Has anyone else noticed China Telecom's ADSL service is extremely sporadic whenever it rains. I'm thinking of transitioning to Aipu - higher bandwidth, and only ¥800 a year (prepaid, of course).

I noticed the rain thing a lot in Zhengzhou and Shanghai.

Not really noticed here as I only get a 2Mb service where we are. This is because the infrastructure here is so poor. Sometimes I cannot get on at all, mostly eves and weekends, but that is not the rain.

Tell me more about Aipu, please.

Aipu is terrible. At least, it was for me. This is just a sample of one, but here's what happened:

I had China Mobile internet and loved it. We moved, and CM wasn't available in the building. Based on the advertised bandwidth and price that laotou reports, I went with Aipu. It was slow as hell. Ridiculously, painfully slow. I could barely check my email. I called them and they promised to send a technician to check it out. No one ever came. I called again. More promises, no action. Eventually they said the speed was "normal," said they had no further responsibility after installing the cable and taking the money. Finally, after another week of almost no functional internet, I threatened to sue them. They promised to send someone over. No one came. I called back, threatened to sue again. After some screaming and more threatening, I got half of my year's payment back and cancelled the service.

Now I have China Telecom, which sucks, but is much better than Aipu.

aipu's prob is it can be fantastic (4M service) for domestic internet - but hits a brick wall when you need to jump internationally. The telecoms are currently being sued by the government for anti-trust monopolistic behavior (really - no joke) for playing games with local broadband providers as few ISPs have their own pipe out of china.

Guess we're just SOL - stuck in a third world country with the semblance of developed economies - minus the service. But that's the price we pay for lower cost, labor intensive. I'm just surprised that with the prolific abundance of labor - the service still sucks big time. That can only indicate an over abundance of negligence, apathy, laziness, and carelessness - poor quality.

I see a niche market opportunity...

"That can only indicate an over abundance of negligence, apathy, laziness, and carelessness - poor quality"

Sounds normal to me

Unfortunately, too true.

Here is my solution. I have CT service in the house. When it goes to cra

For whatever reason, I whip out my EDUP which switches me to my CU 3G account and away I go.

Kunming ISP sucks, always has; always will. I spent last year living in Xiamen where my speeds averaged around 2200 kps. Kunming averages 250kps. I could dl a movie in about 1 hour.

People in Kunming this crap service without complaining, so why should an ISP here spend $$ or time to cha ge it?

Here is my solution. I have CT service in the house. When it goes to crap for whatever reason, I whip out my EDUP which switches me to my CU 3G account and away I go.

Kunming ISP sucks, always has; always will. I spent last year living in Xiamen where my speeds averaged around 2200 kps. Kunming averages 250kps. I could dl a movie in about 1 hour.

People in Kunming accept this crap service without complaining, so why should an ISP here spend $$ or time to cha ge it?

China Telecom maybe "off the hook" (I couldn't resist haha) for the rain/adsl slow down.

I used a very niche business isp in Los Angeles, and even they mentioned something about rainy weather...not that it really rains in Los Angeles.

From a USA isp:

4. On a completely different topic: rainy weather *can* effect DSL and dial-up Internet access. Although comparatively few people have any trouble at all, we do actually get increased trouble ticket activity whenever it rains for extended periods. According to the engineers, the reason for this is that the exterior cables that conduct the transmission tend to absorb some of the rain's moisture. In turn, resistance builds up and the transmission tends to slow down. If it seems your connection has slowed down, and indeed you've tested it at www.speedtest.net/ and confirmed the slowdown then simply power cycle the modem.

@AlexKMG
Usually, when rain affects a network connection - it's because there's a capacitance charge build-up - aka crappy grounding. Water seeping into the cable wraps doesn't usually cause slow-downs - it causes short circuits.

@bucko
My KM buddy has Aipu - I was over at his place the other day - we were doing 4mbps - astonishing. However, he lives in an ancient decrepit part of KM - I couldn't detect ANY other wifi signals - so looks like he has the ADSL switch in that part of town to himself. Where I live - there are at least 10 wifi routers (all locked down), not including my two routers.

ADSL sucks when there's old crappy wiring (my place), long hauls to the nearest switching station (>1km), and generally crappy installation - prevalent throughout Kunming - if you've ever looked outside to see the phone lines strung all over the building exterior like an exploded spaghetti restaurant.

Xiamen's kind of not a fair comparison, as they have their own pipes out to the foreign internet - sans CT, CM, & CU.