]

More likely it is just poor get what you pay for 3BB connection.

[Raindancer]

More likely it is just poor get what you pay for 3BB connection.

Sorry that is a non generic answer. I have tried TOT ...AIS 3g complete with wireless router. And guess what True vision tried to sign me up their internet...when I asked if they covered my area, all they would say was "Sure...no problem". When I told them I lived in Sansai they said ..."yes we give coverage for your area....but not for internet..... So it is not for the lack of trying that I have exhausted various companies. And DTAC cannot give me internet.

So I do not believe that this problem is specific to 3BB. I tried their enhanced package of almost 2000 baht per month and actually the service/reception of their internet was worse than the basic package of 623.00 baht per month for the 6MB service.

Any other ideas to answer my question and not be so generic about 3BB. My question was about routers and their "power" to deliver a stronger signal, irrespective of service providers. But thanks for your input anyway.

Edited March 29, 2011 by Raindancer

[garyh]

If you on the 699 baht a month it is not good, even the local Thai's around here know that. Do some searching here on Thai Visa you will see you are not alone.

[Mugg]

goto the link at the main menu on this site and click speed test Bangkok server I have 3BB

Last Result:

Download Speed: 8050 kbps (1006.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 180 kbps (22.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 45 ms

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 5:51:09 PM

[Raindancer]

If you on the 699 baht a month it is not good, even the local Thai's around here know that. Do some searching here on Thai Visa you will see you are not alone.

Obviously you have read my reply which indicates that I have exhausted almost every avenue...If you know of something better, then I would welcome your advice and experience of where or what I should try next. And yes I have read TV comments n this subject,....but it all comes down to where you live and is therefore dependent on the provider and area of reception.

Every area differs among the different providers and can also differ within a 1 Km area of the same providers and levels of service.

As far as consulting Thais....that is something I have tried and their requirements are different to mine as they only wish to have internet in and around Thailand. Even business owners whom I have consulted seem to be perplexed as to what is best and what is on offer.

Thanks.

[CMSteve]

All the major companies here are relatively the same. It all depends on how far your are to the hardware and the lines that connect you. I've tried all the major companies DSL services and 3BB is the best at one locations and True is best at another location.

Simple answer to your question about the router, is you can adjust the amount of power to output from the router. It can put out a stronger signal if you raise the Tx value, However, you may not be able to send that far with your laptop or wireless dongle.. Kinda like a cell phone. The tower signal may be able to reach you, but the phone may not have the power to reach the antennae, causing a bad signal.

Try to run a couple of speed test while connected by a lan cable, then try to run a couple of speeds tests while connected wirelessly. That will you if its something to do with wireless or something to do with the ISP.

More likely it is just poor get what you pay for 3BB connection.

Sorry that is a non generic answer. I have tried TOT ...AIS 3g complete with wireless router. And guess what True vision tried to sign me up their internet...when I asked if they covered my area, all they would say was "Sure...no problem". When I told them I lived in Sansai they said ..."yes we give coverage for your area....but not for internet..... So it is not for the lack of trying that I have exhausted various companies. And DTAC cannot give me internet.

So I do not believe that this problem is specific to 3BB. I tried their enhanced package of almost 2000 baht per month and actually the service/reception of their internet was worse than the basic package of 623.00 baht per month for the 6MB service.

Any other ideas to answer my question and not be so generic about 3BB. My question was about routers and their "power" to deliver a stronger signal, irrespective of service providers. But thanks for your input anyway.

Edited March 29, 2011 by CMSteve

[Raindancer]

All the major companies here are relatively the same. It all depends on how far your are to the hardware and the lines that connect you. I've tried all the major companies DSL services and 3BB is the best at one locations and True is best at another location.

Simple answer to your question about the router, is you can adjust the amount of power to output from the router. It can put out a stronger signal if you raise the Tx value, However, you may not be able to send that far with your laptop or wireless dongle.. Kinda like a cell phone. The tower signal may be able to reach you, but the phone may not have the power to reach the antennae, causing a bad signal.

Try to run a couple of speed test while connected by a lan cable, then try to run a couple of speeds tests while connected wirelessly. That will you if its something to do with wireless or something to do with the ISP.

More likely it is just poor get what you pay for 3BB connection.

Sorry that is a non generic answer. I have tried TOT ...AIS 3g complete with wireless router. And guess what True vision tried to sign me up their internet...when I asked if they covered my area, all they would say was "Sure...no problem". When I told them I lived in Sansai they said ..."yes we give coverage for your area....but not for internet..... So it is not for the lack of trying that I have exhausted various companies. And DTAC cannot give me internet.

So I do not believe that this problem is specific to 3BB. I tried their enhanced package of almost 2000 baht per month and actually the service/reception of their internet was worse than the basic package of 623.00 baht per month for the 6MB service.

Any other ideas to answer my question and not be so generic about 3BB. My question was about routers and their "power" to deliver a stronger signal, irrespective of service providers. But thanks for your input anyway.

Thanks CM Steve. I have tried the lan cable test and my computer is only 6 metres away from the wireless connection and the result is the same. So my question is still the same....are there any routers that will "interpret" a stronger signal? despite there being stronger signals because of your provider? I hope you get my drift...i.e if I buy a more expensive brand name router, will that give me a better signal?

Edited March 29, 2011 by Raindancer

[CMSteve]

When you're talking about REALLY high speed, yes, but that is more dependant on how its brought in ADSL, CABLE, ADSL2. In your case make sure the transmit on your router is upto 100%. If it's already at 100%, then you have two different options. You can either attempt to flash a new OS(dd-wrt) or throw down some more baht on a higher grade hardware. either a new router or antennae.

BTW, are you using a built-in wireless on your imac or plug in? is it possible it is the problem? do you have another to compare?

All the major companies here are relatively the same. It all depends on how far your are to the hardware and the lines that connect you. I've tried all the major companies DSL services and 3BB is the best at one locations and True is best at another location.

Simple answer to your question about the router, is you can adjust the amount of power to output from the router. It can put out a stronger signal if you raise the Tx value, However, you may not be able to send that far with your laptop or wireless dongle.. Kinda like a cell phone. The tower signal may be able to reach you, but the phone may not have the power to reach the antennae, causing a bad signal.

Try to run a couple of speed test while connected by a lan cable, then try to run a couple of speeds tests while connected wirelessly. That will you if its something to do with wireless or something to do with the ISP.

More likely it is just poor get what you pay for 3BB connection.

Sorry that is a non generic answer. I have tried TOT ...AIS 3g complete with wireless router. And guess what True vision tried to sign me up their internet...when I asked if they covered my area, all they would say was "Sure...no problem". When I told them I lived in Sansai they said ..."yes we give coverage for your area....but not for internet..... So it is not for the lack of trying that I have exhausted various companies. And DTAC cannot give me internet.

So I do not believe that this problem is specific to 3BB. I tried their enhanced package of almost 2000 baht per month and actually the service/reception of their internet was worse than the basic package of 623.00 baht per month for the 6MB service.

Any other ideas to answer my question and not be so generic about 3BB. My question was about routers and their "power" to deliver a stronger signal, irrespective of service providers. But thanks for your input anyway.

Thanks CM Steve. I have tried the lan cable test and my computer is only 6 metres away from the wireless connection and the result is the same. So my question is still the same....are there any routers that will "interpret" a stronger signal? despite there being stronger signals because of your provider? I hope you get my drift...i.e if I buy a more expensive brand name router, will that give me a better signal?

Edited March 29, 2011 by CMSteve

[AndersSN]

If you are not concerned about cost, it might be worth asking for an international package.

These gives you separate speeds for domestic and international connections and are a lot more stable than the regular connections.

My ex neighbor has one with TOT and he claims that it's very good. They generally don't advertise these, so you have to ask specifically.

[CMSteve]

If you're getting the same speeds with the wireless and the lan cable, then you might have to give a call over to the ISP/tech.

What kind of speeds are you getting right now?

[TacoBoy]

Anyone else ever had a problem of a connection stopping sometimes at the same time a person walks by close to the router or other internet ADSL connections ?

Strange, but have observed it over a long time.

Router is not wireless and connections are all solidly connected

[brebs]

There's different *qualities* of router. Google for router reviews. A router's job is not that easy, which is why the non-cheapo ones have upgradeable firmware - to add stability tweaks and bugfixes.  

I have a Huawei MT880 router from 3BB. It's OK, *after* I made the following changes:  

1. Let your PC handle its own DNS, rather than asking your router. This is because ISPs' nameservers (which is what the router will forward the DNS requests to) are notoriously bad - I mean *every* ISP. I run BIND. The "unbound" program looks reasonable and is multi-platform.  

2. Disable the router's firewall, so that it passes everything to your PC (to let your PC, rather than the router, take the strain of managing all the connections). Of course, your own PC should then run its own firewall software.  

3. Check MTU - should be the same on router and PC's ethernet port setting, to avoid slowdowns. IIRC, it defaulted to 1492 on router and 1500 on my PC's ethernet port, which was not quite right.  

4. Disable uPNP - just extra, unnecessary work for the router.  

5. Check TCP window scaling (is generally better when enabled). Is OK for me, enabled.  

Here's the notes I made on my router settings, in case they're useful:  

Have DMZ set to my PC. This required that Firewall & SPI both be disabled.

MTU has a max of 1492, I set it to 1452 in "WAN Setting" menu. Set in Linux also:  ip link set eth0 mtu 1452

MSS has max of 1452, in router. I left it at zero, the default.

Disabled UPnP.

Enabled "Ping traffic is blocked from the WAN" on Security menu.  

No router I've ever had is perfect, and needed rebooting occasionally. Reboot by switching it off (white button at the rear of the MT880 router) for about 30 seconds -to ensure that its RAM has been completely drained, and that it is starting from a completely reset state.  

TacoBoy, only thing which springs to mind is a static electricity discharge - is the router positioned on a *metal* table? If so, change to a wooden table.

[111tingtong]

I have a simple question and I hope that this is the correct forum. Does the type of router you have affect the speed of download or upload from the internet.

Grateful for any knowledge that might be imparted. I have the basic 3BB router provided by this company and purchased as a package with my 6MB deal.. I am using an IMAC ( apple) computer.

Many thanks

Simple answer to your question is yes the type of router can affect your download/upload speeds. However in your case no. If your talking about local wireless transfer rates this can range from anywhere between 1mb/sec (sometimes less depending on how wrong you've set it up) up-to around the 20mb/sec transfer rate, maybe higher if your a genius with networks, personally I haven't seen any of my wifi networks over 20. Now unless you have a top notch internet connection which can download at over 1 mb/sec (thats good for Thailand) your wireless router will more than likely handle it. I sometimes see 1.4 mb/sec download speeds from my internet (12mb 3BB connection), now if I have my wifi network setup poorly and transferring at 1 mb/sec you can see how this will affect it.

I have an Apple Time-capsule wireless router which operated on a b/g/n network. I see approx. 15 mb/sec transfer rate when moving files around my home, hard wired connection around 80 mb/sec. Sorry if Ive missed something but you haven't stated whether your router is wireless or hard-wired. If its hard wired you'll be looking at transfer rates of 50 mb/sec and up, so its never going to affect your internet down/up speeds.

Do you have more than one computer on your network? if so open Activity Monitor on your iMac and click on the "Network" option at the bottom. Select a large file, say a 700mb movie file and transfer it to your other computer on the network and have a look at the transfer rate within Activity Monitor. If the transfer rate is greater than what you'd expect from your internet connection your equipment is good and unfortunately the problem is with your provider. Hope this helps.

Rgds

TT

[Raindancer]

I have a simple question and I hope that this is the correct forum. Does the type of router you have affect the speed of download or upload from the internet.

Grateful for any knowledge that might be imparted. I have the basic 3BB router provided by this company and purchased as a package with my 6MB deal.. I am using an IMAC ( apple) computer.

Many thanks

Simple answer to your question is yes the type of router can affect your download/upload speeds. However in your case no. If your talking about local wireless transfer rates this can range from anywhere between 1mb/sec (sometimes less depending on how wrong you've set it up) up-to around the 20mb/sec transfer rate, maybe higher if your a genius with networks, personally I haven't seen any of my wifi networks over 20. Now unless you have a top notch internet connection which can download at over 1 mb/sec (thats good for Thailand) your wireless router will more than likely handle it. I sometimes see 1.4 mb/sec download speeds from my internet (12mb 3BB connection), now if I have my wifi network setup poorly and transferring at 1 mb/sec you can see how this will affect it.

I have an Apple Time-capsule wireless router which operated on a b/g/n network. I see approx. 15 mb/sec transfer rate when moving files around my home, hard wired connection around 80 mb/sec. Sorry if Ive missed something but you haven't stated whether your router is wireless or hard-wired. If its hard wired you'll be looking at transfer rates of 50 mb/sec and up, so its never going to affect your internet down/up speeds.

Do you have more than one computer on your network? if so open Activity Monitor on your iMac and click on the "Network" option at the bottom. Select a large file, say a 700mb movie file and transfer it to your other computer on the network and have a look at the transfer rate within Activity Monitor. If the transfer rate is greater than what you'd expect from your internet connection your equipment is good and unfortunately the problem is with your provider. Hope this helps.

Rgds

TT

Many thanks to everyone for all the information you have provided. My IMAC is wireless as is the router connection to it. To explain the router is hard wired to the internet connection and I use the wireless facility to obtain internet connection.

I will now reset or ensure that my PC is set up correctly with the Router. I had thought that the engineer would have done this when I bought the system, but maybe he does not have all the information that many of you guys have given me. Many thanks.

[Dellboy218]

Anyone else ever had a problem of a connection stopping sometimes at the same time a person walks by close to the router or other internet ADSL connections ?

Strange, but have observed it over a long time.

Router is not wireless and connections are all solidly connected

I dont think static electricity would play a part in your problem but as a thought..........the people walking by wouldn't be carrying mobile phones would they?

[CMSteve]

Not a wireless connection so radio bandwidth distortion would be nil or very close to. Is it possible that there is a loose connection/solder point in the router that moves when there are vibrations near by? You'll have to open it up to find out. Otherwise, it may just be coincidence that is cut off a couple of times while someone was near the router,

[Raindancer]

Anyone else ever had a problem of a connection stopping sometimes at the same time a person walks by close to the router or other internet ADSL connections ?

Strange, but have observed it over a long time.

Router is not wireless and connections are all solidly connected

I dont think static electricity would play a part in your problem but as a thought..........the people walking by wouldn't be carrying mobile phones would they?

No we live in a secluded area. The only mobile phone is mine near the PC

[Dante99]

Phone lines for the incoming service too close to transformers like the ones used for router or computer power supply can cause problems. Keep them as far away as possible, 2-3 meters away if possible.