Tot Baffled- any thoughts on this?

[Pormax]

Ok lets start from the beginning.

5 days ago during a rather heavy thunderstorm and lightning there was a power cut in our village for approx 5 hours. Up to then no problem with my internet. When the power came back on there was no internet connection. After the normal numerous calls to the TOT call center we were oncw again connected after almost 28 hours.

However the speed was very slow nowhere near the 7,000 to 8,000Kb/s I normally have. Called our local regional office who checked the speed and they stated my speed was normal. However there remains a problem. If I click on the Double monitor icon on the lower left of my screen and click status then as they said my speed seems ok most of the time but it does fluctuate a lot from less than 1kb to 7kb/s.

What is strange is that some internet pages load reasonbly quickly while others such as Thai Visa can take up to 4 minutes to download, this also happens when I do a speed test from two different sources. The speed test will give me the ping status fairly quickly but I have to wait a few minutes for a reading from the upload and download. The downoad gives a reading of less than 1kb/s while the upload can be anything from 20 to 40Kb/s.

What is more puzzling is when I go to the UKTV-Asia website. Downloads the program ok though slower than normally. If I then try to record one program it will show downloading at between 40kbs to 1,500Kb/s and fluctates a lot. If I try to record two programs then my download speed increases this further increases if i add even more programs to record and if I have 5 programs recording at the same time will get the 6,000 to 8,000Kb/s I should be getting. Remove or pause some recordings and the download speed drops back again. Hope this makes sense.

I spoke to a 'technician' about this and after going through the normal 'reset and switch off modem and computer and start again' he decided it was my modem at fault. I had already tried the internet on my laptop computer, which is wireless connected, which gave the same results. So this meant a 60km round trip to the local TOT facility. However I was not convinced that it was a modem problem and suggested to my wife we go to somone else's house in the village who has internet connection from the same tower. When we did this we found the same problem. Internet speed slow on most pages and some pages really really slow. Again could not do a speed test or load some web pages another village source has also got the same problem.

Now I am not a bit technically minded so I really don't have a clue as to what could be the problem. I am getting good speed in to my computer but this is not being passed on to the programs. Could this be a server problem??

At the moment TOT believe there is nothing wrong although they did, once I told them that others in the village has the same problem, agree to send a technician out though by the sound of things they don't see it as a real problem as I was told it could take a few days and not to call them again unless the problem was fixed!! Great customer service!!

Any thoughts on what could be the problem here. Is this just locally, or are others experiencing the same problem.

[lomatopo]

suggested to my wife we go to somone else's house in the village who has internet connection from the same tower. When we did this we found the same problem.

So I'm guessing you have TOT Wi-NET service; it usually helps if you can provide at least some basic background on the type of service.

Assuming TOT Wi-NET, my next best guess is that there is some localized equipment/back-haul/up-link issue from the tower into the TOT network. Given that a neighbor has the exact same issue, this is a decent guess. Likely a result of the power hit.

What DNS servers are you using?

Can you try some traceroutes to your DNS server(s)?

Can you try testmy.net to Singapore?

Please try to use exact terms like Kbps (Kilo-bits per second) or KBps (Kilo-Bytes per second).

I'm guessing that up until this power loss, your download speed seemed to average 7 ~ 8 Mbps? What about your upload speed? But now your download speed is 1 Mbps? I guess you should really pick one, single method for measuring speed, and stick to if comparing your current situation with your previous situation. I wouldn't necessarily rely on an actual, live, "Speedometer" reading, other than to say that you'll see a lot of fluctuation.

[Pormax]

suggested to my wife we go to somone else's house in the village who has internet connection from the same tower. When we did this we found the same problem.

So I'm guessing you have TOT Wi-NET service; it usually helps if you can provide at least some basic background on the type of service.

Assuming TOT Wi-NET, my next best guess is that there is some localized equipment/back-haul/up-link issue from the tower into the TOT network. Given that a neighbor has the exact same issue, this is a decent guess. Likely a result of the power hit.

What DNS servers are you using?

Can you try some traceroutes to your DNS server(s)?

Can you try testmy.net to Singapore?

Please try to use exact terms like Kbps (Kilo-bits per second) or KBps (Kilo-Bytes per second).

I'm guessing that up until this power loss, your download speed seemed to average 7 ~ 8 Mbps? What about your upload speed? But now your download speed is 1 Mbps? I guess you should really pick one, single method for measuring speed, and stick to if comparing your current situation with your previous situation. I wouldn't necessarily rely on an actual, live, "Speedometer" reading, other than to say that you'll see a lot of fluctuation.

First of all thank you for your input.

It has taken me so long to reply because I have been waiting a very long time for this web page to come up so I can reply.

I only managed to do this in the end by going in to UKTV-Asia and recording a program which seemed to 'start up' the connection again.

As I said not that technically minded. My main connection for internet is adsl to my desktop computer with my modem having the wireless connection available.

The only information I can find about my DNS server is 192.168.1.1 No actual name given. Do not have the knowledge to do trace routes to my server.

Tried to do the speed test at testmy.net to singapore but could not load the page.

Before loss of power you are correct my download speed was 7 -8KBps, my upload speed was normally between 50 -52KBps.

I see what you are saying but what I do not understand is why when I record programs my speed increases. This shows the speed is there somewhere but not being distributed correctly.

The last post I sent took over 5 minutes to go so I expect similar with this.

[RichCor]

If you have an aDSL connection then it is over a Telephone Co wire to your aDSL modem. (There would be NO tower involved)

The aDSL modem probably provides you with Wireless Internet via a WiFi connection.

What is the Brand/Model of your router?

Can you point your browser to the adsl modem and get a status page?

http://192.168.1.1/rpSys.html

user: admin

password: tot

Edited April 12, 2014 by RichCor

[Pormax]

If you have an aDSL connection then it is over a Telephone Co wire to your aDSL modem. (There would be NO tower involved)

The aDSL modem probably provides you with Wireless Internet via a WiFi connection.

What is the Brand/Model of your router?

Can you point your browser to the adsl modem and get a status page?

http://192.168.1.1/rpSys.html

user: admin

password: tot

Hi, There is a tower which was erected in the grounds of the local temple and the wires run direct from a box on the tower to the houses. To my knowledge no one in the village has a telephone in their house, everyone uses mobiles.

The modem/router is TOT TP-Link. I have reset this but made no difference

Yes, as I said in my first page I can bring up the status page, which although fluctuates and sometimes stops for a few seconds, does show that I am receiving reasonable speeds most of the time.

The best way I can describe this is that on any given task only so much speed can get through.

Some web pages load reasonably well although a little slower than normal, others cannot download or have to wait ages..

I can bring up the web page you mentioned and although not sure what to look at, all seems in order. Went through this on the telephone with the TOT tech.

Hope this information helps.

[Pormax]

More info that might help.

Can go to 'You Tube Home page' which loads quckly but if I want to watch a video it will not come up. Just says 'Connecting"

[RichCor]

Now you've got me interested:

There is a tower which was erected in the grounds of the local temple and the wires run direct from a box on the tower to the houses. To my knowledge no one in the village has a telephone in their house, everyone uses mobiles.

While I guess it's possible to have a microwave back-haul connected to a DSLAM at the bottom of a village tower serving aDSL ports, I've never seen one here in Thailand. Doesn't mean there isn't one.

You've said you have a TOT TP-Link modem/router -- what's the model number?

Can you copy/paste the U/D db and kbps status section? (don't copy the vpi/vci section as it contains your public-facing IP address that you should always keep to yourself)

If the modem/router status page shows a 7168 kbps and 512 kbps active link speed, and speedtest.net or TOT Bandwidth Speed Test show healthy consistent matching numbers then I'd suggest swapping out your DNS numbers and see if a quicker Domain Name Server has any positive effect.

^^ What type of computer and OS are you running?

[schondie]

We had a similar problem last year after a thunderstorm. TOT said the same to us, "It should be okay" but of course it wasn't. This below par connection and complaints went on for weeks before they got around to fixing the problem at the big TOT box at the entrance to the village.

We have a problem at present after they upgraded us to fibre optic cables. The first day was excellent and over the past week the internet has slowed down drastically. Phone calls have been made but nothing will change until after Songkran.

I'm lucky to get 10-20% of the usual speed until they sort this out after the holidays.

[lomatopo]

Approximately how many connections (individual wires running) are currently being made to the local tower? Does this service have a name, if only on your bill?

Do you live in a fairly remote, rural area?

It could be that you are sharing a single, limited radio back-haul from this tower back into the TOT network - DSL, a small shelf, is being used for local connections. All the local voice and data traffic needs to get muxed (combined) for transmission, and voice will get priority. So if more and more people start making mobile calls the bandwidth remaining for data will decrease proportionally. There could also be some sort of issue with the equipment at this tower as a result of the power loss.

Edited April 13, 2014 by lomatopo

[Pormax]

Approximately how many connections (individual wires running) are currently being made to the local tower? Does this service have a name, if only on your bill?

Do you live in a fairly remote, rural area?

It could be that you are sharing a single, limited radio back-haul from this tower back into the TOT network - DSL, a small shelf, is being used for local connections. All the local voice and data traffic needs to get muxed (combined) for transmission, and voice will get priority. So if more and more people start making mobile calls the bandwidth remaining for data will decrease proportionally. There could also be some sort of issue with the equipment at this tower as a result of the power loss.

Hi again,

There are 20 wires running from the tower but some are not being used as the villagers have ceased using the internet due to unable to pay the bills..

Cannot see a name of the service on the bill or otherwise, so can't help you there.

Yes we live in a fairly remote area about 22Km from the nearest town.

Have had this internet now for about 2 years and though had some problems in the past (this is after all TOT we are talking about) but never one like this.

I have a feeling that mobile calls are not affecting the internet as most of the people use AIS here and while the signal strength is reasonable it is never that good and some houses less than 100metres from the new tower get very bad signal strength down to one bar if outside in the garden, or zero if actually in the house. This has been the same for the 4 years i have lived here while the tower has only been put in about 2 years ago.

I am currently recording/downloading TV 5 programs from UKtv-asia and my speed is fluctuating betwen 35ooKBps and 7,000KBps. Again if I pause or stop recording some but not all of the programs then the speed drops back, so as I said before it seems something is limiting the amount of speed to a particular task.

I think you are correct it has something to do with the box on the tower but it does seem rather strange what is happening. I have the speed yet I don't have the speed if you can see what I mean.

[noise]

Hi again,

There are 20 wires running from the tower but some are not being used as the villagers have ceased using the internet due to unable to pay the bills..

Cannot see a name of the service on the bill or otherwise, so can't help you there.

Yes we live in a fairly remote area about 22Km from the nearest town.

Have had this internet now for about 2 years and though had some problems in the past (this is after all TOT we are talking about) but never one like this.

I have a feeling that mobile calls are not affecting the internet as most of the people use AIS here and while the signal strength is reasonable it is never that good and some houses less than 100metres from the new tower get very bad signal strength down to one bar if outside in the garden, or zero if actually in the house. This has been the same for the 4 years i have lived here while the tower has only been put in about 2 years ago.

I am currently recording/downloading TV 5 programs from UKtv-asia and my speed is fluctuating betwen 35ooKBps and 7,000KBps. Again if I pause or stop recording some but not all of the programs then the speed drops back, so as I said before it seems something is limiting the amount of speed to a particular task.

I think you are correct it has something to do with the box on the tower but it does seem rather strange what is happening. I have the speed yet I don't have the speed if you can see what I mean.

I am having trouble following your explanations. Are you saying, for example, if you try to download 1 TV program it will download at 3.5Mbps but as you try to download more in parallel your speed goes up to 7Mbps?

Regardless, I take it TOT has never come out and checked (a) connection at tower and (b ) connection at your house? Back when I had ADSL and problems, they did that and ended up cutting off some 6 inches of wires because of corrosion. The connection improved.

I also found that by going into the office and asking the right questions (speaking Thai is mandatory to do this), between the clerk and an IT guy you might find that, being 22 km out of town with not that many customers for land lines any more, you are on some really old TOT H/W all along the run. But again, you have to, in a non-accusatory manner, ask the right probing questions, specially if the clerk is talking to the IT guy on the phone. The clerk probably is not computer savy.

[worgeordie]

Have the same problem with TOT fiber2U, was great the first few weeks then just got slower and slower,so called TOT, they did a bit fiddling about their side,OK for a while,then slow again,they are selling too many subscriptions without buying more bandwidth,so more profit for them and shit service for the customer,paying more money and getting no better service than when i had ADSL? regards Worgeordie

We had a similar problem last year after a thunderstorm. TOT said the same to us, "It should be okay" but of course it wasn't. This below par connection and complaints went on for weeks before they got around to fixing the problem at the big TOT box at the entrance to the village.

We have a problem at present after they upgraded us to fibre optic cables. The first day was excellent and over the past week the internet has slowed down drastically. Phone calls have been made but nothing will change until after Songkran.

I'm lucky to get 10-20% of the usual speed until they sort this out after the holidays.

[Pormax]

Hi again,

There are 20 wires running from the tower but some are not being used as the villagers have ceased using the internet due to unable to pay the bills..

Cannot see a name of the service on the bill or otherwise, so can't help you there.

Yes we live in a fairly remote area about 22Km from the nearest town.

Have had this internet now for about 2 years and though had some problems in the past (this is after all TOT we are talking about) but never one like this.

I have a feeling that mobile calls are not affecting the internet as most of the people use AIS here and while the signal strength is reasonable it is never that good and some houses less than 100metres from the new tower get very bad signal strength down to one bar if outside in the garden, or zero if actually in the house. This has been the same for the 4 years i have lived here while the tower has only been put in about 2 years ago.

I am currently recording/downloading TV 5 programs from UKtv-asia and my speed is fluctuating betwen 35ooKBps and 7,000KBps. Again if I pause or stop recording some but not all of the programs then the speed drops back, so as I said before it seems something is limiting the amount of speed to a particular task.

I think you are correct it has something to do with the box on the tower but it does seem rather strange what is happening. I have the speed yet I don't have the speed if you can see what I mean.

I am having trouble following your explanations. Are you saying, for example, if you try to download 1 TV program it will download at 3.5Mbps but as you try to download more in parallel your speed goes up to 7Mbps?

Regardless, I take it TOT has never come out and checked (a) connection at tower and (b ) connection at your house? Back when I had ADSL and problems, they did that and ended up cutting off some 6 inches of wires because of corrosion. The connection improved.

I also found that by going into the office and asking the right questions (speaking Thai is mandatory to do this), between the clerk and an IT guy you might find that, being 22 km out of town with not that many customers for land lines any more, you are on some really old TOT H/W all along the run. But again, you have to, in a non-accusatory manner, ask the right probing questions, specially if the clerk is talking to the IT guy on the phone. The clerk probably is not computer savy.

Ok I will try and explain better.

At the moment I am downloading/recording 1 TV program and the download speed fluctuates madly between 300Mbps and 2,200Mbps. If I add further programs to record this does not lower the overall download speed I am getting but in fact increases it, but each program's download speed is about the same as above. I can see the download speed on the UKtv program and when there is about 5 programs being recorded at the same time I can see up to 8,000Mbps which is what I would expect. But I would also anticipate the same speed if just 1 program is running. At the moment 2 programs downloading and the combined speed is approx 2,500Mbps maximum but fluctuates down a lot to less than 1,200Mbps. I cannot watch a program live as the speed is too slow.

No they keep on stalling saying I have the correct internet speed according to their tests and to date have not sent a technician out. If they had I could show them what is going on like in my explanation above. My wife and I spoke on the phone to the technician who surprisingly spoke reasonable English I did try and be helpul with my observations and not use an offhand attitude with him. However I got the feeling from him of 'I don't really want to travel 22kms and back to try and sort out this problem'.or maybe it was 'this is going to a major problem to sort out and I don't want to do this task' His final words to my wife was 'don't call us again about this problem but only call if everything is ok!!!! When does someone call to say 'my internet is ok'?

Taken me so long to answer this as the first page where I read your reply loaded fairly quickly but when I wanted to add a reply the page took almost 15 minutes to download even though I had refreshed the page a couple of times. This is the same with the speed tests and watching anything on YOU Tube. Just cannot load the program. when I have replied to a post here it can go almost immediately but sometimes can wait 3 or 4 minutes.

Thanks for your reply.

[lomatopo]

Can you describe this "recording/downloading" service in a bit more detail? Do you choose specific shows? What format are these in? "Recording" is a different process than watching "live-ish", aka streaming, correct? Maybe some screen shots would help?

Being able to download five separate files at an aggregate of 8 Mega-bits per second, presumably over an international link is impressive.

If you stop all downloading activities, are you able to browse the internet to your normal sites? Can you connect to and view Youtube videos?

I still think you are going to have to ramp up your technical knowledge to the point where you can access your router's management system, determine what DNS servers you are using, perform pings and traceroutes.

Maybe more people are visiting the village from the big city, and are using the internet, creating additional congestion? You do realize that the internet bandwidth is a shared resource and if everyone were using 8 Mbps something would have to give.

Based on the vague, confusing and disjointed information you've provided my best guess is that your connection is working acceptably but you are experiencing some issues with TOT's internal network.

The first thing I might try is to change your DNS servers within your router - maybe accessible using a browser to 192.168.1.1, with a default username of "admin", and a PW of "TOT"?, to something like 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4; these are Google DNS servers.

[Pormax]

Can you describe this "recording/downloading" service in a bit more detail? Do you choose specific shows? What format are these in? "Recording" is a different process than watching "live-ish", aka streaming, correct? Maybe some screen shots would help?

Being able to download five separate files at an aggregate of 8 Mega-bits per second, presumably over an international link is impressive.

If you stop all downloading activities, are you able to browse the internet to your normal sites? Can you connect to and view Youtube videos?

I still think you are going to have to ramp up your technical knowledge to the point where you can access your router's management system, determine what DNS servers you are using, perform pings and traceroutes.

Maybe more people are visiting the village from the big city, and are using the internet, creating additional congestion? You do realize that the internet bandwidth is a shared resource and if everyone were using 8 Mbps something would have to give.

Based on the vague, confusing and disjointed information you've provided my best guess is that your connection is working acceptably but you are experiencing some issues with TOT's internal network.

The first thing I might try is to change your DNS servers within your router - maybe accessible using a browser to 192.168.1.1, with a default username of "admin", and a PW of "TOT"?, to something like 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4; these are Google DNS servers.

Will answer your questions the best I can.

I can download or watch programs from up to 7 days ago or I can normally watch them live. I have 13 UK channels to choose from and can download anything from them. Now in fact just watching the FA Cup Semi-Final played yesterday from ITV 1 which i recorded this morning then will watch Match Of the Day on BBC 1. I do not usually have to record these programs but just click on 'play' but my streaming is so slow that I can't do this.

No it makes no difference if I have other programs running I can connect quite fast to You Tube home page but watching a video is a No No.

Yes my technical knowledge is quite poor I have to admit. I am a medical man and not into the techy side of things.

I do not think it has anything to do with people from the city arriving in the village and using their computers as this was a problem that started 6-7 days ago. and never had a problem in the holiday periods before.

I know how to get into the 192.168.1.1 and put in Username and password but as to changing the DNS Server could not see where to do this. Not too comfortable with this as not overly sure what I am doing. Don't want to lose what I have which although not good, I can live with for a while.

www.no-ip.com but is marked as deactivated. DNS No is 203.113.7.130.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Pormax

[Equalizer]

Mate your problem has been well documented and all the facts are there. If someone asks you for more info tell them to piss off, they are doing it on purpose to wind you up on your slow Visa.com site.

[Equalizer]

Actually cancel that dont tell them to piss off because it will take you ages, just ignore them

[solstan]

Sign up for something like Pingdom (free for a month), then show the reports to the local office and let them get the local support to visit you.
I had ADSL problem, turned out that someone had f*cked up the connection in the pole in the street ... That took 3 visits to find out.

Now, 6-7 MB down and 400 k up and not a glitch for days

[ChoakMyDee]

I was having problems last week where I could download torrents with very good bandwidth but couldn't get web pages to load. I replaced my ADSL modem and it is fine now. Have you tried a different modem?

[solstan]

The no ip part in the modem is always deactivated unless you choose to use it. Sign up for an account and enter the details. The go to pingdom.com and sign up gor a free month. Skip the alarm part. Yoi nred the report

Google for tot stat page where you can see the avtual down and upload you get. In the modem you can ser what you pay for.

With all this. Print it so that you can show the tech guy when he come.

Dns is set in your clients neteork settings, good luck. It took us 3 + 3 visits but now worling again

And yes, Youtube video of about 5 minutes with sound is a good way to measure quality

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[sae57]

I had so many problems with TOT Wi-net (frequent outages, lousy service)--also in a rural setting, that I cancelled (in spite of penalty) & switched to an aircard. Not quite as fast & a tad more expensive but it (almost) always works.

--S

[Pormax]

I was having problems last week where I could download torrents with very good bandwidth but couldn't get web pages to load. I replaced my ADSL modem and it is fine now. Have you tried a different modem?

No I haven't. As said in a previous post this was suggested by the technician but as it meant a 60Km round trip I went to check other internet connections in the village first. They have the same problem so It does not look like a modem problem

[Pormax]

The no ip part in the modem is always deactivated unless you choose to use it. Sign up for an account and enter the details. The go to pingdom.com and sign up gor a free month. Skip the alarm part. Yoi nred the report

Google for tot stat page where you can see the avtual down and upload you get. In the modem you can ser what you pay for.

With all this. Print it so that you can show the tech guy when he come.

Dns is set in your clients neteork settings, good luck. It took us 3 + 3 visits but now worling again

And yes, Youtube video of about 5 minutes with sound is a good way to measure quality

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Thanks for your suggestion. But no joy I am sorry to say. Could download the pingdom.com home page and then sign up but after that nothing. Waited 5 mins for page to upload then refreshed the page but after a few minutes I gave up. tried again a couple of times but still can't do. This is the same as the other speed tests I have tried.

[Traveling Sailor]

This may or may not help.

When I lived in a small village 20 km from Thung Song, Nakhon si Thammarat, the only thing available was TOT. When I moved there it took 3 months for them to run a line to the house. Yes, the service was poor and unreliable. I put up with it for a little over two years, then I moved.

Now I live on Koh Samui and use TRUE online. My MINIMUM speed is 10 MBps.

Good luck with your quest for good service.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Traveling Sailor

[sandyf]

Hi again,

There are 20 wires running from the tower but some are not being used as the villagers have ceased using the internet due to unable to pay the bills..

Cannot see a name of the service on the bill or otherwise, so can't help you there.

Yes we live in a fairly remote area about 22Km from the nearest town.

Have had this internet now for about 2 years and though had some problems in the past (this is after all TOT we are talking about) but never one like this.

I have a feeling that mobile calls are not affecting the internet as most of the people use AIS here and while the signal strength is reasonable it is never that good and some houses less than 100metres from the new tower get very bad signal strength down to one bar if outside in the garden, or zero if actually in the house. This has been the same for the 4 years i have lived here while the tower has only been put in about 2 years ago.

I am currently recording/downloading TV 5 programs from UKtv-asia and my speed is fluctuating betwen 35ooKBps and 7,000KBps. Again if I pause or stop recording some but not all of the programs then the speed drops back, so as I said before it seems something is limiting the amount of speed to a particular task.

I think you are correct it has something to do with the box on the tower but it does seem rather strange what is happening. I have the speed yet I don't have the speed if you can see what I mean.

I am having trouble following your explanations. Are you saying, for example, if you try to download 1 TV program it will download at 3.5Mbps but as you try to download more in parallel your speed goes up to 7Mbps?

Regardless, I take it TOT has never come out and checked (a) connection at tower and (b ) connection at your house? Back when I had ADSL and problems, they did that and ended up cutting off some 6 inches of wires because of corrosion. The connection improved.

I also found that by going into the office and asking the right questions (speaking Thai is mandatory to do this), between the clerk and an IT guy you might find that, being 22 km out of town with not that many customers for land lines any more, you are on some really old TOT H/W all along the run. But again, you have to, in a non-accusatory manner, ask the right probing questions, specially if the clerk is talking to the IT guy on the phone. The clerk probably is not computer savy.

Ok I will try and explain better.

At the moment I am downloading/recording 1 TV program and the download speed fluctuates madly between 300Mbps and 2,200Mbps. If I add further programs to record this does not lower the overall download speed I am getting but in fact increases it, but each program's download speed is about the same as above. I can see the download speed on the UKtv program and when there is about 5 programs being recorded at the same time I can see up to 8,000Mbps which is what I would expect. But I would also anticipate the same speed if just 1 program is running. At the moment 2 programs downloading and the combined speed is approx 2,500Mbps maximum but fluctuates down a lot to less than 1,200Mbps. I cannot watch a program live as the speed is too slow.

No they keep on stalling saying I have the correct internet speed according to their tests and to date have not sent a technician out. If they had I could show them what is going on like in my explanation above. My wife and I spoke on the phone to the technician who surprisingly spoke reasonable English I did try and be helpul with my observations and not use an offhand attitude with him. However I got the feeling from him of 'I don't really want to travel 22kms and back to try and sort out this problem'.or maybe it was 'this is going to a major problem to sort out and I don't want to do this task' His final words to my wife was 'don't call us again about this problem but only call if everything is ok!!!! When does someone call to say 'my internet is ok'?

Taken me so long to answer this as the first page where I read your reply loaded fairly quickly but when I wanted to add a reply the page took almost 15 minutes to download even though I had refreshed the page a couple of times. This is the same with the speed tests and watching anything on YOU Tube. Just cannot load the program. when I have replied to a post here it can go almost immediately but sometimes can wait 3 or 4 minutes.

Thanks for your reply.

I know what you mean and I get the same from BBC Iplayer. You download one program at some speed, you would then think that if you download more programs then the total would equate to the original.

It would appear that at any point in time only a certain speed is obtainable but you can have many streams at the same speed.

I have a feeling that it is something to do with bandwidth as my worst times are during the school holidays.

I am on a TOT ADSL landline so a different system but the symptoms very much like you describe.

Possibly after your thunderstorm something has locked up somewhere causing a bandwidth problem and a reset is required on the servers.

[solstan]

OK, now Im not in such a hurry that I was this morning,

What you do is:
1 - sign up for a DYNdns account, No-ip or dyndns.
2 - enter those details either in your modem or your PC.
3 - add a check at Pingdom for the dyndns name above.
Now you have a check that will try to look if your connection drop. If so it will tell you when and how long. You get good stats!

4 - Use the TOT stat page
http://www.thaitestspeed.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=67
It will give you a rather true estimate of what you get.
Do it a lot and save the text in the lower part aka

ความเร็วดาวน์โหลด: 6961 kbps ( อัตราการรับข้อมูล: 870.1 KB/sec )
ความเร็วอัพโหลด: 415 kbps ( อัตราการส่งข้อมูล: 51.9 KB/sec )
ค่าความหน่วง (Latency): 41 ms
den 13 april 2014 06:29:43
to a text file. You then get a log of the performance too.

5 check your modem for what your subscription level is
http://192.168.1.1/status/status_deviceinfo.htm

6 IF the connections is dropping a lot you will see that the external IP adress change a lot. You will also see some SMNP trap messages in this page.
http://192.168.1.1/status/status_log.htm

7 - Now, after a day of testing this, give TOT service center a call.
They will ask you to do a lot of things, including restarting your modem, many many times.
This is when you tell that you are not happy with the performance and why.
Is it slow, tell them hat you tested a lot.
If the IP change a lot you might have a bad cable.
If the IP stay and the connection still is bad, the #5 above will show whta performance you have on your line.
If a lot of people are affected, they mght say that you should go for fiber ... that will not help you. If you and the other people in the are all are having bad coneection speeds then there might be overused band width.... and changing to another connection will still have you inside the TOT netowrk.

Tell them what you did and ask for a visit as this is not what you paid for. Ask them to tell the Tech to bring a replacement if needed or that 60 km trip might happen.

If you want to test an alternate DNS, change to 8.8.8.8 (google) and see if that helps. Test with Youtube video, or download a file of at least 50 MB.

It took me 3 months and 6 visits of the Technician and, first 3, oh no problem it is your wifi! 4 th time I was there. Bad modem, you need to change so I did. 50 km return trip. Then it was still a problem, they drop by and check the stats and see that I am right. We still had a problem but it was late. They told me they would be back the day after and THEN we found the second big problem. Bad connected cable at the pole in the street ... Now our ADSL has been running for 2-5 days without a glitch!

Good luck and remember, be polite AND very clear on what you want => what you pay for

[kaveh]

simple rule: if you haven't changed anything (I mean hardware or software configuration) after storm, so it's not on your side.

If you talk about this right after the storm, it could be any NOISE on your LINE (wired) which could be caused by WATER leaking to forbidden areas (cabling issues).