Because of the typhoon and the earthquake in Taiwan area recently,many undersea cables in that place were damaged.Those cables are the main pathways connecting North Asia,South East Asia,Europe and USA.
I’ve heard that Chinese users couldn’t login in MSN since yesterday.In Malaysia,we have to enjoy much slower international connections,especially to China and USA.
Telekom Malaysia released a piece of announcement several days ago explaining the current situation regarding to the disruptions on international link:
Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) wishes to announce that its consortium members have detected that a 2nd cable fault on Segment 7 of the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) undersea cable network between China and Taiwan on Friday, 14 August 2009.
The fault follows three other service disruptions that recently hit the same cable network, affecting APCN2 Segment 7, between Hong Kong and Taiwan, and APCN2 Segment 1, which connects Singapore and Malaysia. The earlier faults on APCN2 Segment 1 were restored on Sunday, 16 August 2009.
As a result, customers using Internet services may continue to experience slow browsing while accessing websites hosted in the US and Northern Asia. In addition, customers using other IP services such as Virtual Private Network (VPN) over Internet and other critical business applications linked to the US and Northern Asia may experience some service degradation. To alleviate the problem, some of the links have been directed to alternate routes to ease the congestion.
Restoration works on the affected cables are already in progress. Full recovery of Internet services is expected to be on 10 September 2009. TM will make further announcements on the progress of the restoration works.
All right,we have to wait for at least some weeks to get improvements.I just wish that there won’t have any other disasters in the future.The Taiwanese have suffered too much!
Nearly 1 month ago,I started premium Singapore VPN service and it works quite fine.Many Malaysian users subscribe the service for a lower latency to play foreign online games which may locate in Singapore or China.However,as I only could provide a limited bandwidth on this Singapore server,I never allow heavy downloading.
After I received several enquiries for a VPN service for downloading and streaming,I decided to host another USA VPN service which has enough bandwidth to be used with a reasonable price.Thus,it is good for the people who like downloading and streaming.
I had set up an official website called ValueVPN to sell the services.I hope you guys will continue to support it.Of course,I always welcome your comments and suggestions.
According to Wikipedia,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 networks, such as the Internet, as opposed to running across a single private network. The Link Layer protocols of the virtual network are said to be tunneled through the transport network. One common application is to secure communications through the public Internet, but a VPN does not need to have explicit security features such as authentication or content encryption. For example, VPNs can also be used to separate the traffic of different user communities over an underlying network with strong security features, or to provide access to a network via a customized or private routing mechanisms.
Why need a VPN?
In many countries,Internet Service Providers set some restrictions on their services.For example,in Dubai,ISPs blocks VoIP service;In china,ISPs block some websites such as YouTube;In Malaysia,ISPs block some P2P applications.
With using a VPN,your computer is showing an IP address assigned by the VPN server which is located outside the country that you live in.That helps the computer to bypass the monitor and censorship of your local ISPs.
Who need a VPN?
People who wants some more security.Nowadays many modem people like to have some coffee in Starbucks and get WIFI access there at the same time.However,since the WIFI network is open to public,the computers in that public network is fully exposed and less security.Applying a VPN,it encrypts all units transmitting from your computer to the Internet.That means you definitely could keep your privacy well.
People who wants to access some restricted contents/applications blocked by local ISPs may also need a VPN because it could bypass local ISPs’ control and set you free.
I set up a VPN(PPTP) server in Singapore currently and it’s working on a shared 10Mps connection which could provide a stable and high-speed service to the users.
If you want to try it the service,you could only pay RM6.5/US$1.99 for one-day trial.If you want to continue to have use this useful service,you could pay RM45/US$12.99 for one month or pay RM120/US$34.99 for one quarter.
I provide dedicated VPN(Shared speed,no GUARANTEED with best effort basis) as well.That means people who subscribe this dedicated VPN service could use it to do whatever legal things .It could handle normally up to 10 users in a server with a reasonable speed.(Some extra charges will be applied if you want to add more than 10 users in your VPN or you want to have some guaranteed bandwidth.It’s good for small/medium cooperations or groups of friends/gamers.)
For the dedicated server,the minimum subscription duration is 2 months and I will charge it for RM650/US$185 for the 2 months.Once I get the payment,I will go to setup it immediately and put it into service within 24 hours(during working days;order made during weekends,I will make it in the coming Monday).
*Since the foreign exchange rate is fluctuating currently,I may adjust the price slightly in a near future.For sure,I will also inform my existing customers in advance in order to pay the recurring payment at a new rate.
Once I receive the payment,I will give you the instruction to use the service within 24 hours.Every subscriber should leave a comment as a reminder to me.Please kindly let me know the pros and cons of my service after your trial and hopefully you will like it always.
Thanks.
*Note* The VPN service is not allowed to do any illegal activity according to laws and regulations in Singapore.It has no limits on usages,however,any activity which may cause overuse the resources(eg. heavy P2P downloading/file transfer) will be prohibited and once it happens,I will send acknowledge to the user firstly and reserve the right to terminate the account with no refund.Please be noted that all users must take full responsibility on their own activities.The terms and conditions are applied to both Premium Singapore VPN and Dedicated Singapore VPN.
I’m freaking out because of the terrible and horrible broadband service and its inefficient and ineffective customer service.I took my time to express the issue of slow connection and then the CS guy told me that he would submit my issue to the technical expert team.He also told me I would get a reply from them in half an hour.
So after hanging up the phone,I was expectedly waiting for the incoming call from those experts.After 2 hours,I got nothing and thus I called to customer service again.This time another guy told me that it was impossible to call me within half an hour as they will only call me when technical support team has an initial check-up.Well,I felt like being played.
Previously I only can’t smoothly visit foreign websites,but I could get full speed on downloading.Now I have to pay for Streamyx 2Mbps while I only can get around 1.5Mbps when accessing local server.I could say it is the worst service I could see in my life.Currently I use VPN server to access foreign websites.However,that brings me a lot of surprises.Let you guys see the differences with/without paid VPN.
With VPN: Without VPN:
That approves that TM works very bad from the whole network infrastructure to individual services.I can’t believe such kind of services are providing within a country which claims to be a leading multimedia corridor in the world.It’s gonna be a joke.
I had talked about VPN service many times here because my broadband service provided by Streamyx is working very bad with outbound links.VPN is the most affordable solution for me,however,many VPN servers set in the United States and Europe and so the connection has no improvement on visiting websites in Great China(including Hong Kong,Taiwan etc) because that has been a very big circle which may incur a lot of packet loss and delay.
Days ago,I found MoreVPN.It’s free to use and so I bet a try.After getting the account,I tried it immediately.I have to say that the testing results are amazing.
Without VPN:
With VPN:
You can see the huge improvements on speed while being connected to China and London server.By using this VPN service,I now say goodbye to lagging experience and enjoy smooth surfing.
Things are easy if you want to get that faster speed.Just visit MoreVPN and do the registration first,wait for several hours to get the account info and then set up in your computer.Once you finish all these steps,you’ll get what you want.If you want to know the truth from other users’ mouth,please visit the testimonial.
If you don’t know how to use VPN service,it’s ok.Just come to follow the instructions here and you’ll get it soon.
It’s free and really helpful.Why not having a try now?Well,I should mention that please do not use this service in heavy downloading(especially BT).If you do that,that means you’re selfish enough as your activity may end this free service.I hope no one want to be that one.
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…
