As you know that local ISP TM Net has some circuit issues on APCN2 and SMW3 and that has been remained for more than 2 weeks.The weird thing is even now they had announced that around of 97% bandwidth being recovered,I still feel the speed is very slow when I surf some foreign websites.
At this time,proxy servers and VPNs came to my mind.
What is a PROXY SERVER?
- A proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) that acts as a go-between for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers.
What is a VPN(Virtual Private Server?
- A virtual private network (VPN) is a computer network in which some of the links between nodes are carried by open connections or virtual circuits in some larger network (e.g., the Internet) as opposed to running across a single private network.
Because I think the reason of the slow outbound connection is caused by the faults on routing settings of TM servers there,so setting my connection linked on a proxy server/VPN which is located in the country where we could get a good connectivity is helpful then.
I chose to try VPN since upon my knowledge,VPN ought to be much safer than a proxy service in a normal condition.I researched a lot of VPN providers and tested a lot too,however,I can’t get a perfect selection.
I tried bolehVPN that is quite popular in Malaysia.Many Malaysians apply this service to bypass the internet throttle by local ISPs in order to use P2P.From my experience,it really works to improve the connection to US,Europe and China as well.However,I can’t get a smooth streaming when I visit tudou.com and YouTube.I think bolehVPN needs to provide more bandwidth and set some VPN servers in Asia and that should eliminate my pointed issues.(Reuben,the founder of BolehVPN,has replied and explained the points-see the details in the replies of this post.He told me that hiring a dedicated line in TM is too expensive and so may not be enough economical to use compared to set a line in US or EU.)
After this,I tried S5Proxy.It provides both proxies and VPNs.I chose a Singaporean VPN and the result was very good-low ping and high bandwidth.However,it doesn’t allow users to do P2P and streaming on their monthly flat rate package.Another package is charged on bandwidth(1GB=RMB20).For me,it is too expensive and I have to give it up.
Other VPN service providers I tried were all good at surfing Internet only,but not good at streaming.
Any people has better recommendations?Or I just wait my connection to be better in some day…a faraway day…
Hey lice, this is Reuben from BolehVPN and I could not help but notice your post on our product.
Just to let you know that BolehVPN has PLENTY of bandwidth and has nothing to do with the slow issues you are having through streaming. Our product was never really designed for streaming it was more for providing privacy and unthrottling p2p.
In fact, it does not technically improve the connection to US/Europe/China. However what probably happened was that your connection to our servers was good and that made surfing through it a better experience than going direct through TM which may have routed you to a congested route. So it is pure luck in that you got better routing through our servers than direct through TM.
Youtube, Rapidshare etc etc are not p2p based and are not throttled by TM and as such should not show an increase in speed/ability.
You suggested using a local server or an Asian server but at the current price, we are unable to offer this at this rate. Consider this 1 mbit of dedicated bandwidth in TM costs about RM380.00/month which can serve only one person. For that same price, I can get a full server with 100 mbits of bandwidth in another country and hence we are able to offer you the competitive rates that we provide.
We actually do have another service for pure streaming and surfing that is being beta tested that is hosted on local server and we have seen that at most times it performs better than a direct connection through TM.
I hope this resolves any misunderstandings you may have had on our service and hope you will amend your post accordingly to reflect that we are NOT overselling our bandwidth (we are currently at about 60% capacity and have several empty servers which users have not fully utilized.
Forgot to add that the main culprit here is TM with their overcongested lines. They are the ones who are overselling their bandwidth and there are some things that cannot be solved when your internet connection is crap from the get go.
You should however see how other IP ranges work (we have a guide on this in our FAQs) and see if it improves your connectivity (with or without VPN). This for the most part works for me.
Thanks for your detail info.As I indicated in the post,I need a service that could provide a better routing than TM has so that I could watch Youtube and Tudou smoothly as well as visiting websites in China.
I know TM line is quite expensive.However,our neighbour country-Singapore seems to have a mature network and therefore,the line price there should be more reasonable.I think you could try to set a VPN there only for surfing internet and streaming purpose.
Thank you again.