Job Discussion Forums

CThomas · Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 380 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

Where are you, Pizza Lover? I wish the polls had a little more granular control of them -- time, location, etc., so we could have a better view of this. I think that some ISPs are taking this seriously while others aren't, regardless of it's authenticity, and possibly along geographic lines. It's real, but not complete.

In any case, our little informal poll is approaching a majority of NOs.

sg9015 · Joined: 03 Sep 2009 Posts: 69 Location: Saigon

Pizza Lover · Joined: 20 Jun 2009 Posts: 13

CThomas · Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 380 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

wondering to what extent outtages are city/regional specific

Pizza Lover · Joined: 20 Jun 2009 Posts: 13

CThomas · Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 380 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

Outages being specific successful instances of ban then.

sg9015 · Joined: 03 Sep 2009 Posts: 69 Location: Saigon

What I don't get is that they are forcing a million or so people to find ways around this via VPN's and such like. The demographic of those people are exactly the demographic that in most countries will rebel against systems that they have issues with.

By forcing them down the VPN, proxy route, you educate alot of people in one move on how you can make your web surfing private and kept away from prying eyes. Previously they could monitor that group easily, now it's not so easy....

Pizza Lover, some of the people I work with can still get Facebook at home without using any methods. There has been no official confirmation of the ban by the govt. So, arguing over the semantics of ban/outtage doesn't particularly advance what this thread was set up to do.

jb0072009 · Joined: 26 Feb 2009 Posts: 127 Location: Saigon

I live in Saigon and have SPT as my ISP (unfortunately no choice, the apt building only has that). They block both Facebook and Youtube besides having sucka## speeds no matter what plan you have. I found that using a USA web proxy allows me to access both of these as well as Fox and CBS websites to watch TV episodes (although the video stutters badly due to lousy bandwidth)

CThomas · Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 380 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

Slightly off topic, but what is the best internet service provider in HCMC -- as far as bandwidth in general and accessibility (access to 2.0 and media sites)?

What provider now allows access to FB and YT? This may be as much as bandwidth issue as it is a censorship issue, from jb0072009's post, but anyway.

As far as bandwidth, that would be both download and upload, as I'd like to upload video as well, and hopefully HD video, so bandwidth is important.

sg9015 · Joined: 03 Sep 2009 Posts: 69 Location: Saigon

I'm with SPT and they do suck big time. Some days it will give you a true 2mb connection so I'll see speeds of up to 250kb's download. But most times it hovers around 10% of that.

I had a company come to our apartment who provide a fibre connection. They said that the best I could hope to achieve would be 10mb download from a site hosted in Vietnam and a maximum of 2mb if this site was overseas. I would have to pay $80 per month for that though but could split it across the other apartments here in my building in Q8. That would also be an 'always on' service where currently I have to pay per kb downloaded/uploaded.

Sorry I can't advise you of one that actually gives a decent service.

jb0072009 · Joined: 26 Feb 2009 Posts: 127 Location: Saigon

I have FPT here at work. They block Facebook but not Youtube. They actually deliver about 50% of the 6Mb down speed which is certainly better than SPT. I had VNPT in Nha Trang. They gave you 100% of the actual speed you ordered and was always up. They are expensive though compared to FPT and I am not sure how they are here in HCM. All ISP's I have seen in Nam give much more reliable up speeds then downspeeds but then again most are limited to 512kor 640k/s up. Also I have seen SPT actually throttle bit torrent traffic at night (peak use) which is funny considering they break every IP law there is in this country. I had SPT come out to my pad and they gave me the same BS about good speeds to sites in Nam and bad speeds to sites outside Nam. Actualy it is true. If you run a speedtest to a Nam server versus a Bangkokserver you will see it is true. They must be using QOS settings to achieve this

sigmoid · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 1276

re: facebook - some days yes, some days no

wasted_ace19 · Joined: 19 Nov 2009 Posts: 41

CThomas · Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 380 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

Thanks for the tips on the ISPs. It sounds like it's possible to get some pretty decent speed, which is good news. And 500kbs upload really is pretty good. Not Korea speed, but pretty good. Are any gamers here getting good pings to COD servers? (had to ask, as even though I'll be immersing myself in the local culture, Imma play some COD2.

Wasted, I can understand why Pizza was being a little defensive, as specific locations can give more info than some people want to give, especially if they're commenting on workplace issues. No worries. Pizza, to be sure, though, targeting specific regions and even ISPs is a good way of knowing what's up where.

Regardless of debates about why things are happening, the trick is knowing who's doing what and responding to that information. For example, certain ISPs might see a lot more new subscriptions relative to their web 2.0 policies. I imagine they'll put $2 and $2 together if so....