Internet Slowdown To Be A Pain For At Least Three Weeks

[Farma]

For those having communication problems, Skype is working fine.

[sbk]

Earlier today I could only connect with a proxy and then my DSL completely stopped about 10 minutes ago. Now it is back on and fast. No proxy server either.

I am keeping my fingers crossed.

And toes

[phuketrichard]

i for one can connect here, ( thai visa), get email, chat on Yahoo and skype and that's about it.

Can not access any of my bank accounts websites in the states nor any of my own websites nor stats for these sites also in the states. ;-(

I am on the ipstar sat. I assume that the signal is sent from the sat BUT still needs the cable to access the outside world..

[Wolfie]

I wasn't UK or US bashing wolfie.. I just thought the timing of the posters problems was very convenient

I wasn't referring to your post, Fourbaht, i was referring to the argument brewing between yankee-expat and gazzz. But none-the-less the warning goes out to everyone. We will not tolerate name calling and bickering. Thanks!

[thaigene2]

As I said in another new thread- I can access Int'l sites (BBC, Hotmail) using Firefox browser but not MS Explorer. Anyone elses noticed this using a different browser? It makes no sense to me..

[marshbags]

Thu, December 28, 2006 : Last updated 14:19 pm (Thai local time) From THE NATION

Scramble to repair Asia telecom lines after quake

Taipei - Telecommunications operators in Taiwan and Hong Kong have dispatched workers to repair quake-damaged undersea cables, as much of Asia remained without Internet access, officials said Thursday.

Millions of people from China to Australia muddled through a second day without full telephone or Internet services after Tuesday's 7.1-magnitude earthquake off Taiwan damaged the fibreoptic cables running through the zone.

Taiwan's largest phone company, Chunghwa Telecom, has contracted three boats from Britain, Japan and Singapore to carry repairmen to the area, said deputy general managed Lin Ren-hung.

Full repairs could take from two to three weeks, he said, adding that efforts would be made to re-route Internet connections with the support of foreign service providers.

In Hong Kong, where frustrated office workers struggled to gain access to overseas websites, telecommunications officials said five boats had been dispatched to the affected zone, local radio station RTHK reported.

Workers could need up to five days to partially restore the lines, the report said.

PCCW, Hong Kong's biggest fixed-line operator, did not immediately return phone calls for comment.

The disruption was widespread, hitting China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere, with knock-on effects as far away as Australia for companies whose Internet is routed through affected areas.

International call services in Southeast Asia and to the United States remained disrupted, with operators in several countries saying they could not give a firm date for the full resumption of services.

Agence France Presse

marshbags

P.S. Like most posters i am getting many problems accessing sites.

The Nation is o.k. but no chance with Bangkok Post.com or co.th along with many international web sites.

I just keep trying until i find the ones that can be used including alternatives for the present time.

Not all computers have the same installations so there has to be differences in options available

It,s no good blaming others so stay coolllllllllllllllllllllllllll until things get better.

[cutter007]

That is what you get, when you allow companies like CAT to monopolize the international backbones. It is criminal intend of the Thai authorities that they do not allow organisation like NECTEC to run an backup. They will never learn however. It is too cozy being made important. On top of that CAT is one of the least important customers as they have negotiated a very low price for the least optimized service. Who cares if Thailand stays at the bottom of the food chain, certainly not the current government.

I hold a masters in telecom, and have worked on global network infrastucture in the private sector, and I think

you should know something about what you are talking about before complain about these organizations.

CAT doesn't have anything to do with a international backbone cable in Taiwan, this is owned by one of CATs upstream providers,

possibly Singtel, MCI, or another backbone provider.

Also for the others there was no fault for redundancy, people just don't understand the economy of scale when

they are commenting about this stuff.

First there are multiple cables and routes, but do you understand what happens when a backbone link

goes done, the traffic floods the other routes almost instantaneously, and you are extremely lucky if they don't crash immediately.

Comments like run one cable West and one cable East, get real, what your going to run cable through Tibet, the Middle East, and Europe, in the ground all so that you can have redundancy in case of an earthquake in the Pacific.

Do you any of you have any idea how much in costs to run a backbone fibre across the Pacific????

Take a guess, and then multiple that by 1,000 and that would be how much it would cost to run a cable across Asia over land.

Why don't we just run 5 or 6 backbone cables across the Pacific that are only used in case of emergencies, each a thousand miles apart, forget about the feasablity of it, the cost, or the geographic impossibilities................. this would be the same as your wife asking you to buy her a backup car in case she happens to get a flat tire with the primary car.

I though for a major act of nature, the response and resolution was extremely fast.

It seems like this is a criticize anything Thai web board now a days, chears to all those people that spoke up about it

on this blog.

Something wrong in Lao, blame a Thai organization, earthquake in Taiwan, blame a Thai organization,

I am definitely one for pointing out that there is plenty of room for improvement in this country,

but seriously, some people want to blame them for everything.

[phuketrichard]

I also have seen that firefox for some sites works while IE6 does not....

anyone have any idea why???

What would that have to do with the cable??

[fourbaht]

I though for a major act of nature, the response and resolution was extremely fast.

It seems like this is a criticize anything Thai web board now a days, chears to all those people that spoke up about it

on this blog.

Something wrong in Lao, blame a Thai organization, earthquake in Taiwan, blame a Thai organization,

I am definitely one for pointing out that there is plenty of room for improvement in this country,

but seriously, some people want to blame them for everything.

Well said that man..

[marshbags]

BREAKING NEWS !7.43 Bangkok Post

Thailand Internet still mostly out

(Agencies)

Internet users in Thailand were able to access some websites today, but around 70 per cent of Net subscribers were without access for the second day, monopoly bandwidth provider CAT Telecom Public Company Ltd said.

They and millions of other people across Asia suffered a second straight day without full Internet service on Thursday as telecoms operators raced to counter predictions of weeks without web access.

At least eight boats headed to the waters between Hong Kong and Taiwan so that repairmen could tackle the complicated task of fixing underwater fibre-optic cables damaged in a huge earthquake off Taiwan on Tuesday.

Although stock markets across the region functioned normally, access to overseas websites remained spotty, as did the ability to dial telephone numbers in the United States and across Southeast Asia.

"Our system is gradually recovering," leading Japanese long-distance provider NTT Communications, said in a statement, explaining that it had re-routed much of its data transmission away from the troubled Taiwan route.

"However, for certain customers it will take a longer time for full restoration as it may require a complete reinstallation of cables."

Telecommunications operators in Taiwan and Hong Kong warned that although service would be gradually restored thanks to such re-routing of networks, fixing the widespread problems could take as long as three weeks.

Five maintenance ships sent to repair cables

Taiwan's largest phone company, Chunghwa Telecom, has contracted three boats from Britain, Japan and Singapore to take workers to the zone, said deputy general managed Lin Ren-hung.

Efforts would be made to divert Internet connections with the support of foreign service providers until the ruptured cables could be repaired, he added.

Hong Kong's telecommunications authority said five maintenance ships had been sent out to repair the cables, which handle about 90 per cent of total capacity in the area.

International landline calling and roaming mobile services in the southern Chinese territory were returning to normal, but it said repairs could take up to a week.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake that hit Taiwan late on Tuesday sparked widespread disruption on Wednesday, hitting China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere, but knock-on problems occurred as far away as Australia.

Alternative providers?

Millions of people dependent on the Internet for instant news updates, stock prices and e-mail were given a clear reminder of what life was like before the World Wide Web.

Global banking giant HSBC said on Thursday its internet service has been affected and was working to restore service to customers via alternative providers.

In Vietnam providers urged Internet users to ease congestion along the damaged lines by refraining from downloading music or large data files from local websites that were unaffected by the quake-related damage.

Pham Cong Lien, deputy director of the Internet management center for FPT Telecom, Vietnam's leading telecoms firm, said: "The problem is beyond the control of Internet service providers."

South Korea's information and communications ministry said 98 exclusive business lines - 80 run by Korean Telecom (KT) and 18 by LG Dacom - remained out of action but other Internet and telephone services were normal.

"Just the services have got back to normal. The cables still remain damaged," Hong Seong-Yong, a ministry official handling the problem, said.

Service across most of Australia had been restored on Thursday.

Due to difficulties on accessing i am downloading the full article courtesy of the Bangkok Post

marshbags

P.S.

I,ve just got access after trying most of the day when online

[hUsh]

Can anyone access their gmail??? I haven't been able to go to the site for 2 days...

edit: how ironic.... was just able to go to the site after posting this message.. hopefully i can log in..

[phuketrichard]

wow

things seem to work now.

was able to upload changes to my website where as for 2 days I couldn't even connect

Great JOB whomever fixed it

Thnaks

[opalhort]

This is in reference to my previous post at:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...8615&st=45#

previous post

I am NOT complaining about or blaming anybody (apart from mother nature) for the current problems, but I would like to get a better understanding about how things work.

Why can I reach TV on Pacific internet dial-up without problems but not on True ADSL? Even the "lite" TV version does not load on True ADSL!

The DNS addresses:

"INFO NS records at parent servers Your NS records at the parent servers are:

ns1.expatgroup.com. [203.174.85.154] [TTL=172800] [sG]

ns1.webwebhost.com. [206.222.30.122] [TTL=172800] [uS]

ns2.expatgroup.com. [203.174.84.82] [TTL=172800] [sG]

ns2.webwebhost.com. [206.222.30.123] [TTL=172800] [uS]

[These were obtained from d.gtld-servers.net] "

don't get me to TV. (got the above info from dnsstuff.com)

A traceroute on Pacific Internet produces this result:

A traceroute on True produces this result:

Speed tests to the TV server give very good results on True ADSL, yet I can not load the TV pages. What could be the reason?

opalhort

[Tywais]

Speed tests to the TV server give very good results on True ADSL, yet I can not load the TV pages. What could be the reason?

Some members have reported problems with IE accessing TV but with Firefox they can. I ran a traceroute from the uni here and from vlan905 down is identical to your True traceroute. Just tried IE and able to access. When you try True to get to TV what are the symptoms? Error message, partial page load, etc.

//edit - that raw IP doesn't seem to work, will get back to you on it -Tywais//

[mitrapaap]

this meltdown on the internet is not good ... it seems that all international traffic is going through that one LINK... and now it is halfway down.

services such as skype are not affected immediately as it is a peer to peer connection and does not use any DNS to look up things but when you try to go to international websites it seems to halt ...as it cannot resolve the addresses and then when it does, it needs to share the bandwidth with all the other stuff (including skype ... but skype is intelligent enough to calculate the min bandwidth necessary before it starts the call)

VoiP services will certainly be affected for international calls or when the "providor" is located outside Thailand

I just cannot believe that an organisation such as TrueInternet only has 1 cable ....and this for a country with lots of trading and many international companies...

I only can say this is disrupting normal business in a big way

what is happening in this beautiful country ?

what is this country doing to its people and the many farangs who are supporting their Thai families ...

I only can shake my head and silently hope it will beter over time ?

travelbeast

The earthquake was in TAIWAN. Is that Thailand's mistake? Has Thailand initiated it? Have you read the article? It says Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China have communication problems. Are they all bullshit countries who do nothing for their people and some foreign idiots living in them?

[callipposhots]

I'm still having trouble calling the Philippines from Thailand, but as I often used to have trouble anyway before there was any earthquake, I don't suppose that this means very much.

[opalhort]

Speed tests to the TV server give very good results on True ADSL, yet I can not load the TV pages. What could be the reason?

Some members have reported problems with IE accessing TV but with Firefox they can. I ran a traceroute from the uni here and from vlan905 down is identical to your True traceroute. Just tried IE and able to access. When you try True to get to TV what are the symptoms? Error message, partial page load, etc.

//edit - that raw IP doesn't seem to work, will get back to you on it -Tywais//

I'm using IE (don't have FF).

I do not get any errors. The page loads up to the "you are logged in as....." line and then it simply quits.

Probably the top of the page loads because it is cached. After that it is eternal waiting. If I leave the PC to it the page will eventually load (10-20min) but on a topic with many pages, 10-20min per page is not an option.

I am just curious why I have problems on TRUE, whereas Pacific Internet dial-up and also (much slower) loxinfo dial-up is working OK.

Other international web sites on TRUE work reasonably well under the current situation.

The fact that the raw IPs don't get me to TV is another strange problem but I guess it has nothing to do with the current cable cuts.

opalhort

[Tywais]

The fact that the raw IPs don't get me to TV is another strange problem but I guess it has nothing to do with the current cable cuts.

No, I suspect it is going to a transparent proxy for efficiency purposes and is why the raw IP will not work. I made an assumption (dangerous things those) and found it was wrong.

Try one more thing. Under the top menu Internet Options > General click on Delete Files to remove your temporary Internet files, restart IE and see how it behaves.

[Cyberstar]

Yes, it seems than whenever google's servers are down or inaccessible the whole Internet slows down... About a month ago the google server were down 3-4 hours... The complains about slowliness, I got from patrons in my Internet cafe, were at level with the ones I got, before putting up posters with disclaimers that I weren't to held responsible for the earthquake in Taiwan.

Someone must be responsible for the dependency between one's site and google.

[rahyumdee]

I'm using the WIN-XP firewall and AVG and Spybot.

I use Outpost Firewall Pro and the old, free version of Webwasher 3.4.

I don't recommend using either WinXP's firewall or the popular ZoneAlarm any longer. Both are not secure and at least one of these is known to spy on its users and 'phones home' whenever it wants...

[Krub]

From Japan, accessing Thai hosted web pages has become easier although much slower than normal.

Telephone calls to Thailand and Indonesia are still a hit and miss with a big loss of sound quality.

My carrier has informed that they are using alternative routes and that it might take more than 3 weeks to get back to normal.

[LaoPo]

ThaiVisa access from Europe, via the S'pore servers has been very slow today (28/12); also 'access denied' and stuff like that happens often.

S'pore servers must have heavy traffic because of the quake in Taiwan.

Access to Chinese websites is completely impossible....so we shouldn't complain.

LP

[scalper]

i live in Phuket

my FAI is maxnet it does not work , not a slow problem a 100% does not get any access problem.

So i went to CAT yesterday toi buy a overpriced ev DO sierra Card ( GPRS) for 16000 baths ( internet free till the end of may)

In their office at phuket town i tried a ping on yahoo.com and get about a bad 800 ms but get internet access so i took it.

in my house ( in an area they told me it was ok) i get between 1500 and 4000ms!!!!! and lost a lot of packs so internet is more than slow ( 20 minutes to post this)

I suppose everything ,GPRS, satellite use the same way through cables??

Is there a cyber place in phuket where internet is working fine?

I am trader on forex market so cannot stay too long without internet.

If things last too long i will need to fly elsewhere the time they fix everything

[DFCarlson]

Currently I am in the US. Called my girlfried in BKK last PM. Call went through the first time but she could not hear me. Second & third try I got a recording saying the call could not be completed as dialed. Called her this AM & got through OK, no problem with connection. I also got an e-mail from her last night. All seems OK for now.

555 any one else see the secret message here?

You don't need an internet outage to experience this kind of problem!

[phuketrichard]

go to Woodys sandwich shop in Patong. Its located off the second road at the back of Andaman condotel.

I use the ipstar sat connection and as of last night i am able to access all sites everywhere,

Speeds are down a bit from normal, 125 down and 110 up.

BUT I can work and update websites so I am happy ( for now)

[mffun]

Thailand Internet slowdown 'until end of February'; CAT explores backup options

(TNA) - CAT Telecom, Thailand's Internet regulator and monopoly operator of the country's international gateway, said it would invest in 300 extra internet connections via the Indian Ocean as alternatives to those in the Pacific that failed after a powerful earthquake off Taiwan.

Thailand was slowly recovering its Internet connectivity on Friday, but was still operating far below normal bandwidth as Korean and Taiwanese technical operators tried to repair the damaged and seveered cables from the Tuesday earthquake.

Four of CAT’s eight optical networks had been affected by the earthquake, causing its speed to drop by 50 per cent. The problem was expected to continue until repairs to the undersea network were completed.

A company executive told reporters that he did not expect operations to be back at full strength before the end of February.

Jirachai Srichorn, vice president of CAT Telecom, told reporters that CAT Telecom would share the maintenance costs with other members in the submarine cable consortium. It has yet to estimate the financial losses as a result of the damages to the undersea cable networks.

He said that users might have felt the impact of the damages more strongly, had CAT Telecom not had alternative routes in the Indian Ocean and therefore were able to re-route about 50 per cent of the traffic away from damaged submarine cables.

The cables account for about 90 per cent of total telecom services capacity, and principally affected Thailand's connections to Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and the US.

The company has put forward a request to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union, which coordinates global telecom networks and services, to increase its internet capacity by 600 megabit via the Indian Ocean.

Jirachai said he expected approval within the next few days.

bangkokpost.com

[Jai Dee]

Asia Internet slowly comes back online

Hong Kong - Millions of frustrated Internet users across Asia slowly regained access to overseas websites on Friday, three days after an earthquake off the coast of Taiwan snapped several vital undersea cables.

Telecoms operators across the region re-routed Internet links to circumvent the ruptured lines off the southern part of the island, as engineers donned diving suits to assess the damage and begin repairs.

"Everything is improving now," said a spokesman for PCCW, Hong Kong's largest fixed-line operator.

"All international call and roaming services have gone back to normal, including to Taiwan, although some websites are still congested," he said.

Authorities in the southern Chinese territory said five maintenance ships had been dispatched to repair six fiber-optic cables, which handle about 90 per cent of telecommunications capacity in the area.

The government said repairs could take up to a week.

Taiwan's largest phone company, Chunghwa Telecom, has commissioned three more ships to assist the repair effort. The cables ruptured following Tuesday's 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which killed two people on the island.

Internet users frustrated by their inability to log onto e-mail accounts, news websites and online banking services -- conveniences that have become part of modern life -- found access across the region Friday improved but still patchy.

Southeast Asia's largest telecom operator Singapore Telecommunications said it has established a "command centre" to restore affected Internet, BlackBerry and private data network services as quickly as possible.

"We continue to work closely with other submarine cable consortium members to restore and repair the damaged cables as soon as possible," the company said.

The SingTel Group has interests in about 50 submarine cables with landing points in more than 50 locations in Asia, the company says.

"Recovery work is moving ahead quickly, with nearly all financial institutions including foreign banks back to normal overnight," said Hong Seong-Yong, an official at the South Korean communications ministry.

Most Internet and telephone services had been restored across South Korea on Friday, although 49 exclusive business lines -- 41 run by Korean Telecom (KT) and eight by LG Dacom -- remained out of order.

The state-run Xinhua news agency characterized the week's web difficulties as "cyber-chaos", with a source at China Netcom saying progress on restoring service to the mainland had been slow.

China Netcom said two boats had been sent out to start repairing the damaged lines and three others would soon depart, the China Daily reported.

Connections remained slow in Malaysia and Thailand, where the communications authority CAT Telecom said capacity had only been restored to 50 per cent.

"Thailand is still lucky compared to other countries where Internet connections have totally collapsed," a CAT official said.

Indonesia's telecoms authorities said it could take up to a month to restore Internet capacity which has fallen to just 17 per cent following Tuesday's quake.

"This incident is a major problem for us," director general of post and telecommunications Basuki Yusuf Iskandar was quoted as saying by The Jakarta Post.

Analysts said it was too early to estimate the total financial losses caused by the week's Internet mayhem. Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom put preliminary losses at 150 million Taiwan dollars (4.6 million US).

"They are the hardest hit, I would say," noted Sachin Mittal with DBS Vickers Securities in Singapore. "Probably all the (other) telcos will be less than Chunghwa.)

Source: The Nation - 29 December 2006

[z9999]

I haven't been able to retrieve my 'free' hotmail using outlook express for 3 days now, anyone know if that's related to the same problem? I can access hotmail through the www.hotmail.com address, but not through the services.msn.com path that OE required.

[scalper]

CAT Telecom, Thailand's Internet regulator and monopoly operator of the country's international gateway, said it would invest in 300 extra internet connections via the Indian Ocean as alternatives to those in the Pacific that failed after a powerful earthquake off Taiwan.

I want them to keep these lines after the recovery

My internet came back yesterday PM and since then i have never get such a nice debit ( far better than before the quake??)

So it seems than th eindian ocean cable is by far more reliable than the older one.

The speed is average ( ping between 350 and 550 ms) but absolutely no micro cut and i need a reliable line without loss of packs cut ..