Update Notes: 05-Mar-2003

Two major changes since my last update: 1) @Home is no more and AT&T decided to operate everything itself under the guise of AT&T BI; 2) now AT&T BI is now likewise history (or soon will be), having been bought out by Comcast. For each change, users have had to change their email address. Thankfully, I have a separate email address, so the effect of me has been minimal.

Update Notes: 11-Apr-2001

Three weeks ago, I stayed at a hotel in another city where they had a computer equipped with Qwest's DSL service. (Note: Qwest took over US West, the West Coast's "Baby Bell"). As I had never actually tried DSL before, I was curious to see how good (or bad?) it was.

In short, I'll stick with my existing AT&T @Home cable modem service, thank-you. First of all, the Qwest DSL connection speed (about 220 down/210 up) was decidely slower, at least on the downlink side. While the uplink speed was 2x-3x faster than what I currently get, give me downlink speed any day.

Another thing that bugged me was the fact that you had to login à la Windows' Dial-Up Networking to use it. And of course, it automatically disconnects after a period of inactivity. So much for "always on".

Update Notes: 21-Feb-2001

Some more benchmarks thanks to Howard Winata. Howard has a TDSL ("Time-Duplex Digital Subscriber Line") line (256K down/up), courtesy of PointAsia Access, with Loxinfo as the ISP and UBT as the DSL provider. Part of a condo network in upper Sukhumvit, this line is currently being shared with approximately 14 other subscribers.

The figures shown below were obtained from DSL Reports' Megapath test site (as with previous benchmarks), and were conducted between Friday 16-Feb-2001 and Saturday 17-Feb-2001 at the reported times:

Howard also ran some benchmarks from DSL Reports' LinkLine test site. There were conducted between Sunday 18-Feb-2001 and Monday 19-Feb-2001 at the reported times:

Howard notes that for the last 07:30 reading, he obtained a marked increase in download speed by "tweaking" his DefaultRecWindow setting from 8192 to 65535, thus earning a 20-38% improvement over previous recorded times (bloody wow!). Learn more about this here: http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks.

Update Notes: 16-Feb-2001

Some more benchmarks from my young friend, Tweephol, who used to have an ADSL line (Lenso Q-Net/Loxinfo), but recently switched to UBT/Asia Infonet's cable modem service with a line rated at 256K down, 64K up:

He reports that Asia Infonet is having trouble with their international link, so this may or may not account for the disappointing numbers (i.e. the connection may be routed through CAT's International Gateway instead?). Updated numbers will be posted in due course.

Update Notes: 10-Dec-2000

Just for the hell of it, I did another benchmark run to see how my current speeds compare to my measurements 2 months ago. To my surprise, my speeds are higher, quite a bit higher in fact. Previously, the highest speed I had EVER seen was about 2,500 Kbps. Now, I'm averaging 3,200+ Kbps. (Note: This was conducted on a Sunday, a day when cable TV usage should be higher than on week-days.)

Update Notes: 01-Dec-2000

A report from Bill Thompson re: Q-Net's ADSL service:

"I attended a demo of Q-Net's ADSL service at ABAC this morning. In short, I was disappointed at what I saw. First, Linux is supported only with a 12,000 Baht external box not the 3,000 Baht internal card as shown in their adverts. The brochure on the internal card explains why - it's a Win card dependent on the machine CPU! Q-Net will allow Linux users to use their own ADSL box as long as they check it out prior to sign-up. The advert does not say all prices are subject to VAT - they are. The guy fielding questions could not comment on an increase in monthly rates after 31 Dec, the end of the promotion period. He asked me to call him later in the week on this. The demo ends today."

"My interest is in their 64K service. But they only had 128K and 512K service demos. The 128K demo machine wasn't cooperating and the guy changed the settings of the 512K demo machine to 128K. The speed of the logon appeared to be reasonable. Accessing an offshore site - www.windowmaker.org - appeared to be reasonable, time-wise. Downloading a 2+ MB file never exceeded a throughput of 7.5K! The throughput on a 2+ MB file from ftp.nectec.or.th never exceeded 15.5-K! The guy claimed the latter throughput inside Thailand was the norm!"

"Really not much to go on for a "buy" but 64K must be only marginally better than Samart's 56K on a good day."

Addendum: "I discovered the external ADSL modem is the Aztec Turbo 900 ADSL modem. It costs S$99 (2,467 Baht) in Funan IT or Sim Lim Square in Singapore or S$119 (2,965 Baht) bundled with a 3C900TPO LAN card."

Update Notes: 31-Sep-2000

I discovered just that a young friend of mine in Thailand, named Tweephol, had ADSL installed with a line rated at 256K/128K from Lenso's Q-Net and Loxinfo. Naturally, I asked him to run some benchmarks for me (by the way, he's located in the Sukhumvit area). These figures, which were obtained over a 2 day period, look a hell of a lot better than what Tony's been getting. Keep in mind, though, that his line is also faster than Tony's.

Update Notes: 27-Sep-2000

Wanna learn the basics about cable and DSL modems? Check out the following links:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/cable-modem.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/dsl.htm

Update Notes: 26-Sep-2000

Tony Waltham, editor supremo of Post Database has written up his experiences using ADSL in Thailand in the 25-Oct-2000 issue of PDB. You can/should read it at http://www.bangkokpost.net/data/251000_Database17.html.

As a rough comparison, I ran some benchmarks with my cable modem at the same website Tony did (i.e. http://www.dslreports.com/stest?loc=1). These tests were run during a 48 hour period (week-days) with a line that is rated at unlimited/128K. On average, my downlink speed was 1,066 Kbps, while my uplink speed was 74 Kbps.

This compares with Tony's average of about 60 Kbps on the downlink and "slightly slower" on the uplink with a line rated at 128K/64K (or 128K/128K) from UBT/Internet Thailand.