Ipstar

[Gary A]

My IPSTAR service has been really bad lately and they have blamed it on all the changes they are making since they are changing to ther new satellite.

Tonight they came out and re-positioned my dish to the POWERFUL new satellite and installed a new modem with pretty blue lights instead of the red lights on the old one.

GUESS WHAT ??? It is now worse than it was! If there was any other way I could get online out here in the boonies I'd jump on it. JUNK! VERY poor service!

Please don't suggest GPRS because I have been there and done that with my phone and infrared, bluetooth and finally a Solomon modem. They all SUCKED!

Edited December 8, 2005 by Gary A

[lampard10]

My IPSTAR service has been really bad lately and they have blamed it on all the changes they are making since they are changing to ther new satellite.

Tonight they came out and re-positioned my dish to the POWERFUL new satellite and installed a new modem with pretty blue lights instead of the red lights on the old one.

GUESS WHAT ??? It is now worse than it was! If there was any other way I could get online out here in the boonies I'd jump on it. JUNK! VERY poor service! 

Please don't suggest GPRS because I have been there and done that with my phone and infrared, bluetooth and finally a Solomon modem. They all SUCKED! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tell me about it. You must have read my previous posts,and Georges to add to it and a dozen others. Then that clown Mouse comes on and tells everyone there is nothing wrong with it. They must be paying him a fortune to lie. And we all know he's lying,because he says he has no problem, yet almost everyday when you try to ring them you get a recorded message saying' customers will not be able to connect today'Probably my fortune I spent on setting it up. I.P>STAR IS CRAP<CRAP<CRAP.

Edited December 8, 2005 by lampard10

[dutch]

I have to disagree.

Not one single problem since start.

My nice "blue" thing has only one disadvantage:the small airfan makes too much noice.My son will not be pleased as this device is situated in his sleeping room

I am still happy with my IPstar (after the one year disaster of TOT on line)

[Gary A]

Dutch, who do I have to know to get this piece of S H I T to work properly? Do you know Toxin personally? I got my system last February and was not happy because it was slow but it was dependable and usually worked. Now it is on again and off again unfortunately usually OFF! My service has steadily deteriorated since I have had it. STINKS!

I have to disagree.

Not one single problem since start.

My nice "blue" thing has only one disadvantage:the small airfan makes too much noice.My son will not be pleased as this device is situated in his sleeping room

I am still happy with my IPstar (after the one year disaster of TOT on line)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[dutch]

May be our expectations are different??

After TOT everything must look like heaven on earth.

I used Thai Fa in Nakhorn Ratchasima

Service man looked very competent and was extremely helpful.

However I do not have your experience of 10 months as I am only connected since end November.

[Gary A]

I had TOT in Jomtien and agree it wasn't good. I always kept three different ISP's so if one didn't work maybe another would. I would expect this to work at least that well and it DOESN'T! At least the major expense from TOT was the three baht per call. I could connect a LOT of times for the 3,200 baht that I was paying for this. I can understand why they lowered the price and now give unlimited download. If it is not working there is no way to download much anyways. Good luck, you may need it.

May be our expectations are different??

After TOT everything must look like heaven on earth.

I used Thai Fa in Nakhorn Ratchasima

Service man looked very competent and was extremely helpful.

However I do not have your experience of 10 months as I am only connected since end November.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[mouse]

My IPSTAR service has been really bad lately and they have blamed it on all the changes they are making since they are changing to ther new satellite.

Tonight they came out and re-positioned my dish to the POWERFUL new satellite and installed a new modem with pretty blue lights instead of the red lights on the old one.

GUESS WHAT ??? It is now worse than it was! If there was any other way I could get online out here in the boonies I'd jump on it. JUNK! VERY poor service! 

Please don't suggest GPRS because I have been there and done that with my phone and infrared, bluetooth and finally a Solomon modem. They all SUCKED! 

Tell me about it. You must have read my previous posts,and Georges to add to it and a dozen others. Then that clown Mouse comes on and tells everyone there is nothing wrong with it. They must be paying him a fortune to lie. And we all know he's lying,because he says he has no problem, yet almost everyday when you try to ring them you get a recorded message saying' customers will not be able to connect today'Probably my fortune I spent on setting it up. I.P>STAR IS CRAP<CRAP<CRAP.

I beg to differ with you! I do not get paid by ipStar or anyone else in Thailand. I am retired, do not have any business interests present in Thailand. Please refrain from name calling and making negative comments about someone that you do not agree with. A polite comment would have sufficed.

I have helped numerous people get their services in order, at no charge and to no benefit to me or anyone in my family.

Moderators: Please be kind enough to stop this type of behavior on the board. I was under the impression that flaming is not allowed.

[mouse]

To reiterate what I have said on the other threads. The site located at www.ipstar.michelonia.com is totally free and designed to help members in good standing of this forum only.

If you are experincing a problem with the service I will be glad to give advise or point you in the right direction. Again no charge and me or my family are not compensated for this service in any manner, therefore you can rest assured that the advise is the best we can give without bias of any sort.

I have heard many negative comments fom a number of users but, find in most cases that they were not dealing directly with ipStar but, rather middlemen that just did not follow up once the service had been sold. There are many of these services and I do not have a comment about them. My advise is research who you do business with.

I have had the service for a few years now and am happy with it. Yes i goes down on occasion but, a lot of the problems are attributable to the International bandwith available to Thailand. Take a look at http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm This might explain a lot. Until recently the Asian figures were as low as 35%.

[MilkPlus]

I have had the service for a few years now and am happy with it.  Yes i goes down on occasion but, a lot of the problems are attributable to the International bandwith available to Thailand.  Take a look at http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm  This might explain a lot.  Until recently the Asian figures were as low as 35%.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wow, you're right Mouse, I used to visit ITR before I would play a game online just to check things out, and all I can say is wow. The asian traffic has skyrocketed.

Also this site,

http://scoreboard.keynote.com/scoreboard/M...Password=public

I kind of took it to extremes but some of you Sat people might want to check this sight out if you are having big trouble,

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Sure it sound odd, but you would be amazed at what solar wind/flares do to Sats.

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/

if you click on the SOLAR WIND java app you can get real time speed. Go there some time when there is an X or M class flare, it will be pegged.

If there are X class flares they actually move the Sat's and other devices like cameras so they are not facing the wind. They will also tell the Astronauts in Space Station to put on suits and get in a special compartment.

It wreaks havoc on Sat and DSL/Cable connections.

Edited December 9, 2005 by MilkPlus

[lampard10]

I beg to differ with you!  I do not get paid by ipStar or anyone else in Thailand.  I am retired, do not have any business interests present in Thailand.  Please refrain from name calling and making negative comments about someone that you do not agree with.  A polite comment would have sufficed. 

I have helped numerous people get their services in order, at no charge and to no benefit to me or anyone in my family.

Moderators: Please be kind enough to stop this type of behavior on the board.  I was under the impression that flaming is not allowed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I am sorry to have upsetyou, but when I hear things like you are saying it does make me see red. I introduced 13 people to I-Star that live in the sticks around Surin, and believe me, you should hear the flack I am getting now. I would imagine that you do not hear many complaints, because the people cannot get connected to complain. What I would really like to know is, that if as you say you have been constantly connected, just to who is the service message intended telling all and sundry that IP Star is not working. I know TIT but is it possible that they give preferential treatment to people that live near the hub and just put out the message in case people cannot connect. In no way am I trying to flame you. Just get some honest answers as to why, people are getting this sh1t treatment. Unfortunately you do rather sound like them. One time after hearing the message that IP Star was not working for the next three days while repairs were being carried out, I reached the setrvice team who said there was nothing wrong with it. Another time I was asked for my box number. I said I just wanted to know if IP Star was working. They said they need my box number. I gave them the box number and they went away for 15 minutes. On their return I asked them what was wrong, and they replied" We don't know. IP Star system is down"

Lies,lies, lies that is all I got the whole time. Anyway sorry again for sounding harsh, but you have obviously not been through what we have been through.

[mouse]

I beg to differ with you!  I do not get paid by ipStar or anyone else in Thailand.  I am retired, do not have any business interests present in Thailand.  Please refrain from name calling and making negative comments about someone that you do not agree with.  A polite comment would have sufficed. 

I have helped numerous people get their services in order, at no charge and to no benefit to me or anyone in my family.

Moderators: Please be kind enough to stop this type of behavior on the board.  I was under the impression that flaming is not allowed.

I am sorry to have upsetyou, but when I hear things like you are saying it does make me see red. I introduced 13 people to I-Star that live in the sticks around Surin, and believe me, you should hear the flack I am getting now. I would imagine that you do not hear many complaints, because the people cannot get connected to complain. What I would really like to know is, that if as you say you have been constantly connected, just to who is the service message intended telling all and sundry that IP Star is not working. I know TIT but is it possible that they give preferential treatment to people that live near the hub and just put out the message in case people cannot connect. In no way am I trying to flame you. Just get some honest answers as to why, people are getting this sh1t treatment. Unfortunately you do rather sound like them. One time after hearing the message that IP Star was not working for the next three days while repairs were being carried out, I reached the setrvice team who said there was nothing wrong with it. Another time I was asked for my box number. I said I just wanted to know if IP Star was working. They said they need my box number. I gave them the box number and they went away for 15 minutes. On their return I asked them what was wrong, and they replied" We don't know. IP Star system is down"

Lies,lies, lies that is all I got the whole time. Anyway sorry again for sounding harsh, but you have obviously not been through what we have been through.

.... I cannot understand it. I have never never never lost service for more than a couple of hours at the very most. When that happens, I reboot my computer and leave it sittting until the service is running again. I know of other users of ipStar and what they did when they lost the signal is change their settings, ip numbers and make all kinds of repairs, short of rebuilding their computer, so that when the signal was restored, their system no longer worked. Most had the same problem as some of the socalled engineers at ipStar. They keep repairing what is not broken, calls it tweaking and then are upset when the service no longer works.

I am truly sorry for the problems that some have experienced but am baffled when the afterward connect to ADSL. ipStar is designed for those that live remotely and do not have access to telephone lines, rather than an alternative method.

In the last months the overall Internet traffic in Asia has grown substantially and this is causeing problems, for it seems that the infrastructure (gateways etc) is not keeping up with the demand that is being placed on the net from within Asia. I again refer you to http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm

[jaidam]

Just 2 add my tuppence-worth. Ipstar is unuseable.It is most certainly not broadband in any sense of the word.I get a far higher speed, and much more reliable service from my Solomon gprs unit.

Ipstar has become so poor that I have stopped bothering trying to use it.The technology just doesnt seem to work.I am waiting til they come to change dish position and then will have them take the ###### thing away.Respect to Lampard who threw the dish off his roof.That must have been satisfying!

Thanks to Mouse who does his best to help users of this product.Truly sorry for anyone who has recently signed up to this farce since the price cuts a few months ago.Looks good but....

[lampard10]

It seems that there are two totally different types of IP Star.

1) Cost 20,000 installation. Nearly 5,000 a month and not worth a hoot

2) Cost 7,000 installation. 1,500 a month and works like a dream.

But you must remember 'This is Thailand' where something like that is not out of the ordinary.

But I now read that Mouse has quote" Never lost service for more than a couple of hours" Jeez man. Losing service for more than a couple of minutes is a death toll to an Internet cafe. The amount of times I have had guys with long E-mails lost because of IP Star, and have stormed out, muttering about smacking me one and vowing never to return again. To the end of IP Star reign on my premesis I was taking 45 baht a day. Now with TT&T broadband it is back up to a respecble 500 a day.

[meadish_sweetball]

lampard, good to hear your business is going better. One thought though:

Maybe if you told your customers that if they want to be 100% sure they dont lose their masterpieces because of a glitch, downperiod etc., they should compose their emails in Word, Wordpad or Notepad - whatever text editor you have installed on your computers... it's the only failsafe way I know when you're dealing with webmail.

Of course, some people won't take advice, but it might be worth a try to put up a note to that effect, then you might get more satisfied customers.

[snoophound]

True Thats assuming the customers are computer literate.

You would need to have some pretty basic menu options etc

A big ask from my experience of watching the Internet cafe cutomers esp the older ones.

lampard, good to hear your business is going better. One thought though:

Maybe if you told your customers that if they want to be 100% sure they dont lose their masterpieces because of a glitch, downperiod etc., they should compose their emails in Word, Wordpad or Notepad - whatever text editor you have installed on your computers... it's the only failsafe way I know when you're dealing with webmail.

Of course, some people won't take advice, but it might be worth a try to put up a note to that effect, then you might get more satisfied customers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[johng]

Lampard, if you don't mind me asking... how many computers do you have in your shop ?

Do you also have online games or just internet ?

[Gary A]

I was grasping at straws trying to get my IPSTAR to work. I changed a lot of settings and finally got it to stop working altogether. So much for my tinkering. I un-installed my LAN and re-installed it to default. It started working again the same as it was before. (BADLY). I then went to a download site called http://www.webattack.com/ I downloaded a trial version of a program called SurfStream. That was late at night and the download took forever. Yesterday morning I got up and discovered that my connection was working fairly well. I have absolutely NO idea if this program helped but now that it is working fairly well I don't want to change anything. So far today it has been working OK too. I have a 15 day trial period to evaluate SurfStream and if all stays working I'll pay for the program whether it is doing any good or not.

[lampard10]

1) I've got three now, I had four but IP Star was so undependable I took one home and replaced it with my GPRS Lap-top as a back up.

2) A lot of the customers are on other services apart from Hotmail that save automatically, but as someone pointed out, most customers that use Internet cafe's are computor illiterate, like I was a year ago.

3) One of the funny things about IP Star was that when the repair man eventually arrived, he phoned up IP Star, and it came on again within minutes. Occaisionally I have phoned them and they have said " Wait and we will change your settings" and on it comes. Of course most of the time the lines to IP Star are engaged, so I must call the guy out. One week it was five days on the trot.

[Pakboong]

I usually find trouble with my IPstar connection starting around 8:30 am during the work week. Suggests to me that the technicians start working on it about that time. Rarely have problems on weekends. I have had a tech out to look at my service and he claimed every thing was fine. Makes me crazy but I am stuck until my development gets phone lines in. With what I do, any disruption is a major ordeal and on some days I get 20 or more stoppages from a few seconds to several hours. Even a few seconds causes me a great deal of grief.

[george]

Welcome to the club! When are they migrating old customers to the new ipStar satellite. What is the coordinates for it? North-west?

[tuky]

I used to use Ipstar and did not have a problem with the service, My sat moem broke down once and the LNB kicked the bucket. But when the equipment was working the service was great.

I eventually got rid of it because it was just too expensive, I now have ToT ADSL connection 1/3 of the price but twice the speed.

[jackr]

Lets face it, The Internet in Muang Thai is &lt;deleted&gt; and if I could have just one wish on what I'd change about this wonderful country, it would be to have fast and reliable internet...beer at the right price and inline with the price of food would also be nice, but at the possible expense of rocking the boat and having Thailand erring towards the workings of the West, I'll stick with &lt;deleted&gt; internet and expensive, relatively, beer.