3BB vs TOT vs CAT - Fiber optic ISP compare (November 2017)

[ethaniel]

In case you wanted to ask - which provider is the best one on Samui or Koh Phangan? why is my iptv lagging or breaking up? why is my internet slow? I decided to do thorough test that noone has done before.

As you probably know, speedtest.net results in Thailand are fake and always show the maximum speed (their servers are "whitelisted" by the ISPs and are given traffic priority).

 

In this review I will be doing a international download speed test from my own server that is located in a datacenter in Moscow, Russia (around 250 milliseconds ping).

I live in a condominium on Koh Samui which as 3 TOT lines and 1 CAT line. I also have access to 2 3BB lines that are located on Koh Phangan.

 

The results are:

 

1st place. 3BB.

Here you can see the average international speed for 2 of the 3BB lines that I have. 

The average is 2.3 - 2.7 megabits per second per connection which means 287 - 337 kilobytes per second.

Barely enough for watching IPTV.

 

2nd place. TOT.

The average international speed for the 3 TOT lines that I have is 0.9 - 1.10 megabits (112 - 137 kilobytes) per second per connection.

Faster speeds (2 megabits / 250 kilobytes per second) are observed only at night time (after midnight).

But during daytime, the speed goes down to a crawling 700 kilobits / 87 kilobytes per seconds which is almost unusable.

Not enough for iptv.

My graphs are in Moscow time, so add +4 hours too see the actual time.

 

3rd place. CAT.

The average international speed for the only CAT line that I have is around 780 kilobits (97.5 kilobytes per second).

Not enough for iptv.

 

Vital information:

1. My graphs are in Moscow time, so add +4 hours too see the actual time.

2. The speed is measured only per 1 connection at at time (1 download). Which means how fast a big image/movie/iptv channel can load on a given line. 
3. If you use torrents, then you will not notice the slow speeds because multiple connections are opened and then each connection has this speed.
   Browsers also normally open multiple connections when loading pages, so images are loaded in parallel (which also helps with slow speeds). However you might notice that some images/gifs are still loading slowly. 
   However, if you are viewing IP-TV, or watching a movie on your Apple TV, then your stream is limited only to 1 connection (and this is when things start to lag).
4. Youtube & Facebook will be fast on any given line, because they have their own servers in Bangkok (which means that the international speeds do not apply).

 

I am a web-developer and high-speed internet access is a priority for me. I hope this post will help someone.

Technical boring info: i am doing a 10-second reverse iperf3 test (iperf3 -c *** -R -t 10 -f m) to my server in Moscow every 30-60 seconds. Data is then feeded into Zabbix for logging and graphs. This is a single-threaded test.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2017 by ethaniel

[ethaniel]

[up]

Edited November 19, 2017 by ethaniel

[notmyself]

Interesting and seems to fit with my impression of absolute speed and response times. Couldn't say what the iptv is like because I don't watch TV but I do wonder how the non satellite fed bars (and such like) in town manage to broadcast live sports. I'm on the 150/50 3BB fibre package since the last couple of months (same price as the 15/1 3BB broadband I had before: 963 Baht) and it has made not the slightest difference with regard to general surfing but then I wouldn't expect it to as the amount of data is relatively small so the speed increase would likely be imperceptible.... speed increase on 300/300 or 1200/75 Baud and you would notice it!

 

Biggest bonus for me is being able to upload a video to YT in minutes rather than an hour or so whilst at the same time being able to do other things such as live streaming or Skype calls.

[ICECOOL]

FYI. CAT has a business package that allows increase in gateway access. It is my understanding from someone who claimed to know, that CAT own the Thai international gateway and many of the international cables. 

 

My personal experience with CAT is that the Techs can give you more access to international gateway in order to help improve IPTV streaming speeds. I live 15km outside Hua Hin but have CAT fibre 60/20. Able to stream sport in HD quality.

[EcigAmateur]

Interesting, thank you for posting, but these results are valid for your places, but someone around could get very different results.

 

 

[khunPer]

1 hour ago, EcigAmateur said:

Interesting, thank you for posting, but these results are valid for your places, but someone around could get very different results.

 

 

To my knowledge, one can only count on the ISP's promised speed to nearest proxy-server. Testing speed out in the real World depend of so many factors, that it can change from day-to-day, or hour-to-hour, or...
–and furthermore routers, and server-loads at various data-centers etc. may slow down the speed – even locally, as your private fast connection in real may also be shared – and on top of all that, what about the special Thai "single gateway" to the outside..?

[ethaniel]

5 hours ago, ICECOOL said:

FYI. CAT has a business package that allows increase in gateway access. It is my understanding from someone who claimed to know, that CAT own the Thai international gateway and many of the international cables. My personal experience with CAT is that the Techs can give you more access to international gateway in order to help improve IPTV streaming speeds. I live 15km outside Hua Hin but have CAT fibre 60/20. Able to stream sport in HD quality.

I have a business package (username ends with @onnet.b). CAT's peering connections are different from other providers. I spoke with the local CAT director on Koh Samui (cool guy by the way), he said that they can't setup a special policy for a specific user.

 

46 minutes ago, khunPer said:

To my knowledge, one can only count on the ISP's promised speed to nearest proxy-server. Testing speed out in the real World depend of so many factors, that it can change from day-to-day, or hour-to-hour, or...
–and furthermore routers, and server-loads at various data-centers etc. may slow down the speed – even locally, as your private fast connection in real may also be shared – and on top of all that, what about the special Thai "single gateway" to the outside..?

The tests are performed 24 hours per day from all 6 internet connections, but they all fit into a single pattern (described above).

 

I wish I could get someone with a AIS connection to test. Youtube says that AIS is the fastest ISP for loading their videos. Can't wait to test their international speeds though (because youtube has CDN servers in Thailand).

Edited November 20, 2017 by ethaniel

[ethaniel]

Data for today.

As usual: 3BB is first. TOT is second. CAT is third (but this time it's horrible, international connectivity extremely slow from 7pm to 9:30pm).

[ethaniel]

Data for today.

1. 3BB showed a new record - average of 2.76 megabits per second with a maximum of 6.84.

2. TOT is averaging at 1.3 megabits per second.

3. CAT is slow as usual - 0.7 megabits per second. 

 

 

[muratremix]

Why don't you use a vpn server at singapore?

Or better, use a singapore server for IPTV relay / proxy so you can get much much faster speeds?

 

I'm downloading at 210 mbps using single connection from google and I get over 100-150 mbps from singapore using https via 3bb 200/100 in koh samui.

 

a https proxy also helps at singapore if you don't want to deal with iptv relay proxy

[Mr lamai]

Anyone else having a superlagging issue with 3BB right now? Been like this the last 48 h and i cant really do anything online.

I live in the lamai area and dont use fiber.

 

Cheers

[PoorSucker]

37 minutes ago, Mr lamai said:

Anyone else having a superlagging issue with 3BB right now? Been like this the last 48 h and i cant really do anything online.

I live in the lamai area and dont use fiber.

 

Cheers

No problem with 3bb fiber, when I had copper wire it always lagged when raining. 

[Mr lamai]

36 minutes ago, PoorSucker said:

No problem with 3bb fiber, when I had copper wire it always lagged when raining. 

 

Okok thanks i have never experiences this kind of trouble. Usually just works fine or just not work. Been on same line many many years so perhaps a "forced" change to fibe is needed. Thanks

[ethaniel]

50 minutes ago, Mr lamai said:

 

Okok thanks i have never experiences this kind of trouble. Usually just works fine or just not work. Been on same line many many years so perhaps a "forced" change to fibe is needed. Thanks

Just. Do. It.

F*сk DSL. Seriously.

Edited December 1, 2017 by ethaniel

[ethaniel]

23 hours ago, muratremix said:

Why don't you use a vpn server at singapore?

Or better, use a singapore server for IPTV relay / proxy so you can get much much faster speeds?

 

I'm downloading at 210 mbps using single connection from google and I get over 100-150 mbps from singapore using https via 3bb 200/100 in koh samui.

 

a https proxy also helps at singapore if you don't want to deal with iptv relay proxy

Most people don't have the luxury of knowing how to set this thing up. The point of this thread is to show which ISP is better for basic browsing.

[evadgib]

On 12/1/2017 at 9:06 AM, Mr lamai said:

 

Okok thanks i have never experiences this kind of trouble. Usually just works fine or just not work. Been on same line many many years so perhaps a "forced" change to fibe is needed. Thanks

Just a thought, but when I experienced similar probs I took my modem to their office in Tesco chaweng & found that the problem was the charger, despite lights still appearing when tested at home!

 

They replaced the charger and it's fine.

 

HTH

[ethaniel]

 

Today was a bad day for TOT. International connectivity was almost unusable for at least 4 hours (confirmed on 3 separate lines).

3BB was fast as usual.

CAT slow as usual.

Edited December 6, 2017 by ethaniel

[huberthammer]

On 06/12/2017 at 7:56 PM, ethaniel said:

 

Today was a bad day for TOT. International connectivity was almost unusable for at least 4 hours (confirmed on 3 separate lines).

3BB was fast as usual.

CAT slow as usual.

Thanks much - great to have a professional doing the unbiased comparison. I am surprised that regulators in the developed world don't require an independent organisation to do such an analysis to shame the false bandwidth analysis of the telcoms

[bluewavesam]

Interesting. Very useful. Many thanks for sharing!
 

[suzannegoh]

Either there is something wrong with the services that you are testing or there is something wrong with your methodology. Taken at face value, your results mean that it would be impossible to stream HD video from abroad but that is simply not the case.