Tot Extremely Jumpy/ Starting As Old Diesel Engine

[THAIPHUKET]

Since 3 weeks I am observing that it takes forever to connect to my 6mb TOT line, 30 seconds and longer, like an old diesel motor.

A subsequent TOT speed test, so I can talk to TOT using the same yardstick, however most of the time shows around 5+mb. During the test speed can be extremely jumpy. First time ever, it now showed a one time speed of 10mb on my 6mb line, dropping down to 3, end result 9.2mb. Unreapetable, unfortunately.

[THAIPHUKET]

No more edit function?

Just did a TV speed test, 5.2 , extremely jumpy as well. But the same problem, when I connect thirst time, very long to build up connection

[soundman]

Moved to Internet forum.

[THAIPHUKET]

Delayed connection problem still persistent. Down load needle extremely jerky.

Can't make ToT understand the problem, because down load time, if it has started at long last, is still around 5mps

[THAIPHUKET]

This morning, it took almost 1 minute to start loading the first page, google.com.

Speed with TOT meter= Ping 77ms, is down 5.24Mbps, up 0.42 . And about the same when measured with ADSLThailand against BKK.

I get the feeling there is an old lady sitting in front of one of these antique jack plug switchboards connecting my "call" by hand.

Other info, I'm using a wireless modem , never switched off.

And it happens with my Acer and with my Mac as well, so it should be really TOT. But how??

[Pib]

The 5.2Mb data speed (to in-Thailand servers I assume) you are getting on your 6Mb TOT ADSL line is what you should be getting when the ADSL "overhead/control bits" of approx 15% are considered. Since you are getting 5.2Mb I expect you have a good physical line connection between your modem, and the TOT DSLAM and if you go into your modem's firmware menus you'll probably see the modem and DSLAM are connecting at a "sync speed" of around 6.128Mb which means you have a good, full speed connection to the DSLAM. However, some other ISPs offering 6Mb sometimes use a higher "sync speed" connections, say around 7MB, and you can get a 6Mb data speed to local, nearby servers...whether an ISP has their network setup like this depends on the ISP.

However, after that TOT DSLAM connection point you are being connected to other TOT servers/equipment where your "data" speed could be slowing down,especially to international connections since as a rule of thumb the fastest international speed you are going to get is in the 3-5Mb ballpark on some of the higher speed plans like 10Mb to 20Mb plans. But on a 6Mb TOT plan your average international speed is probably going to be around 1.5Mb....keep in mind that's an "average" and it's not uncommon to see a daily average of around 600Kb (slow surfing) and on really good days a little over 2Mb to international servers. A lot will depend on which international websites/servers you are accessing. It boils down to an international bandwidth thing. And you could also be having local circuit bandwidth problems while other TOT 6Mb plan users in other areas of the country are getting better speed and smooth web surfing.

When I was on the TOT 6Mb plan up until about 6 months ago (I switched to True cable internet when they arrived my moobaan) I got the same 5.2Mb speedtest results to Bangkok servers, but I knew this was normal for a 6Mb modem sync speed due to the control bit factor. Plus when I signed up there was a placard on the TOT rep's desk showing the actual IP/data speed the customer would realize which was listed as 5.0-5.2Mb on the 6Mb plan...the placard also listed the IP/data speeds for TOT other higher speed plans with those IP/data speeds being about 15% lower than the advertised/modem sync speed.

[THAIPHUKET]

Much obliged Pib for your comprehensive answer. Yes, I am on 6 mbps TOT. No I can't complain at all about too slow international speeds. Rarely goes below 4.5 . See my tests of now against USA over 5 and UK as well, the tests very repeated 3 times to avoid the one off result.

Should mention that I am in Chiang Mai. But all that only after I got the first web site up and running. And it doesn't matter if I try to connect to google which has a US location or The Nation which has a Thai location.

It is only the first start which drives me nuts

[Pib]

Gosh, those are awesome international speeds for a TOT 6MB plan, or most any Thai ISP 6Mb plan. I would like to say they are bogus--a result of hidden/in-Thailand cache servers skewing the speedtest results--but your ping times are valid. Normally in a skewed/bogus speed test the download speed "and" ping time are unrealistic/faster-than-the speed of light/like the speedtest server somewhere in far off farang land was just across the soi.

Where you say you have slow speeds when first starting your browsing. This wouldn't happen to be shortly after you have turned on your computer, the computer may be an older one and somewhat underpower, "and" is doing other tasks for the first few minutes (maybe up to 15-30 minutes) in checking/downloading firewall/anti-virus update files, updates files for Windows, doing a full virus scan of your hard drive. I say this because I have two laptops which I will refer to as my 8 cylinder laptop (newer, more powerful CPU running Win7) and my 4 cylinder laptop (older, slower, running WinXP). Both of these run on my True cable internet 20Mb plan, both use the same version of browser, and both use the same version of firewall/anti-virus software (Norton).

My 4 cylinder computer would many times take up to 10-15 minutes from boot-up before the internet browsing would move around at an acceptable speed...and remember I'm on an 20Mb plan and I was making a wirelesss internet connection within a minute of booting up. Now, my 8 cylinder computer would be internet browsing at an acceptable speed within a minute or two booting up. I kept thinking it was a difference between XP and Win7 or a XP configuration problem, but actually a properly setup XP system will probably be just a little bit faster in browser surfing on two equally powered machines.

What the problem turned out to be was I had my Windows Update function on my 4 cylinder computer to automatically check for Windows updates and if finding any to begin automatic download and installation of them immediately in the background. Additionally, my Norton Firewall/Anti-Virus software checked for updates and would download/install them automatically. Well, many times there were some updates to download/install and while my old, underpower, 4 cylinder computer did this right about boot-up it just did other things like browser startup/browsing slowly. Oh maybe said another way, it did some multitasking tasks slowly. I had my 8 cylinder computer setup the same way for Windows and Firewall/Anti-Virus updates, but as mentioned it didn't have a problem browsing just fine shortly after boot-up. On my 4 cylinder computer, once I changed the Windows automatic update function to "check, not download, but notify me of available updates" my 4 cylinder computer would normally be browsing/moving along just find after about 2-3 minutes from boot-up. I left the Firewall/Anti-Virus automatic check, downland, and install as is...that is, to do that right at the beginning. Later on during my computer session I would see what Windows updates were available and then click to download and install.

So, if you are jumping right into browsing right after booting up you computer and depending on the power of your computer and other software running in the background (especially those that do automatic checks, downloads, scans, etc., during/right after boot-up) that may be your problem in your TOT browsing acting like an old diesel engine starting....it's not TOT at all...it's just your computer. Maybe changing how and when the programs do their checks/scans/downloads will help your browsing start up better and faster. Good luck.

[roban]

Gosh, those are awesome international speeds for a TOT 6MB plan, or most any Thai ISP 6Mb plan. I would like to say they are bogus--a result of hidden/in-Thailand cache servers skewing the speedtest results--but your ping times are valid. Normally in a skewed/bogus speed test the download speed "and" ping time are unrealistic/faster-than-the speed of light/like the speedtest server somewhere in far off farang land was just across the soi.

.........

not necessarily, I am on a TOT 7 Mbit plan and get speeds around 6-7 Mbit against servers in USA (most of the time).

Tested with downloads, not speedtest net.

But it depends on the server's location/routing/weather/time of day/Buddhas grace.

From server in EU (my preferred destination), I get around 3-4 Mbit, but also dependent on the above mentioned conditions.

At least, TOT is/was (by far) the most reliable ISP for me.

BUT finally, we can't do nothing against the crappy Thai Internet....

[THAIPHUKET]

I checked right now with several speed meters, consistently over 5 mbps.

My Acer Laptop AS1810T is 1 year old. May be the modem is kind of tired, about to give up.

I guess, I leave it that, time is not of the essence here, was just curious.

Thanks for your thoughts!!

One afterthought re: jumpiness. What I mean is while the meter is running the the needle can easily jump between 2.... and 7 mbps. Is that normal too?