New Thai website tests speed of ISPs

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New Thai website tests speed of ISPs 
Bangkok Post: 2 Sep 2009
www.BangkokPost.com

INTERNET New website tests speed of ISPs

In order to deal with complaints about the speed of the Internet service and draft quality guidelines for regulating the industry, the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Institute (TCI) under the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has joined hands with the Thai Webmaster Association to set up a neutral centralised website (http://www.speedtest.or.th), said Dr Prawit Leesatapornwongsa, Director of the TCI.

The new site will allow Internet users to test the speed of service providers against the claims in their advertising. This collaboration will allow consumers to monitor services and protect their rights as well as compare service quality information for ISPs to improve their services.

In the past, there was a speed test but it was fragmented and did not collect data. Meanwhile, service providers were not willing to disclose complaints that would affect their image.

Currently, slow Internet connection is the second most common complaint from consumers. The number one complaint concerns overcharging and spam from mobile phone service providers.

There is an interesting statistic indicating that telecom service-related complaints in Thailand in the first six months stood at 677 cases. In Australia, within the first three months there were 130,000 cases and the figure is expected to reach 500,000 by the end of the year.

"This shows the trend that telecom service in Thailand is ahead of other issues like in some developed countries that telecom services complaints are ahead of financial and housing issues," said Dr Prawit.

The speed test site is not intended to be biased or have a hidden agenda but is only for keeping neutral data for consumer protection said the president of the Thai Webmaster Association (TWA), Pol Col Yanapol Yangyeun.

To use the website, users have to provide information about their service provider and the provincial location as well as the speed they use and then the software will automatically check the speed in that time for both uploading and downloading.

Apart from this website, it also opens for other websites to embed speed tests to offer their visitors. There are several websites involved now such as pantip.com, dek-d.com, dotarai.com and kapook.com. The new website will collect the data from September and will release the results in early December.

Dr Prawit said he expects that the information will lead to the setting of a minimum service parameter standard in high speed Internet service from an industry consensus.

"In some countries, the speed they offer is the minimum guaranteed speed but for Thailand the actual speed depends on many conditions especially reduction speed varies according to concurrent users.

"Moreover, there is still an outstanding issue called loop unbundling in which telecom companies who own networks gain more comparative advantage than others who do not own networks by selling wholesale network bandwidth price to other service providers not low enough. This is a major barrier to limited service choices and better pricing," Dr Prawit said.