True's *domestic* Bandwidth Sucks Too?

[Crushdepth]

I am having some real problems with accessing *Thai* sites tonight on True. Running the speed test on the True website gives me an average of 246k (range 144-326). I'm currently on 512K package. While they do not guarantee international bandwidth, they *do* guarantee the connection speed to their network.

Anyone else having problems with True's domestic bandwidth? Don't tell me that is saturated too...

[lopburi3]

It is beyond crashdepth. I also have a 512 and recently it has been running 420-430 but in four text just prior this post get 133, 267, 197 and 146. Obviously something is very wrong.

[Mobi]

I am having some real problems with accessing *Thai* sites tonight on True. Running the speed test on the True website gives me an average of 246k (range 144-326). I'm currently on 512K package. While they do not guarantee international bandwidth, they *do* guarantee the connection speed to their network.

Anyone else having problems with True's domestic bandwidth? Don't tell me that is saturated too...

Can someone please explain to me how you run a speed test? I have been reading for a long time about all the broadband providers not delivering the promised speeds, but how do you check? When I click on the carrier's (or internet connection) icon, it always reports the contracted speed. I started off on KSC cable internet in Bkk, which was fast, pretty reliable but very expensive. They withdrew the service, and for various reasons, I tried , in turn, True, TOT and Loxinfo. True and TOT were slow and unreliable. Loxinfo was pretty good. Quite fast and rarely crashed ( others also have confirmed to me it is the best of a bad bunch.} Since moving to Chon Buri, some 15 kms from Pattaya, I am stuck with Ipstar satellite, as all the phone broad band providers say I am too far out to get their service. Ipstar started bad, but is now pretty good in terms of downtime, but dreadfully slow,compared to Loxinfo. I also have a back up dial up, and I find it is about the same speed as ipstar. Ipstar claims their speed is 100 kps (whatever that may mean) and when I click on their site (or icon) it says 100 kps - but I'm sure it's not. The dial up reports anything from 15 - 30 kps but is about the same speed to use as Ipstar. How can I check the Ipstar speed? Any advice or explanations from the experts out there would be appreciated. Thanks a million.(From an ancient semi-literate internet hand)

[meadish_sweetball]

You typically check your speed by going to an internet site for that purpose. For the value to become a bit more meaningful you need to compare it to somebody else.

To test your connection to the West coast of the US, try www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and choose Seattle, WA

To test your domestic speed, go to www.adslthailand.com and click on the headline saying Speedtest. A separate window opens and conducts a test of your bandwidth.

[Mobi]

You typically check your speed by going to an internet site for that purpose. For the value to become a bit more meaningful you need to compare it to somebody else.

To test your connection to the West coast of the US, try www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and choose Seattle, WA

To test your domestic speed, go to www.adslthailand.com and click on the headline saying Speedtest. A separate window opens and conducts a test of your bandwidth.

Thanks Meadish,

The adsl site says my speed is 241.7 kbps. Could be worse, I guess, but it's supposed to be 100 mbps, which presumably is 1000 kbps. Is that right? If so I'll have a go at them, for what good it'll do.

[skippybangkok]

Keep an eye on it during several time of the day for a week or so. If it ever gets up to 400+, it might be cable ( internal or external ). If you can get peaks, then its not the cable, but something else. I generally get 400+ depending on the time of day.

[Maestro]

…it's supposed to be 100 mbps, which presumably is 1000 kbps. Is that right?

mbps (millibaud per second) is not commonly used. That would be 1/1000 baud per second. In other words, it would take 1,000 seconds to transmit one baud.

1 Mbps (Megabaud per second) = 1000 kbps (kilobaud per second)

Where are you subscribed at 100 Mbps?

---------------

Maestro

[Crushdepth]

True's domestic speedtest is available from the test speed link of their home page.

Argh !!!!

[Joey Boy]

…it's supposed to be 100 mbps, which presumably is 1000 kbps. Is that right?

mbps (millibaud per second) is not commonly used. That would be 1/1000 baud per second. In other words, it would take 1,000 seconds to transmit one baud.

1 Mbps (Megabaud per second) = 1000 kbps (kilobaud per second)

Where are you subscribed at 100 Mbps?

---------------

Maestro

Have you just come out of hybernation mate?? Baud hasnt commonly been used to define data rates for over a decade!

Mbps usually means megabits per second with todays modulation capabilitys, I think hes got his patch to the gateway mixed up with the actual ADSL line speed

[Maestro]

Have you just come out of hybernation mate??

It looks like it. Thanks for setting me straight.

---------------

Maestro

[Mobi]

Tested again this morning - it was 261.8 kbps. Quite fast today. Seems to be better on holidays - maybe there is a lot of commercial usage? When I click on the blinking icon at the foot of my screen (Local area connection status) it reads, speed: 100.0 Mbps. I am connected to Ipstar Satellite. The cable is only a few meters from the dish on the wall to the box in my office - I watched them put it in -doubt if there is a problem there. Any advice? Thanks.

[stumonster]

When I click on the blinking icon at the foot of my screen (Local area connection status) it reads, speed: 100.0 Mbps.

ignore that - that is the speed of your network connection from your computer to your satellite modem - the real speed is as fast as the slowest bottleneck

[OldAsiaHand]

Tested again this morning - it was 261.8 kbps. Quite fast today. Seems to be better on holidays - maybe there is a lot of commercial usage?

Exactly the opposite applies to True ADSL. On holiday, all the little unwashed bastards clog up the internet cafes playing games and take all the international bandwidth.

I just ran a speed test on my so-called 1 mb connection.

True's domestic test - 986 kb/sec (yeah, sure)

International test - 34kb/sec

NO, that's NOT a typo.

34kb to the west coast. HALF dial up speed.

[Firefoxx]

I was using a commercial True account, paying 2500/month for "just" 512k. Of course, the domestic bandwidth was great, but the international bandwidth kept getting worse and worse. 80k was about the average, with perhaps 120k during non-peak hours. So I went and cancelled my subscription. Of course, even then they didn't stop screwing up... they couldn't find my account in their system, but I hopefully got it axed. I say "hopefully" because the last time I cancelled my subscription, they still kept billing me, and threatened legal action if I didn't pay.

True. Truly b***s***.

[Mobi]

I'm becoming an instant expert!

Adsl local speed is still 261/255 region. Seattle is download 215; upload 96. New York is D/L 82; U/L 87. UK is 249. I'll see what it's like tomorrow when Thailand goes back to work.

As I said previously, True and TOT are rubbish. Definitely recommend Loxinfo in BKK - several people I know confirm it is the best of a bad lot - for both home and business use.

[Joey Boy]

Lox? I've had a 7000ms+ latency all day with them

its great

[OldAsiaHand]

I know people talk about this all the time, but just for the record, could I ask the question here again?

How can there be a (significant) difference in speed between ISPs in Bangkok if they all must go through the same international gateway and share the same international bandwidth? I see that speeds might vary slightly depending on the load on a particular ISP at a particular time, but -- on the average -- wouldn't all ISP's provide about the same level of service?

Unless, of course, one of the ISP's has a special 'in' ($$$$) with the powers that be and gets preferential access to the available bandwidth. Now, if anyone has information that there IS such an ISP, could you please share?

[Crushdepth]

The international bandwidth has been an issue for ages, but now it is beginning to look like True's domestic bandwidth is going down the toilet. Their own network seems to be grinding to a halt.

I've been keeping an eye on the domestic speed the last couple of days and it seems to follow the same pattern as the international bandwidth - faster in the morning, slow as hel_l at night.

Anyone know if they are having some internal problem?

[h90]

yes the same here, very slow domestic

The international bandwidth has been an issue for ages, but now it is beginning to look like True's domestic bandwidth is going down the toilet. Their own network seems to be grinding to a halt.

I've been keeping an eye on the domestic speed the last couple of days and it seems to follow the same pattern as the international bandwidth - faster in the morning, slow as hel_l at night.

Anyone know if they are having some internal problem?

[Firefoxx]

The way True keeps screwing up even the most basic tasks, and the way even their engineers are clueless as to how their own system functions, I am not at all surprised that their own internal network is meeting the same fate as their international gateway. True has gotten way too big for its own good, and totally ignores the consumer.

As to different ISPs and different international speeds, the answer is (mainly) in this: contention ratio. Contention ratio refers to how much "real" bandwidth is shared. Say ISP A has 1 mbit of international bandwidth. It has 50 ADSL customers, each on a 1mbit contract. The contention ratio, between "real" bandwidth and customers, is 1:50. 1:20-1:50 is typical among all ISPs around the world for consumer/home accounts. It's *supposed* to work since you don't expect all 50 people to be using 100% of their bandwidth all the time, and it *used* to work. However, these days you have P2P, and especially bittorrent. Now bittorrent is a master at using tens or hundreds of simultaneous uploads/downloads to saturate your bandwidth... so if even *1* of that 50 has his bittorrent client on all the time at full steam (a very common practice, really...), the other 49 people sharing that bandwidth are screwed.

Now, back to contention ratios. High contention ratios are *required* because "real" international bandwidth doesn't come cheap (especially in Thailand, where CAT piles on the tariffs). 1mbit costs in the tens (or hundreds?) of thousands per month. If a home user wanted to enjoy 1:1 contention ratio (ie, not shared), he'd have to fork over that amount to the ISP, since he's the sole user. Businesses, of course, get much lower contention ratio, around 1:5-1:20, but they pay a *lot* more than home users for that privilege. So, while your home True ADSL might suck, a business True connection would be very fast indeed. Back in the old days, you would have had to pay around 20,000 baht for a 24/7 "always-on" *home* True ADSL 512k connection... but the speed was good since the contention ratio was low.

Other factors also affect speed, such as number of users, network equipment, internal network structure/bandwidth, QOS, packet filtering, proxies, etc, but the major factor is in the contention ratio.

[OldAsiaHand]

Firefox,

I appreciate that. What's more, I even understood it.

But you stopped short of what seems to me to be the key question that your explanation has now raised:

Is it possible to estimate (even very generally) the contention ratio for the available ISP's in the Bangkok area and come to any kind of an intelligent conclusion as to whether shifting to somebody else from True would (or even arguably could) improve performance enough to make it worthwhile to do so?

[Firefoxx]

Well, in a perfect world, you could probably do that. Problem is, this isn't a perfect world. Heck, it's Thailand.

Firstly, most ISPs don't advertise their contention ratios. You might call and ask, but how reliable is the answer? I've called True 3 times to ask the same question (not about contention ratios), and each time I got a different answer. Then there is the fact that the official answer may not be "real world" amount. Not only that, the way they setup their network (such as limiting p2p bandwidth), and the various idiosyncrocies of various COs and the uneven distribution of bandwidth, will mean that there are some rare cases where you'll get good speeds (as has been reported by a few people).

So, the high contention ratio at True *does* mean that their ADSL home service generally sucks, but it doesn't mean that the same contention ratio at another ISP will give the same results, on all subscriptions.

As for a *very* general estimate, you could say take the advertised (from press releases and such) number of subscribers and divide by the advertised total international bandwidth. But that wouldn't take into account exactly how much is being used at what contention ratio, since not all that bandwidth is shared at the same ratio. You have both business and home customers, and the few business customers will get a lot of bandwidth, compared to the home customers. You also have no idea how much the ratio is for business customers, premium customers, home customers, etc.. for any particular ISP there are many tiers, and each ISP treats each tier differently (different ratios). Also, each ISP is geared towards different markets... True has many customers, but they have a huge amount of home accounts. Samart, OTOH, has a bigger proportion of corporate accounts.

[Firefoxx]

As for the problem of bittorrent, it would be a lot smarter (but then again, "smart" is not their thing) for True (and other ISPs) to adopt the practices of ISPs in the US and UK. There, they have clauses in which you *do* get unlimited usage/bandwidth *if* you don't "represent an unusually large burden on the network" or use "services in a manner which consumes excessive bandwidth". This would be a lot more popular with the majority of people, since packet-shaping and P2P bandwidth limiting wouldn't be necessary... everyone can download at full speed, and the people who leave their bittorrent clients on 24/7 will get (eventually) kicked out of the network. Everyone else will enjoy good speeds, since there is no more bandwidth hogging by the few.

[Sulaphat]

The international bandwidth has been an issue for ages, but now it is beginning to look like True's domestic bandwidth is going down the toilet. Their own network seems to be grinding to a halt.

I've been keeping an eye on the domestic speed the last couple of days and it seems to follow the same pattern as the international bandwidth - faster in the morning, slow as hel_l at night.

Anyone know if they are having some internal problem?

I checked the connection speed using True's website and found I was not getting the full bandwidth I was paying for. I complained to True and they actually fixed it. At least for now. They did send a polite email explaining that the problem was due to internal issues at CAT.

[h90]

fire: one thing is not 100 % correct. I know from some business package customer, and it seems often (but not always) they have the same bad connection as the homeuser have.

Seems true is not smart enough for balancing the things......

Well, in a perfect world, you could probably do that. Problem is, this isn't a perfect world. Heck, it's Thailand.

Firstly, most ISPs don't advertise their contention ratios. You might call and ask, but how reliable is the answer? I've called True 3 times to ask the same question (not about contention ratios), and each time I got a different answer. Then there is the fact that the official answer may not be "real world" amount. Not only that, the way they setup their network (such as limiting p2p bandwidth), and the various idiosyncrocies of various COs and the uneven distribution of bandwidth, will mean that there are some rare cases where you'll get good speeds (as has been reported by a few people).

So, the high contention ratio at True *does* mean that their ADSL home service generally sucks, but it doesn't mean that the same contention ratio at another ISP will give the same results, on all subscriptions.

As for a *very* general estimate, you could say take the advertised (from press releases and such) number of subscribers and divide by the advertised total international bandwidth. But that wouldn't take into account exactly how much is being used at what contention ratio, since not all that bandwidth is shared at the same ratio. You have both business and home customers, and the few business customers will get a lot of bandwidth, compared to the home customers. You also have no idea how much the ratio is for business customers, premium customers, home customers, etc.. for any particular ISP there are many tiers, and each ISP treats each tier differently (different ratios). Also, each ISP is geared towards different markets... True has many customers, but they have a huge amount of home accounts. Samart, OTOH, has a bigger proportion of corporate accounts.

[h90]

now torrent is running at 140 kB/s. Seems to good to be "true"

[Firefoxx]

Well, yep, that's why I gave myself as an example of a business package from True gone wrong. True is completely bonkered right now, at least for most people.