Internet too slow to watch sports, what alternatives are there?

[xylophone]

The owner of the apartments I am in has changed the Internet to 3BBB (fibre-optic) and the wireless connection from my computer to the router says it is "good".

When doing normal e-mail things and reading online newspapers etc, everything is fine, but when it comes to watching sport from a program I have downloaded (and paid for) things change. The picture continually freezes and just last week it took me 90 min to watch 35 min of actual football, however once the live game was over I could go back to the site and pretty well watch it without too much freezing going on.

I have been told that this is because the Internet companies here "throttle" the signal out of Bangkok, whether intentionally or not, I don't know, however with the rugby World Cup coming up and next seasons football just a couple of months away I would really like to watch the sports without the pictures freezing etc.

So for all of you folks who know a lot more about this sort of thing that I do, is there another Internet provider in Thailand who does not do or suffer from the same thing (I was told that this 3BBB connection delivers 30/Mbs, however there are eight people sharing this line although I doubt whether they are all watching sport at the same time) as "throttling back" the signal or similar?

Is there an alternative whereby I can get a separate feed to my apartment, or indeed perhaps some sort of satellite link to a sports channel? I have to bear in mind that the owner might not want to be putting large satellite dishes up etc, however if that's the only way, then I could broach the subject with him.

Finally, I did try a speed test when the situation was at its worst and although I'm not quite sure what I was looking at, I think I remember the signal being at 0.7/Mbs??

Any help would be much appreciated.

[rijit]

The owner of the apartments I am in has changed the Internet to 3BBB (fibre-optic) and the wireless connection from my computer to the router says it is "good".

When doing normal e-mail things and reading online newspapers etc, everything is fine, but when it comes to watching sport from a program I have downloaded (and paid for) things change. The picture continually freezes and just last week it took me 90 min to watch 35 min of actual football, however once the live game was over I could go back to the site and pretty well watch it without too much freezing going on.

I have been told that this is because the Internet companies here "throttle" the signal out of Bangkok, whether intentionally or not, I don't know, however with the rugby World Cup coming up and next seasons football just a couple of months away I would really like to watch the sports without the pictures freezing etc.

So for all of you folks who know a lot more about this sort of thing that I do, is there another Internet provider in Thailand who does not do or suffer from the same thing (I was told that this 3BBB connection delivers 30/Mbs, however there are eight people sharing this line although I doubt whether they are all watching sport at the same time) as "throttling back" the signal or similar?

Is there an alternative whereby I can get a separate feed to my apartment, or indeed perhaps some sort of satellite link to a sports channel? I have to bear in mind that the owner might not want to be putting large satellite dishes up etc, however if that's the only way, then I could broach the subject with him.

Finally, I did try a speed test when the situation was at its worst and although I'm not quite sure what I was looking at, I think I remember the signal being at 0.7/Mbs??

Any help would be much appreciated.

as opposed to using wireless if possible you could try running a lan lead frolm the router to your laptop.

[Forkinhades]

With a speed of 0.7 you are not going to be able to watch anything. With 8 people sharing an 'already' shared line you are always going to struggle.

[Chicog]

Get your own Internet. If your Condo says you're not allowed to, get a 4G mobile internet dongle and hide the SSID so that no-one knows it's there.

[KhunBENQ]

Could you provide sample links to the sites that you frequent?

Without its difficult to judge whether another provider (like mine) would do a better job (just to make sure another provider/line would solve the problem).

30 MBits/s for 8 users might sound doable at first sight (30/8 = 3.75),

BUT: you barely never get the 30 Mbit/s on international lines.

As a single user you would be well served with 10 Mbit/s or so.

So if mostly farang are on the router you might share 10/8.

And then there is a "risk" that there are people are hijacking the WiFi connection, as the PW was spread openly within the personell or even some neighbours.

Talk to the landlord first about your own line.

Edited May 29, 2015 by KhunBENQ

[GBK]

Who does the best 4G dongles these days, speedwise?

I guess the answer may vary depending on location?

[rakchaingmai]

I have my own internet connection and I still can't watch sports online always freezes 30/5 true move Internet .

I think it is the outside line from Thailand that is slow for international websites .

[Henricus]

very easy don`t look sport

[Gandtee]

Go to the pub and watch it there

[Fullstop]

Internet too slow to watch sports, what alternatives are there?

Knitting.

[h90]

Reading a book. That technology works reliable as long as there is light.

[xylophone]

Could you provide sample links to the sites that you frequent?

Without its difficult to judge whether another provider (like mine) would do a better job (just to make sure another provider/line would solve the problem).

30 MBits/s for 8 users might sound doable at first sight (30/8 = 3.75),

BUT: you barely never get the 30 Mbit/s on international lines.

As a single user you would be well served with 10 Mbit/s or so.

So if mostly farang are on the router you might share 10/8.

And then there is a "risk" that there are people are hijacking the WiFi connection, as the PW was spread openly within the personell or even some neighbours.

Talk to the landlord first about your own line.

The sports site is 365sport.tv and that's the only site I visit.

As regards another response, I do have an AIS 3G dongle which I use as a back up (I do my banking online) but I tried that it it doesn't seem to have the capacity.

[Forkinhades]

Who does the best 4G dongles these days, speedwise?

I guess the answer may vary depending on location?

With a dongle your downloads will be capped

[xylophone]

Get your own Internet. If your Condo says you're not allowed to, get a 4G mobile internet dongle and hide the SSID so that no-one knows it's there.

Thanks Chicog...........would my own line give me the capacity (bandwidth?) to be able to watch the sport?

From your answer and a couple of others it would seem that the sharing of the 3BB line might be the problem. And what is an SSID?

[GBK]

Who does the best 4G dongles these days, speedwise?

I guess the answer may vary depending on location?

With a dongle your downloads will be capped

Please excuse my ignorance about this, but when you say "downloads", would that be files, watching video (which I almost never do and just a few Dropbox files from time to time), or things like Skype?

Thanks for any info.

[Forkinhades]

Everything you do uses data, surfing, emails...

If you have a smartphone you can check what you use.

[whiteman]

If you pay peanuts a month for your internet expect to be treated like a monkey

[GBK]

If you pay peanuts a month for your internet expect to be treated like a monkey

You can pay good money and get the same treatment though, unfortunately.

[glegolo]

An alternative that I was forced to use, and now love to use, is to just simply download from different sites, the sports you wish to look at. Nowadays I dont care if I look at the EPL games at monday.. really who cares???? I download Match of the day and see them all, or I can download saturdays games on sunday and be happy... same with champions league....

Still please... the world is not going under....

Glegolo

[Banzai99]

I watch football on my TOT that costs less than 800 per month.

Can download movies at over 1000 kbps with enough seeds too, but its my own connection straight to my condo, unshared.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Banzai99

[Chicog]

Get your own Internet. If your Condo says you're not allowed to, get a 4G mobile internet dongle and hide the SSID so that no-one knows it's there.

Thanks Chicog...........would my own line give me the capacity (bandwidth?) to be able to watch the sport?

From your answer and a couple of others it would seem that the sharing of the 3BB line might be the problem. And what is an SSID?

Yes, if other people are using a shared line, your bandwidth is going to be reduced.

An SSID is effectively the Name of your Wireless network.

Some Condos don't allow personal Internet connections (probably because they make money overcharging for a shared connection), but you can hide the SSID (name) so no-one knows it's there.

You can still log onto it because you know what name to type.

If you don't have this restriction, it's not an issue. The only issue is making sure your Wifi is on a different channel to the ones around it.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Chicog

[KhunBENQ]

Could you provide sample links to the sites that you frequent?

Without its difficult to judge whether another provider (like mine) would do a better job (just to make sure another provider/line would solve the problem).

30 MBits/s for 8 users might sound doable at first sight (30/8 = 3.75),

BUT: you barely never get the 30 Mbit/s on international lines.

As a single user you would be well served with 10 Mbit/s or so.

So if mostly farang are on the router you might share 10/8.

And then there is a "risk" that there are people are hijacking the WiFi connection, as the PW was spread openly within the personell or even some neighbours.

Talk to the landlord first about your own line.

The sports site is 365sport.tv and that's the only site I visit.

As regards another response, I do have an AIS 3G dongle which I use as a back up (I do my banking online) but I tried that it it doesn't seem to have the capacity.

Ok, 365sport.tv is streamed from within Thailand, not an international connection and definitely not throttled by the network providers.

I had a test subscription for a month or so and it worked excellent.

But it uses up to about 5 Mbit/s while filliing the buffer (upto 15 min ahead or so).

I don't remember what the minimum requirement for 365 was (3 Mbit/s ?).

On the other hand, very clear what happens if 8 users would try to watch (near) HD TV on a shared 30 Mbit/s line.

Edited May 29, 2015 by KhunBENQ

[Pinot]

Trying to watch the NBA playoffs, I payed NBA.com for their pass but couldn't watch it. I googled the streaming sites and watched it that way without any problems. I don't know why that works and the other doesn't.

[Beng]

If you pay peanuts a month for your internet expect to be treated like a monkey

[rijit]

Trying to watch the NBA playoffs, I payed NBA.com for their pass but couldn't watch it. I googled the streaming sites and watched it that way without any problems. I don't know why that works and the other doesn't.

dont really understand the 'hows' but the streamers compress the.signal to ease access at the expense of some quality where as the official sites dont they want 2 sell almost a perfect product.

[Wolfe]

MOVE

I got TOT 30mg Fibre Optic 1200 baht a month

Runs internet televisions in 3 rooms in my home wireless for the whole family and fast as lightning.

IN an apartment your only option is a Dongle

[Fullstop]

With a dongle your downloads will be capped

That's usually the way condoms work.

[xylophone]

MOVE

I got TOT 30mg Fibre Optic 1200 baht a month

Runs internet televisions in 3 rooms in my home wireless for the whole family and fast as lightning.

IN an apartment your only option is a Dongle

Well to be honest, I have thought about moving, but this place offers just about everything else I want and knowing my luck I would move to a place for better Internet only to find out that I couldn't get it!!

I have an AIS 3G dongle and I went to the AIS shop today to try and find out if it was "man enough" to cope with the download speed I wanted to watch my football, however they had no idea what I was talking about, and as I was not much better, then I came away none the wiser!

Other posters have been very helpful so I have investigated the old True Visions Internet line that used to run to the apartments and it is still there, so perhaps I could use that one as my own personal Internet supply? I have yet to broach the subject with the apartment owners, but hopefully they will be okay.

The next thing is that I have in my possession a couple off "boxes", one is a Linksys wireless – G 2 .4 GHz broadband router with two little aerials on the back of it, and a smaller box by Billion which is an ADSL Router with no aerials, so I guess I can use these in one way or another, so my next question is do I need a modem or will these suffice?

Oh, and many thanks to all who have replied with useful comments.

[Forkinhades]

Depends on your connection whether you can use your boxes. Linksys will be ADSL compatible. If you get TRUE fiber, the boxes will be no good as TRUE uses coaxial multiplex. However they will supply with a new box for free.

Just ring TRUE on 1686, and ask them, don't see why you need to consult your condo management team.

[rijit]

MOVE

I got TOT 30mg Fibre Optic 1200 baht a month

Runs internet televisions in 3 rooms in my home wireless for the whole family and fast as lightning.

IN an apartment your only option is a Dongle

Well to be honest, I have thought about moving, but this place offers just about everything else I want and knowing my luck I would move to a place for better Internet only to find out that I couldn't get it!!

I have an AIS 3G dongle and I went to the AIS shop today to try and find out if it was "man enough" to cope with the download speed I wanted to watch my football, however they had no idea what I was talking about, and as I was not much better, then I came away none the wiser!

Other posters have been very helpful so I have investigated the old True Visions Internet line that used to run to the apartments and it is still there, so perhaps I could use that one as my own personal Internet supply? I have yet to broach the subject with the apartment owners, but hopefully they will be okay.

The next thing is that I have in my possession a couple off "boxes", one is a Linksys wireless – G 2 .4 GHz broadband router with two little aerials on the back of it, and a smaller box by Billion which is an ADSL Router with no aerials, so I guess I can use these in one way or another, so my next question is do I need a modem or will these suffice?

Oh, and many thanks to all who have replied with useful comments.

yeah those will do or they may supply one. but the true route sounds like the answer, always worked for football 4 me in bangkok . only thing was it used 2 b a 12 mnth.contract oh and they've got an english help line.

Edited May 31, 2015 by rijit