CAT Internet Problem Solved

[sceadugenga]

My neighbour had CAT out today to look at his connection (a regular event) so I went down and told them that I had been getting less than a quarter of the fiber optic  20mbs/3mbs I was paying for for quite a while.

 

They came down and confirmed this and then plugged their own laptop into the connection which immediately showed 31/3.5

Some consternation and discussion and it turned out that the fault was in my DNS setting... whatever that maybe... which they then changed in minutes restoring my connection to the full power.

 

Just thought I may mention it in case someone else is having problems and blaming CAT.

 

[ESCAPIS]

Would you list the DNS settings CAT ?

[dotpoom]

Don't understand much about computers, but good of you to share this with us.

[sceadugenga]

4 hours ago, ESCAPIS said:

Would you list the DNS settings CAT ?

The guys made a phone call and wrote this down on a piece of paper on my desk.

 

61.19.205.246

122.155.55.55

 

Other than that I have no idea.

[khunyod]

Best to use Google's free DNS:

 

8.8.8.8

8.8.4.4

 

If you are using any Thai telecom, then they are recording any DNS lookups (DNS is what a domain name = in terms of a computer address). 

 

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/

 

BTW, the DNS settings have no effect on your Internet speeds, except for the very first lookup of each site. So, no, their changes did not change your "bandwidth" only the slowness of the first attempt to reach a site.

 

Another popular scam is to use a speed test like Okla -- http://www.speedtest.net/ -- and try to connect to a Bangkok server. Well, no shit, speeds to Bangkok should be fast. What you need to do is check to places you actually visit on the Internet (and, it turns out, at different times of the day/night). Most ISPs do bandwidth limiting, in order to reduce their costs. Checking speeds to Bangkok is like seeing how fast you can go out the driveway and down the cul de sac. Yeah, no one there, can peel out. But is that the same as when you want to go somewhere at peak time down the expressway? Not so much.

Edited August 27, 2016 by khunyod

[sceadugenga]

My download speed seems to have increased dramatically, I also checked using CAT speed test before and after.

I still googled the search terms "change dns increase download speed?" and found a considerable consensus in favour of this opinion.

[khunyod]

4 minutes ago, sceadugenga said:

My download speed seems to have increased dramatically, I also checked using CAT speed test before and after.

I still googled the search terms "change dns increase download speed?" and found a considerable consensus in favour of this opinion.

 

A consensus of people who don't understand what DNS is or does, or with people who use a CAT speed test to "verify" download or upload speeds is pretty much worth what you would expect. You can believe what you want, but the basis of that belief should be something other than "CAT speed test says so". 

 

Also, you may want to "test" the Google public DNS services. Or better, ask someone who actually knows something about DNS, you know, like network engineers who routinely manage DNS services for large corporations.

 

It's a bit like people who are "convinced" of the validity of any kind of home remedy for medical conditions. The internet is full of fools who are convinced, but have no inkling on how to actually evaluate things like medical research studies, which is where any proof or evidence might be found.

Edited August 28, 2016 by khunyod

[sceadugenga]

OK, no problem, I've been called worse than a fool on this forum. 

[GuyL]

 

I regularly use DNS Benchmark, a very useful tool for optimizing my DNS settings.

https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

 

 

 

 

[ripstanley]

4 hours ago, sceadugenga said:

OK, no problem, I've been called worse than a fool on this forum. 

 

I bet they used a lot less words

[villagefarang]

@sceadugenga I am hopeful that I will be able to join you guys with fiber before the end of the year.  I am happy with WiNet but I only get 13 mgbs.  I noticed this TOT box near our house and it seems to be operational.  The only problem will be running cable to our house.  I think they will have to go around the block to get to us.

 

 

[khunyod]

Check out Sinet to see if they are in your area: http://www.sinetfttx.com/en/ I find them to be faster, and more technically reliable, than others such as 3BB. Also, Sinet provided both an FFTX fiber router, and a fast Netis WIFI box with Gig ethernet ports as well. Great hardware, no nonsense.

Edited August 28, 2016 by khunyod
added hardware info

[villagefarang]

TOT is the only game in town out where we live and I am glad to have them.

[Bardeh]

Definitely use Google's DNS servers as the previous poster outlined. In my experience the Thai ISP's DNS servers are awful and slow.

[sceadugenga]

A new TOT deal, about half the price I pay now for 20/5 and includes IPTV.

 

 

[Pib]

On 8/28/2016 at 8:53 PM, villagefarang said:

@sceadugenga I am hopeful that I will be able to join you guys with fiber before the end of the year.  I am happy with WiNet but I only get 13 mgbs.  I noticed this TOT box near our house and it seems to be operational.  The only problem will be running cable to our house.  I think they will have to go around the block to get to us.

 

 

 

 

Some identical TOT boxes here in my Bangkok moobaan but these boxes are to take a fiber optics "input" (a trunk line) into the box where it's converted to ADSL for distribution (i.e., via phone line)...end result is TOT offers an ADSL package (not a fiber optics package)  to your home of approx 20Mb max.    Before they installed these boxes the fastest ADSL package they offered in my moobaan was 6Mb.   However, TOT has few internet customers in my moobaan as True Cable/DOCSIS and AIS Fibre also serve the moobaan offering much higher speed plans at low prices.    

 

Boxes such as above are not needed/used for fiber optics distribution to the best of my knowledge.   And not the large black cable coming out of top of the box is feeding into a "phone line trunk line" (the small black log looking box).   Now the small rectangular box higher up with a cable loop on each side is a fiber optics splitter box and appears to be feeding into the large grey  box where the fiber optics is converted to ADSL.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Pib

[Pib]

On 8/27/2016 at 3:08 PM, sceadugenga said:

The guys made a phone call and wrote this down on a piece of paper on my desk.

 

61.19.205.246

122.155.55.55

 

Other than that I have no idea.

 

I expect that was not the real fix as above number are just CAT DNS server.  Easy to find posts where people on CAT have change their CAT DNS settings to Google DNS to improve their connectivity usually in terms of hostname/website lookup and how fast an international website may respond.

 

My experience over the years in test driving many different DNS server addresses is they will make little to no difference in your "local" speedtesting or even international speeds in many cases, but there are difference in how quickly a one DNS service can find the host name/website (say CNN.com) you entered and then route you to that hose name.  But we are really talking "response" time to do that and not how fast the connection speed is after the connection is made....sure in some cases it does make a difference in the connection speed to that hostname due to different routing taken.

 

Using your ISP's DNS will almost always result in the fastest response time for host name look-up simply because their DNS servers are local.   Using another DNS server say like Google DNS will result in slightly slower host name look-up time (but we are talking milliseconds here) since the Google DNS server for this part of the world is in Singapore.  

 

But using a DNS server such as Google DNS and/or OpenDNS will most likely give you a higher "reliability rate" in finding the hostnames/website you want to reach anywhere in the world.   Personally, I use Googe DNS as my primary/preferred DNS server and OpenDNS as my secondary/alternate (backup) DNS server....did this when on TOT ADSL, True Cable, and now AIS Fibre.   Having both a primary and secondary DNS server entered in your operating system setting/router versus just your ISP's DSN server will also provide backup in case on DNS service goes down for a while or your primary DNS can not find a website you entered

 

 

[sceadugenga]

I'm pretty happy with CAT and the price does not break me but I like the idea of the set top box, with IPTV.