I am unsure whether this is triggered by data usage or otherwise but here are the symptoms:

1. The caps appear to be hard caps. There is NO fluctuation in speed, it just appears as if it’s maxed out at 50 kB/sec. Some 4 mbit users report being capped at 200 kB/sec and I have a 512 customer being capped at about 25 kB/sec and saw some 1 mbit customers having the same thing. It does look like an intentional cap as they are in common multiples.

2. No appearance of packet loss

3. Speedtests to local servers except Cyberjaya are fine but speedtest to Singapore/Cyberjaya/any other outside server shows the hard cap speed.

4. This appears to be indiscriminate as it applies to ALL types of international transfers be it http/P2P/FTP.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Don’t waste your time with TM’s customer support. They are ill-informed and don’t have any idea of this problem.

Best is to go directly to the SKMM and open a complaint there and hopefully with enough genuine complaints, we can force some action out of this hugely unethical and possibly unlawful throttling.

LYN REPORTS:

Many LYN Reports also appear to show the same thing:

badang_1785
MrComot
disket
figure8
myandylai
ericee9
huh?
Hornet

Sample of report of speedtest

I have been experiencing the same problem of connection slowdown for almost 24 hours. ive tested with different ip’s, eg. 60.50, 60.49, 60.52, 60.53, 124.82 all to no avail. ive tested my connection and noticed that ;

a) tm speedometer gave me full normal speed of 1.5 Mbps ;

b) speedtest.net speedometer gave constant 0.5 Mbps to all international servers ive tried ; singapore, UK and US

c) speedtest.net speedometer to Penang, KL and Seri Kembangan gave good, full speed of 1.5 Mbps

d) speedtest.net speedometer to Cyberjaya however gave 0.5 Mbps only

e) ping tests to international websites were around 250ms-350ms

f) a torrent download from ipt with more than 150 seeders got stuck at 0.5 Mbps only with either VPN, bolehroute or direct streamyx connection

g) upload speed to all servers anywhere were around 0.3 Mbps – 0.35 Mbps

ive concluded that something was wrong with tm’s routing so ive called up their support line earlier this evening. opened up a report about this and the technician said *probably* theres something wrong with the routing since she cant event re-set my port connection; the system would not respond. below ive got some example ;

direct connection speedtest to singapore;

direct connection speedtest to UK;

direct connection to US;

direct connection to Penang, KL and Seri Kembangan;

the odd part, speedtest to Cyberjaya;

the above results are the same with other ip ranges as i stated above.

*Credits to Reuben* Taken from http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1648653

Due to this, customers using Internet services may now experience slow browsing while accessing content hosted in the U.S. and Hong Kong. In addition, customers using other IP services such as Virtual Private Network (VPN) and other critical business applications linked to the U.S. and Hong Kong may also experience some service degradation.

To alleviate the problem, some of the links have been rerouted to alternate routes to ease the congestion.

During the restoration process, traffic to Northern America and Hong Kong may experience minor degradation while traffic to other countries is not affected. TM will make further announcements on the progress of the restoration works.

TM wishes to assure its customers that it is undertaking all necessary measures to restore communications services for its customers as soon as possible.

Customers can call TM at 100 and select “Internet Services” or e-mail us at help@tm.com.my for any Internet related problems.

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) wishes to announce that its consortium members have detected a cable fault on the South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 4 (SMW4) cable network along the Colombo – Mumbai segment that links Malaysia to Europe. The consortium will be carrying out repair works on site on Sunday, 23 May 2010.

During the restoration process, there may be some interruption to the traffic to Europe carried through that cable. TM has taken pro-active steps to minimize disruptions by providing adequate links on other routes and coordinated with other international carriers in order to provide additional bandwidth for our customers. In order to further alleviate the situation, TM will also be diverting traffic to other networks to reduce congestion, thus, minimizing the impact to our users.

However, despite these initiatives, customers using Internet services nationwide may experience some degree of service degradation such as slow browsing while accessing international websites. Nevertheless, customers using Virtual Private Network (VPN) and other critical business applications linked to Europe will be assured minimal degradation of service, if any.

TM will provide necessary updates on the progress of the restoration works.

We apologize for any inconveniences caused by this disruption, whilst at the same time, would like to assure our customers that TM is undertaking all necessary measures to ensure that customers experience minimal service interruption.

TM wishes to thank its customers for their understanding and patience during the affected period. Meanwhile, customers can call TM at 100 and select “Technical Assistance” or email help@tm.com.my for any Internet related problems.?

Kindly reply here for feedback regarding your speed.

Some undersea fiber-optic cables that carry Internet and communications traffic to parts of Southeast Asia and China have already been repaired while officials continue to assess damage to others, a spokesperson for Chunghwa Telecom said Friday.

Six of the important fiber-optic cables were damaged by undersea landslides caused by Typhoon Morakot as it passed Taiwan. One was knocked out on Aug. 9 as Morakot hit the east coast of the island and the others were damaged after the typhoon passed to the other side.

The damaged cables disrupted Internet and telecommunications between Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia, including Singapore and the Philippines. However, Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan restored service quickly by using backup systems and rerouting traffic to other cables.

The APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network, number two) was damaged in at least two places, said Chen Hui-yen, a deputy director at Chunghwa’s network management division. One part, which runs between Singapore and Malaysia, was fixed Friday morning, she said, while a portion of the cable near Taiwan has not been repaired yet, although a team has been dispatched to the location.

She did not know the cause of the problem with the cable section between Singapore and Malaysia. She said some voice traffic and Internet traffic has been affected by the outages but rerouting has alleviated most problems.

The five other undersea cables damaged near Taiwan by Morakot were the SWM-3 (Southeast Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 3), the APCN (Asia Pacific Cable Network), C2C Cable Network East Asia Crossing (EAC), C2C Cable Network (C2C) and FLAG (Fiber Optic Link Around The Globe) North Asia Loop (FNAL).

One factor complicating repairs of the undersea cables has been trying to coordinate the various groups invested in the cables, she said. She was unable to offer a time frame for when cable repairs might be completed.

Undersea fiber optic cables carry the bulk of the world’s Internet and communications traffic. Natural disasters such as earthquakes and deep sea landslides can disrupt the cables.

Typhoon Morakot was originally welcomed by people in Taiwan as a potential savior for a drought that had been affecting much of the tropical island. Some cities, including the old southern capital of Tainan and the norther port city of Keelung, had already imposed water restrictions. But Morakot brought far more rain than expected, causing massive floods and landslides on the island.

The presidential office said the rains from Morakot were the heaviest in 50 years.

Typhoon Morakot has been blamed for the deaths of 116 people in Taiwan, according to government figures, and officials expect the toll to continue rising. Rescue workers believe over 300 people in one village, Hsiaolin, may have been buried alive in a massive landslide of mud and debris.

Rescue workers saved 2,200 people stranded by landslides and washed out roads and bridges in mountain villages near the southern city of Kaohsiung on Thursday. Thousands remain stranded in disaster areas and rescue work continues.

Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture estimates the typhoon destroyed NT$10.67 billion (US$324.3 million) of crops and other goods, including tens of thousands of livestock such as pigs, chickens and ducks.