True International Bandwidth Slow Right Now

[StrongView]

So I have a 2.5 Mbps SME account with True. Usually my domestic connection is tested @ 1.8 Mbps - 2 Mbps and my Int'l (tested on Speakeasy's website: www.speakeasy.net/speedtest) Bandwidth is around 1.3 Mbps (yep, that's right....1.3 Mbps...unbelievable...but normal for me). Everything perfecto until Saturday 9 September (yesterday). Now my domestic is the same (1.8 - 2.0 Mbps), but my int'l never gets above 125 kbps. Called True. They tell me they want to send a tech because it could be a line issue. I tell them that my connection between me and them is fine...it's only int'l. They go on to tell me that they can reset my connection. They do that, and no change. So they still want to send a tech. He / she be here tomorrow, but I wanted to see if anyone else (SME account or not) is finding this problem. Oddly enough, my upload speed is still fine at 400 kbps - 450 kbps (my account is max @ 2560 / 512 kbps). Thanks!

[Axel]

At home (Bangkok) I use true, painfully slow since yesterday.

That's why I moved to the office, where the set-up is different.

[StrongView]

Very interesting. Same timing as myself. In your office, how does your setup there differ?

On another note, I normally use a ZyXel modem (Prestige 600 series) on this connection. I just plugged in and installed the modem they gave me (Ethernet) when I signed up and it gets the same speeds. I'm connected directly to it via cable, so don't think it's any equipment problems.

Anyone else having the same trouble?

[Axel]

Sorry, not really an expert. But roughly, the office computer connects first to the network with a server in Taiepi. Internet properties are set to that server routed via KSC.

But this means I do not have to dial up as done with true.

[opalhort]

same here. I'm on TRUE ADSL 1Mbps.

since yesterday the international speed (to US/EU) is never above 180Kbps (mostly around 100Kbps) down but upload is OK at 450-500Kbps using speedtest.net (to .sg the down speed is average 400Kbps).

opalhort

[StrongView]

Opal / Axel... Understood. I presume if both of you are having this trouble...others are as well. If possible, call True to report the problem. I presume others are having the problem but not calling to report the fault. If they get more calls, perhaps they'll see the problem is more widespread and actually fix it rather than write it off as "we do not guarantee international bandwidth speeds".

[melus]

Exactly the same situation as StrongView on my SME ripoff from True. Maybe because most well-to-do Thais have already spent their paychecks this month and are at home downloading free stuff and playing games.

Why does the problem always call for sending a technician around to you house to fiddle around?

Maybe the term broadband should be changed to fraudband in Thailand.

[crockett]

Same here.

Using True 2 Mbps. Yesterday the speed was lousy. Even Thaivisa took ages to open.

Strangely, when running speedtest.net I got an unbelievable 1800 kbps to Singapore.

Today everything is fine again.

[StrongView]

Exactly. I told the woman that I was doing important work on a server in the US and that the connection was decreasing my productivity. She said she would send a technician. I tested my connection to True on asianet.co.th and told her that my connection to them (True) is fine, so the line couldn't have any trouble. I told her that to send a tech out to me to check line degradation problems would be a waste of True's time and money, because there is no problem here. She then went to reset my connection, and when I checked it again, still had the same problem. She told me the tech would be here tomorrow. I asked her if there was anything else she could do from there. She replied that she was only able to reset connections. In the 2 years I have been with them, I have had no problems (like others on this board). I simply use True for three things. Work, VoIP and surfing. It has done that perfectly. I've paid almost 3,000 baht / month for that entire time and now when I have a problem they do not provide any service on the line. You would think, if I pay almost 3x what the average subscriber pays, there must be a reason. I figured, a business class ADSL line would get business class support. I guess I was wrong. I also thought that the business class ADSL line would get business class international bandwidth guarantees. Again I was wrong. What am I paying 3,000 baht / month for then? I'm mystified.

[Richard-BKK]

Today True fine? I can list a long list of websites that will not open....

http://www.maritimewood.com

http://www.pai-nai.com

http://www.information.in.th

http:/www.meditating.in.th

...etc...etc...etc

Looks like True is trying hard to be the number one "worst" ISP, that after CS/Loxinfo take the title of worst Thai ISP at the beginning of this month

[Oleg_Rus]

You would think, if I pay almost 3x what the average subscriber pays, there must be a reason. I figured, a business class ADSL line would get business class support. I guess I was wrong. I also thought that the business class ADSL line would get business class international bandwidth guarantees.

Sounds like cry from my own heart. but calling to support is almost nonsence, sorry sir...

I prefer to go personally. Much more fun

[OldAsiaHand]

same here. I'm on TRUE ADSL 1Mbps.

since yesterday the international speed (to US/EU) is never above 180Kbps (mostly around 100Kbps) down but upload is OK at 450-500Kbps using speedtest.net (to .sg the down speed is average 400Kbps).

opalhort

Same same since yesterday, except that 100kbs is the best I've gotten.

I don't know why you guys are even bothering with customer service. All that's going to happen is you're going to end up pissed off. There is no chance in the world they're going to tell you the truth if they're having a problem. The only choice any of us have is just to wait these things out.

[A_Traveller]

Looks to me that somewhere in the chain there is either a failure or a configuration error.

The problem is that no one is willing or able to give an answer. Yesterday the most visible issue was google {or lack of it}. Looking at a couple of the sites mentioned above, I wonder if there is an problem with syndication delivery.

Yesterday sites which were affected the most were those where the syndication code was amongst the first elements to be loaded.

My guess, and that's all it is right now is that either locally, or remotely a DNS table and cache has become corrupt {or for a reason to be established the DNS TTL has become too short}. End result is that some calls will work, i.e. if on your connexion you have a 'pipe' to the foreign server, but for most pages which have multiple sorces {e.g. adds from google or yahoo} will fail, or time out.

Regards

[h90]

So I have a 2.5 Mbps SME account with True. Usually my domestic connection is tested @ 1.8 Mbps - 2 Mbps and my Int'l (tested on Speakeasy's website: www.speakeasy.net/speedtest) Bandwidth is around 1.3 Mbps (yep, that's right....1.3 Mbps...unbelievable...but normal for me). Everything perfecto until Saturday 9 September (yesterday). Now my domestic is the same (1.8 - 2.0 Mbps), but my int'l never gets above 125 kbps. Called True. They tell me they want to send a tech because it could be a line issue. I tell them that my connection between me and them is fine...it's only int'l. They go on to tell me that they can reset my connection. They do that, and no change. So they still want to send a tech. He / she be here tomorrow, but I wanted to see if anyone else (SME account or not) is finding this problem. Oddly enough, my upload speed is still fine at 400 kbps - 450 kbps (my account is max @ 2560 / 512 kbps). Thanks!

not having true but decrease in speed, maybe it is not true maybe it is the gateway which protects thailand from the evil rest of the world.....

[marquess]

Exactly the same situation as StrongView on my SME ripoff from True. Maybe because most well-to-do Thais have already spent their paychecks this month and are at home downloading free stuff and playing games.

Why does the problem always call for sending a technician around to you house to fiddle around?

Maybe the term broadband should be changed to fraudband in Thailand.

I have found that over the last week or so, that when allowing others to upload from Utorrent, my surfing speed has been reduced to 56k dial up status. It seems that these idiots are going from bad to worst!

[Guest Reimar]

True inter down at 88 kbps and uo 383 kbps., Local 1,482 kbps at 20.55 today

Connection 2,560 down and 512 up

Seems to be the international Gateway. According to NTC, the started to build a new international Gatwy via Malaysia: the on placing a new Fibre Optic Line!

[h90]

here buddy is complete down.

I was on the computer, browsing is still fast but bittorrent went down in 30 sec, like if someone pulled out the plug from 120 Kbyte/s to 2.....

[Guest Reimar]

True inter down at 88 kbps and uo 383 kbps., Local 1,482 kbps at 20.55 today

Connection 2,560 down and 512 up

Seems to be the international Gateway. According to NTC, the started to build a new international Gatwy via Malaysia: the on placing a new Fibre Optic Line!

It seems to be that the Pacific Cable is down/broken because all connections to USA, Europe and Japan nearly or complete downfor downloads, uploads all ok!. Singapore is quiet ok.

It's possible also that the Gateway have a one way problem

here the results of a test:

9/10/2006 4:24 PM GMT 36 kb/s 245 kb/s 571 ms Moscow ~ 4400 mi

9/10/2006 4:22 PM GMT 89 kb/s 260 kb/s 364 ms London ~ 5900 mi

9/10/2006 4:20 PM GMT 118 kb/s 384 kb/s 267 ms Los Angeles, CA 8250 mi

9/10/2006 4:19 PM GMT 109 kb/s 384 kb/s 264 ms Seattle, WA ~ 7450 mi

9/10/2006 4:15 PM GMT 453 kb/s 421 kb/s 80 ms Singapore ~ 900 mi

[h90]

True inter down at 88 kbps and uo 383 kbps., Local 1,482 kbps at 20.55 today

Connection 2,560 down and 512 up

Seems to be the international Gateway. According to NTC, the started to build a new international Gatwy via Malaysia: the on placing a new Fibre Optic Line!

It seems to be that the Pacific Cable is down/broken because all connections to USA, Europe and Japan nearly or complete downfor downloads, uploads all ok!. Singapore is quiet ok.

It's possible also that the Gateway have a one way problem

here the results of a test:

9/10/2006 4:24 PM GMT 36 kb/s 245 kb/s 571 ms Moscow ~ 4400 mi

9/10/2006 4:22 PM GMT 89 kb/s 260 kb/s 364 ms London ~ 5900 mi

9/10/2006 4:20 PM GMT 118 kb/s 384 kb/s 267 ms Los Angeles, CA 8250 mi

9/10/2006 4:19 PM GMT 109 kb/s 384 kb/s 264 ms Seattle, WA ~ 7450 mi

9/10/2006 4:15 PM GMT 453 kb/s 421 kb/s 80 ms Singapore ~ 900 mi

as I am long time in Thailand I would say it is the gateway.

There was the genious story on TV, when no international link worked, till after 2 hours someone could call someone. This guy told wait one moment and than it worked all over thailand again.

Not sure if the story is true or not, but it would not surprise me if there is a somchai in a room, no monitoring or alert system at all. And if someone complains he press the reset button and waits till the gateway reboots.....

[StrongView]

Seems like everything is back to normal now. Not sure what others are experiencing...and still it's early (before all the gamers and bittorrent-ers are on) but yesterday at this time I was getting MAX 550 - 600 kbps to NYC. Now I'm getting 1.6 Mbps. Quite a difference. Lastnight it was so slow I was ready to go to True myself to offer a helping hand...but it seems like someone else has figured it out.

[StrongView]

UPDATE: I don't know if anyone cares anymore...but the I have found the trend to be that in the early morning hours, the int'l speed was fine. Maybe up to 1.3 Mbps, but not smooth....very erratic. After 08:00, speed went down to 100 kbps or less. So I called True on Tuesday night. Went through the normal shpiel. They said they would send it to the 2nd level tech. That tech called me about 30 mins ago. She asks me to run the normal tests. Then she says she will check the line and call me back. She called back 5 mins ago and tells me there is a problem on the True network and that she has alerted the technician to fix it. She said it may be a few hours or a few days. Anyway, at least they're paying attention to it now. Can't believe it took 5 days to get it figured out, but at least it's on the way to repair.

[Firefoxx]

Believe it. They'll take loads of time to fix anything, if they actually manage to get it fixed, and that means you'll have to get them to admit that it's broken first.

I'm actually quite interested in what other people have said about True's performance before this "problem". For those people, were you actually getting good speeds during weekdays? Can I see some test results (from before, or it's it's "fixed" now, from now) to speakeasy during the weekday? Better yet, some network graphs (from the task manager) when you're performing the tests.

[StrongView]

I can tell you the basics on my speeds before this "problem". Please note I have an SME 2.5 Mbps account, so results are higher than ( or should be higher than) average users. Via Speakeasy speedtest to NY server, Weekdays before 08:00 d/l: 1.5 Mbps; u/l 400 - 500 kbps. During workday, 1 Mbps - 1.3 Mbps d/l. u/l still 400 - 500 kbps. In the early evening same as early morning. In the late evening, dropped down to about 800kbps - 1 Mbps d/l. u/l stayed the same. Now with the "problem" I'm at 100 kbps or less d/l and u/l is still 400 kbps+. nutty.

[melus]

Just tested at the Speakeasy site at 91 kbps download and 298 upload. This on a 2Mbps SME account as well. I guess there's still a problem. However, I have a feeling that they keep track of your total monthly usage and throttle your bandwidth if you go over it. I typically stream 400,000,000 bytes a day. Will they admit to this? Fat chance.

[StrongView]

I stream a hel_l of a lot too, and would think you were right about reaching a limit of sorts...however I was in the US for about a month and no one was using my internet connection while I was gone...so in my specific case I don't believe it's what happened to me...though I don't think for a second that True wouldn't go that low.

[Firefoxx]

That low isn't actually that low... a lot of Aussie ISPs use that method as standard practice. Allow full bandwidth until the bandwidth limit is reached, and then throttle down to 128k. Actually, I *wish* that True would use that method, at least for the home users, because of all the people who leave their @!(*&&(^(&^)*&^*#)$#(# bittorrent clients on all day, every day, downloading (&*(^&^*$ that they never will use, just because they "can" and they "paid for the bandwidth". Consumer broadband prices and service were *never* designed so that individual users could use their full bandwidth 24/7... that's for corporate leased lines that cost tens of thousands of baht.

[Unknown]

At home (Bangkok) I use true, painfully slow since yesterday.

That's why I moved to the office, where the set-up is different.

Mine is always painfully slow. Must be in the wrong area...

[marquess]

At home (Bangkok) I use true, painfully slow since yesterday.

That's why I moved to the office, where the set-up is different.

Mine is always painfully slow. Must be in the wrong area...

I am still having upload speed problems, 345/24, and when I have called True they say that everything looks fine at their end. I wonder of the actual ADSL modem could be at fault. I have had the line checked and no problems. When the True engr came, he looked at the box and tried to make up some excuse about ants having a go at the wires. The problems still persists, intermittantly, could it be a software fault? Or I am to live in a world of perpetual mystery and misinformation?