Ah well, back to the drawing board

Now I'm not one to moan but today is really getting to me.

Since I got my super duper free upgrade from TT&T for being a subscriber for over one year my internet seems to have got slower rather than quicker!
Today I have been operating at about 11kbps, so thats roughly 5 times slower than an old dial up modem.
This is not an unusual occurrence but today it's just got to me.
This must be the only country in the world where you get 1/40 of what your paying for and and nobody but you seems to give a s--t.

Really got me mad, especially as I was holding 3 kings when I timed out

And the problems continue....

After a short time of good operation, everything related to outside Thailand once again is horrible slow. My line is perfect, the TT&T Speed test says 1,300 (perfect), but using speedtest.net to check the connection to outside reveals what I see in daily use: timeouts, timeouts, timeouts, because sooooo slow....

I wonder if this is the same in Bangkok or with different services (are there any really different ones at all?).

To make this more clear - usual website browsing is slow but works. If you do just that please do not comment.

Continuing my self-conversation:

As Email sending and usage of Skype became nearly impossible, and FTP works but not SFTP (endless timeouts), I had to do something to be able to work again. I first started to check my equipment (modem and wireless router) by a simple approach: I logged in to the wireless net of my neighbour (unsecured...). Lo and behold: emails flushed away, Skype crystal-clear wtf...

They have TOT, who provide my telephone line too, so tomorrow will see me cancelling my TT&T internet account.

I have Max Net and very happy with it. SKYPE works great every day. I have had zero problems except with one issue of an Ethernet card. I run several PCs in house for different things like one is dedicated for work correspondence, one dedicated for play, and one for design work, but all on the net via router.

One PC I have, has an integrated Ethernet on the main board, the others do not. I noticed one time the net was in lag mode. I also noticed the port was flashing red when on the net, that should flash green, having similar problems like what you are describing. I tried updating it's driver and no luck. I had a spare PCI Ethernet card, installed it and all fine, back to normal.

One thing you might want to try is the driver update, and if you do have an integrated Ethernet, disable it, (control panel, system, then hardware) and then add a new PCI Ethernet card, after shut down and unplugging of course.

I also have leached free net via wireless, and still do on occasion only to hack and see why my neighbors lie about their cash flow(just kidding). The only problem with that, is in my area there are some pensioners, that tend to die off, and then the ex-pats with bad relationships end up splitting the scene. It's best to keep the internet service as it's so cheap anyway, and up-grade your PC for about the price off a bad meal in town. Components and PC's in general don't last forever, and if you have a system 2 years or older in Thailand, for sure open it up and clean it,look for bloated capacitors, scorch marks on the board or other slot components, and memory sticks, then upgrade, or buy new to keep up with the times.

A good rule of the thumb, is to check the easiest and most obvious first, like the green light, driver updates, and or Main Board driver updates from the manufacturers site. Sometimes a simple re-boot of the PC, or just the re-boot of the modem itself will enable better connectivity. Another thing to keep in mind about PCs in general, especially in Thailand, is the heat factor. Heat internally, in every body's PC here, is way higher than should be, and the humidity does not help. Overtime, components just simply wear out, and quickly here. Aside from the typical user, heat is a PCs worst enemy. Just like a persons memory, a PCs memory will go bad over time, from constant overheating to being compromised, by viruses. Keep your PCs as cool as possible. Keep the AC on when working and have a lot of air flow. Always, the cooler the better for your machine. Airflow is great, but not if it's ambient heat.

Any way, just to keep it shorter and sweet, I hope this helps out. There are many other factors as well, like simple registry cleanups, cache cleanups, a hard drive defrag, memory defrag, virus checks, re-check all Bios settings, and on and on. Most of the time it is something very simple.

One last bit of advice for all you guys with wireless routers, please secure your airwaves. That is just as bad as some guys giving your girlfriends or wives a joint bank account and ATM privileges. Some Thais are computer nerds too, of which, not stupid at all, and plenty in Udon can, and will hack your system, if there is any window of opportunity. I have yet to meet anybody rich enough here, that can afford a monetary loss of any amount.

Thanks for the notes, but this is not the point. As written above I did not change any hardware at all, just logged in wireless to my neighbour's system instead of my own wireless system - which behaves 100% the same when using the network cable instead.

In the end it comes down to the thai symptom of 'too many users on the same ISP'. Maxnet may work perfectly two streets away from my home (or for you), but right now it has become unusable, and I doubt they will react on my complaints and (be able to) change it.

It might also be that TOT right now works good (for me) and in about a few months I have the same situation again...changing to whatever is left then (do we have True internet in Udon? I don't mean sattellite internet, just the same company as provider).

Techland, yes, your point was noted. My point was that I had a similar experience due to a hardware issue (ISP service seemed to have lag time due to an on-board Ethernet, partially functioning, slowly failing), and wanted to pass on some trouble shooting tips for the others on the forum that may read the posts. Others may also have bad net experiences, of which are some alternate solutions, if not just band-width issues. I'll try to be a little more clear in the future. Regardless, I hope you can make some headway with TOT in your area. I would like to know what they do, if anything, with situations like yours. I am sure it's just a matter of time before this happens in my area, as more folks get net service. I would like better bandwidth other than via ADSL. I hope we can get cable high-speed some time in the near future. Do you you know if the cable TV company here offers cable Internet?

As far as I know the cable tv here doesn't offer Internet. My understanding that there is only one fiber optic line from Bangkok thru Khon Kaen to Udon Thani. The line stops at CAT Telelcom.....Comcast, back in the States, fiber optics stopped at a terminal outside my house and the rest was cable (copper wiring). Don't want to go to in depth with the structure of grids. Best you are going to get is ADSL. Also all providers have to go through CAT Telecom to get out of Thailand, including True Internet which I found is not offered here in Udon Thani.

Your are right about checking you equipment first to insure it is operating properly. Once you have determined it's not the equipment, next is to call you ISP provider.

Pop's

here is a suggestion pick up another hard drive install your O/S and see if there is any improvement if there is then it your computer settings and the total cost is about 1500 baht and you will have a spare HD if not then youwill have to deal with your ISP good luck

Well, when I went to TT&T to complain (must have been wednesday) I got out of the shop quickly because they just said that Internet is not working at all. Have ploblem in Kon Kaen. Indeed when I returned home web browsing failed for some time, came back, failed...

The big surprise came yesterday morning: everything works again. Slow (as usual), but it works, even Skype is usable, and no timeouts anymore. So they were working on whatever which now improves my situation. Not intentionally I bet. For how long? Don't know.

My TT&T has also slowed right down over recent weeks. Unable to log into home page sometimes.
Got gf to ring them and they said someone would ring me at home soon. One hour later get phone call, whilst talking to him 2 TT&T guys show up and come and test line etc. Every thing OK they say!!
Still slow, but I have made 2 changes to laptop which has speeded things up. Not perfect, but better. I now log into internet using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer and use Onspeed. I've also given up using laptop with wireless connexion as speed was only 54mbps. Use ethernet connection and speed is 100mbps.

does that onspeed really work is it worth the 25 usd a year?

Ron, from my experience, sometimes it can be a real pain in the rear end when using with GPRS as it 'drops out' (sometimes without telling you that it has) as it seems sensitive to the signal strength. But see this topic & you can get it for 6 months for nothing - so no real loss...

http://www.udonmap.com/udonthaniforum/viewtopic.php?t=7053&highlight=onspeed

aznyron wrote:does that onspeed really work is it worth the 25 usd a year?

Not sure!! Haven't noticed a dramatic difference. At the moment using 6 months free trial.

thank you Bob & galee I will give it a try now they are only offering 14 days