Fastest WiFi Routers Available In Thailand?

[suzannegoh]

In the best case I am presently able to get about 80 to 90 Mbps within my home at a range of about 10 meters  from the router using 802.11ac on the 5Ghz band.  Though I’m not sure why I’d need faster than that, with 1.0 Gbps internet starting to become available in Thailand I’m wondering how, short of hard-wiring equipment, will people be overcoming that bottleneck?

[sandrabbit]

We recently had a 150mbps upgrade with TOT and they changed our router to a D-Link AC1200 dual channel router. I will say for streaming it doesn't seem any faster outside of Thailand than our 70mbps connection was, is this the single gateway?.

[Pib]

The better/more expensive routers will usually only do marginally better than a medium price router when just connecting to only one or two Wifi devices at a time.  Both routers are using the same basic technology, frequencies, and power levels...they have to to comply with standards. 

 

A high price router's 5Ghz/2.4Ghz signal will not overcome distance or get through obstacles such as walls any better than a medium (or even low) priced router.   However, a high quality router will probably be able to transfer data faster as lower/weak power levels due to distance and obstacles.  Plus, they may come with more features and have their firmware updated frequently which is becoming more and more important now days with malware targeting router vulnerabilities.   And higher priced router have more horsepower to handle many connections at once....like if you say have a bunch of ethernet and Wifi connection "live/in use" all the time.  

 

And keep in mind you can have the best/most expensive router in the world and still get low Wifi speeds if the equipment on the other end (i.e., computer, smartphone/tablet, etc) have Wifi circuits which can only handle a certain max speed.   A Wifi chain is no faster than its weakest/slowest  link.  

 

I have an AIS Fibre 200Mb plan in my two story concrete home....I use an Asus 86U (a high end router) as my primary router upstairs and it's connect via ethernet to an Asus 55UHP Access Point downstairs.  So, I basically I have Wifi being blasted from these two points to ensure I have a strong signal upstairs and downstairs.  I can get 200Mb speed on a 5Ghz channel pretty much anywhere I use my Wifi devices upstairs or downstairs.   

 

But from additional testing I've done using my home server as the source of data versus AIS internet so I can pump out a lot more than 200Mb speed, I know with my current equipment 250-300Mb is about the max I can consistently get "if I'm say with 5 meters of a router." 

 

This 250-300Mb Wifi speed limitation is primarily caused by the Wifi circuits in my computers, smartphones, tablets, etc,; and not the Asus routers.   The Asus routers can move Wifi data faster than that but remember it takes two to tango....a Wifi connection can be no faster than the real world speed limitation of each "link in the chain."  In this case there is only two links....the router link end and the computer/smartphone/tablet link end.

 

No use wasting your money on a 1Ghz plan (if you have any real need for such a high speed) unless you plan to use an Ethernet connection.  But if you are like me, the majority of my items are connected via Wifi connection. 

 

 

[suzannegoh]

1 hour ago, Pib said:

The better/more expensive routers will usually only do marginally better than a medium price router when just connecting to only one or two Wifi devices at a time.  Both routers are using the same basic technology, frequencies, and power levels...they have to to comply with standards. 

 

A high price router's 5Ghz/2.4Ghz signal will not overcome distance or get through obstacles such as walls any better than a medium (or even low) priced router.   However, a high quality router will probably be able to transfer data faster as lower/weak power levels due to distance and obstacles.  Plus, they may come with more features and have their firmware updated frequently which is becoming more and more important now days with malware targeting router vulnerabilities.   And higher priced router have more horsepower to handle many connections at once....like if you say have a bunch of ethernet and Wifi connection "live/in use" all the time.  

 

And keep in mind you can have the best/most expensive router in the world and still get low Wifi speeds if the equipment on the other end (i.e., computer, smartphone/tablet, etc) have Wifi circuits which can only handle a certain max speed.   A Wifi chain is no faster than its weakest/slowest  link.  

 

I have an AIS Fibre 200Mb plan in my two story concrete home....I use an Asus 86U (a high end router) as my primary router upstairs and it's connect via ethernet to an Asus 55UHP Access Point downstairs.  So, I basically I have Wifi being blasted from these two points to ensure I have a strong signal upstairs and downstairs.  I can get 200Mb speed on a 5Ghz channel pretty much anywhere I use my Wifi devices upstairs or downstairs.   

 

But from additional testing I've done using my home server as the source of data versus AIS internet so I can pump out a lot more than 200Mb speed, I know with my current equipment 250-300Mb is about the max I can consistently get "if I'm say with 5 meters of a router." 

 

This 250-300Mb Wifi speed limitation is primarily caused by the Wifi circuits in my computers, smartphones, tablets, etc,; and not the Asus routers.   The Asus routers can move Wifi data faster than that but remember it takes two to tango....a Wifi connection can be no faster than the real world speed limitation of each "link in the chain."  In this case there is only two links....the router link end and the computer/smartphone/tablet link end.

 

No use wasting your money on a 1Ghz plan (if you have any real need for such a high speed) unless you plan to use an Ethernet connection.  But if you are like me, the majority of my items are connected via Wifi connection. 

 

 

What I'm wondering is when people sign up for a 1.0 Gbps package like True recently announced, or even one of the 200 Mbps packages offered by AIS, what do people generally do about their wifi?  My wifi router isn't so old and wasn't so cheap but I haven't been unable to crack the 100 Mbps barrier with it except at very close range, so that's going to be a bottleneck.  Running CAT6 cables around the house would fix that, but for me and I suspect a lot of others that is not a very attractive option. 

Edited July 15, 2018 by suzannegoh

[Pib]

12 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

What I'm wondering is when people sign up for a 1.0 Gbps package like True recently announced, or even one of the 200 Mbps packages offered by AIS, what do people generally do about their wifi?  My wifi router isn't so old and wasn't so cheap but I haven't been unable to crack the 100 Mbps barrier with it except at very close range, so that's going to be a bottleneck.  Running CAT6 cables around the house would fix that, but for me and I suspect a lot of others that is not a very attractive option. 

You should be able to easily crack the 100Mb barrier using a 5Ghz band channel assuming your router uses 1000Mb WAN/LAN ports versus 100Mb WAN/LAN ports...and of course your devices (computers/smartphones) have 5Ghz band Wifi circuits.

May I ask your router make and model?  And how you were generating data flow faster than 100Mb if you do not have an internet plan faster than 100Mb?  That is, what was your source for faster than 100Mb data flow?

 

And you don't need CAT 6A cable to get 1Gb speed....CAT5E will do that for you as it's minimum spec speed is 1Gb up to 100 meters.   In a typcial home CAT5E can far exceed 1Gb speed....and it less bulky/smaller than CAT6.  However, but, if installing new ethernet cable CAT6 is the way to go as it doesn't cost that much more than CAT5E.

[connda]

The router doesn't matter.  It's the slow link in the global route that matters.

[suzannegoh]

16 minutes ago, connda said:

The router doesn't matter.  It's the slow link in the global route that matters.

That was more true a couple of years ago than now. Using AIS Fibre and a wired connection I get about 60 Mbps to London but less than that from the WiFi to some parts of my house.

[charliebadenhop]

I live in a compound that has five houses. The compound is 1 Rai in total. 

 

Can a router in one house, pick up and use a signal from a router in another house?

 

Not talking about passwords, etc.

 

Just wanting to know how 5 houses could possibly share one connection.

 

If possible, would that sometimes kill the speed for everyone?

 

charlie

 

 

[suzannegoh]

I live in a compound that has five houses. The compound is 1 Rai in total. 
 
Can a router in one house, pick up and use a signal from a router in another house?
 
Not talking about passwords, etc.
 
Just wanting to know how 5 houses could possibly share one connection.
 
If possible, would that sometimes kill the speed for everyone?
 
charlie
 
 

In some cases. That sounds like a similar problem to setting up WiFi for guests at a hotel or a resort.

[sandrabbit]

40 minutes ago, charliebadenhop said:

I live in a compound that has five houses. The compound is 1 Rai in total. 

 

Can a router in one house, pick up and use a signal from a router in another house?

 

Not talking about passwords, etc.

 

Just wanting to know how 5 houses could possibly share one connection.

 

If possible, would that sometimes kill the speed for everyone?

 

charlie

 

 

I've done it in our resort on about half a rai, I needed one wi fi repeater but both the router and repeater are outside. I Haven't set any limits but from what I've read is you can limit the upload speed per user but not the download speed but not 100% sure so could someone with more knowledge on it comment please?.

[suzannegoh]

3 minutes ago, sandrabbit said:

I've done it in our resort on about half a rai, I needed one wi fi repeater but both the router and repeater are outside. I Haven't set any limits but from what I've read is you can limit the upload speed per user but not the download speed but not 100% sure so could someone with more knowledge on it comment please?.

It depends upon your router's firmware whether you can limit download speed on a per user basis. I' ve never had occasion to do that but I think that's one of the things that you can do with the open source DD-WRT firmware.

[Tidybeard]

I have the new 5G / 4G router from 3BB, ( free with a 200Mb Fibre line )  and I easily get 200Mb from it. With interest I noticed that when the technician was setting it up - he called the office and did a test. My laptop suddenly  jumped to 600Mb and I smiled and gave him the thumbs up. He smile back, and said "no no". A few minutes later they had dialed me down to 200Mb - but it means the router is capable of at least 600Mb maybe more.

[BigT73]

Not sure on your router specs, openwrt has the option to change the country location in your wifi frequency selection this changes the transmission power.   Not sure on how it can disrupt neighbours.

 

heres the link

https://w.wol.ph/2015/08/28/maximum-wifi-transmission-power-country/

 

[Pib]

1 hour ago, Tidybeard said:

I have the new 5G / 4G router from 3BB, ( free with a 200Mb Fibre line )  and I easily get 200Mb from it. With interest I noticed that when the technician was setting it up - he called the office and did a test. My laptop suddenly  jumped to 600Mb and I smiled and gave him the thumbs up. He smile back, and said "no no". A few minutes later they had dialed me down to 200Mb - but it means the router is capable of at least 600Mb maybe more.

Are you saying he was using a Wifi connection to get that 600Mb.  I bet he had an ethernet connection between you computer and the router when he got that 600Mb.    I doubt many laptops have Wifi circuits which can handle reach 600Mb Wifi speed.  Over the years when a company such as True, TOT, AIS, etc., have come to my home to install a new internet line/plan they always do their speed testing via ethernet connection.

[suzannegoh]

On 7/15/2018 at 7:16 AM, Pib said:

You should be able to easily crack the 100Mb barrier using a 5Ghz band channel assuming your router uses 1000Mb WAN/LAN ports versus 100Mb WAN/LAN ports...and of course your devices (computers/smartphones) have 5Ghz band Wifi circuits.

May I ask your router make and model?  And how you were generating data flow faster than 100Mb if you do not have an internet plan faster than 100Mb?  That is, what was your source for faster than 100Mb data flow?

The router is an Asus RT-AC68U, which is about 10 meters away from the room in which I watch IPTV and listen to music.  There is a wall with big glass windows between the router and that area 10 meters away and one trick to improve performance is that instead of using the wifi in my AndroidTV box is to use AIS’s Edimax router as a bridge, connect the AndroidTV box to the Edimax by Ethernet cable,  and position the Edimax such that the signal will be going through more window than wall.

There are two ways that I can know that I am getting less than 100 Mbps.  One is to run speedtest.net on a PC with a wired Ethernet connection and on a device connected by wifi and compare the results.  With the wired connection I get almost exactly 100 Mbps every time that I try it but with a device on wifi it will usually be something less than that except at very close range.  The other way is to run iPerf3 on a PC that is wired to the router and on a device that is connected by Wifi.  iPerf3 doesn't depend upon the internet, that’s just sending traffic from device to device and measuring its speed. 

Among the things that I’ve observed is that there is a big difference in the wifi performance on different devices and that increasing the channel width to 80 Mhz on the 5 GHz band in the router’s settings is helpful.  Increasing the router's power settings and changing it's region settings does not have an obvious impact on performance.
 

[suzannegoh]

In the picture below is about the best that I get from 802.11ac with an Asus RT-AC68U router after tweaking everything to the best of my ability.  The first set of results (103 Mbps) is at a distance of about 10 meters from the router and in a different room than the router.  The second set of results (205 Mbps) is at a distance of about 1 meter from the router.  The 205 Mbps is great but that’s so close to the router that it would be no problem to run a wire.  Even the 103 Mbps is perfectly fine for anything that I do now, but it would seem to be an augment against buying a subscription to a 200 Mbps fibre package, let alone a gigabit package.

[upu2]

Try putting it on the 2.4GHz. The higher frequency is good if there is an unobstructed path. What has to be realised when using radio systems are the obstructions in the path. There is a thing called skin depth which gets smaller as the frequency increases. Higher frequencies as such tend t be affected by objects in or close to the transmission path. If you try the lower carrier frequency you should find an improvement

[suzannegoh]

7 minutes ago, upu2 said:

Try putting it on the 2.4GHz. The higher frequency is good if there is an unobstructed path. What has to be realised when using radio systems are the obstructions in the path. There is a thing called skin depth which gets smaller as the frequency increases. Higher frequencies as such tend t be affected by objects in or close to the transmission path. If you try the lower carrier frequency you should find an improvement

I’ve tested that.  Using the 2.4 GHz band does give better range but much slower speeds.  Range isn’t the issue in this case, or at least isn’t what prompted the original post, but WiFi being a bottleneck in the context of the super-highspeed internet packages that are now available in Thailand.

[nsimmons]

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[upu2]

3 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

I’ve tested that.  Using the 2.4 GHz band does give better range but much slower speeds.  Range isn’t the issue in this case, or at least isn’t what prompted the original post, but WiFi being a bottleneck in the context of the super-highspeed internet packages that are now available in Thailand.

It is very possible the ISP is throttling the network i.e. limiting the bandwidth. Throughput capacity in Bps is directly related to the bandwidth available. Being a consumer you are like all of us sharing the total bandwidth with every other user. Hence the more users the smaller amount you will get. Try using a VPN to route you through a different server. It doesnt always work but sometimes it does

[robblok]

12 hours ago, suzannegoh said:

The router is an Asus RT-AC68U, which is about 10 meters away from the room in which I watch IPTV and listen to music.  There is a wall with big glass windows between the router and that area 10 meters away and one trick to improve performance is that instead of using the wifi in my AndroidTV box is to use AIS’s Edimax router as a bridge, connect the AndroidTV box to the Edimax by Ethernet cable,  and position the Edimax such that the signal will be going through more window than wall.

There are two ways that I can know that I am getting less than 100 Mbps.  One is to run speedtest.net on a PC with a wired Ethernet connection and on a device connected by wifi and compare the results.  With the wired connection I get almost exactly 100 Mbps every time that I try it but with a device on wifi it will usually be something less than that except at very close range.  The other way is to run iPerf3 on a PC that is wired to the router and on a device that is connected by Wifi.  iPerf3 doesn't depend upon the internet, that’s just sending traffic from device to device and measuring its speed. 

Among the things that I’ve observed is that there is a big difference in the wifi performance on different devices and that increasing the channel width to 80 Mhz on the 5 GHz band in the router’s settings is helpful.  Increasing the router's power settings and changing it's region settings does not have an obvious impact on performance.
 

I got the router that you got and it is a good router, I also have it in bridge mode. It is only logical that you get less on Wifi then on a wired connection. That is why I have wired most of my connections that said. I got a NAS drive with countless movies - tv shows even high quality ones that play over wireless (the android box is not wired to the network) and it is always blazing fast never a problem. Could it be that the websites you use on your devices is the limiting factor. I know you get less speed on Wifi then on wired but it should not make that much of a difference in real life. Only the websites you visit make a difference (my opinion).

 

Not every website can handle the data demand that you expect, it depends on their servers too.

Edited July 17, 2018 by robblok

[suzannegoh]

12 minutes ago, upu2 said:

It is very possible the ISP is throttling the network i.e. limiting the bandwidth. Throughput capacity in Bps is directly related to the bandwidth available. Being a consumer you are like all of us sharing the total bandwidth with every other user. Hence the more users the smaller amount you will get. Try using a VPN to route you through a different server. It doesnt always work but sometimes it does

No, the slow down is in my house and my ISP is not maintaining my home network.  The issue is the opposite of throttling, what's happening is that ISP are offering internet connections that are faster than most people's home networking equipment.  That might be a good problem to have but it makes me wonder what the point is of paying for a gigabit internet connection.

Edited July 17, 2018 by suzannegoh

[robblok]

10 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

No, the slow down is in my house and my ISP is not maintaining my home network.  The issue is the opposite of throttling, what's happening is that ISP are offering internet connections that are faster than most people's home networking equipment.  That might be a good problem to have but it makes me wonder what the point is of paying for a gigabit internet connection.

I think your mistaken about people offering a gifabit connection in Thailand. Those 1gb packages are something different. So far highest i have seen in Thailand is 200mb (fiber optic) might be more but i doubt a gigabit.

 

You also seem to be under the impression that a fast internet connection will give you fast internet, that is not always the case it depends on the servers from the website your visiting too and the route the data has to travel. 

 

I have gigabit ethernet adapters.. switch and computers that can handle it (not all can and certainly many mobile devices have problems with it). Still if i transfer small files I on my cabled network I don't get that speed (logical) but with huge files i do. 

 

There are all sorts of things that can limits your speed reducing your theoretical possible speed.. you have to accept that.

[suzannegoh]

20 minutes ago, robblok said:

I think your mistaken about people offering a gifabit connection in Thailand. Those 1gb packages are something different. So far highest i have seen in Thailand is 200mb (fiber optic) might be more but i doubt a gigabit.

 

You also seem to be under the impression that a fast internet connection will give you fast internet, that is not always the case it depends on the servers from the website your visiting too and the route the data has to travel. 

 

I have gigabit ethernet adapters.. switch and computers that can handle it (not all can and certainly many mobile devices have problems with it). Still if i transfer small files I on my cabled network I don't get that speed (logical) but with huge files i do. 

 

There are all sorts of things that can limits your speed reducing your theoretical possible speed.. you have to accept that.

I don't know anyone that has gigabit internet in Thailand and I have "only" 100 Mbps but I've seen ads from True saying that it's 3000 baht/month and google turns up stories like this one:
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/telecom/1488578/true-slashes-1gbps-fibre-internet-price-by-70- .  If that's not gigabit internet what is it?  Singapore has 10 Gbps already for about 4500 baht per month.   While people still worry about throttling the reality is that people are starting to have more bandwidth than what they know how to use.

Edited July 17, 2018 by suzannegoh

[upu2]

40 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

No, the slow down is in my house and my ISP is not maintaining my home network.  The issue is the opposite of throttling, what's happening is that ISP are offering internet connections that are faster than most people's home networking equipment.  That might be a good problem to have but it makes me wonder what the point is of paying for a gigabit internet connection.

The ISP's offer what is known as Best Effort i.e. the ultimate maximum. In practice you will never achieve the values they specify unless you are the only user on the network which is never going to happen

[robblok]

15 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

I don't know anyone that has gigabit internet in Thailand and I have "only" 100 Mbps but I've seen ads from True saying that it's 3000 baht/month and google turns up stories like this one:
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/telecom/1488578/true-slashes-1gbps-fibre-internet-price-by-70- .  If that's not gigabit internet what is it?  Singapore has 10 Gbps already for about 4500 baht per month.   While people still worry about throttling the reality is that people are starting to have more bandwidth than what they know how to use.

Yes your right, just did not see that advertisements. Anyway.. that you have a 1 gbps connection does not mean you get it.. the websites your visiting limit your speed, your home situation limits your speed. I think what you want will never happen.

[suzannegoh]

4 minutes ago, upu2 said:

The ISP's offer what is known as Best Effort i.e. the ultimate maximum. In practice you will never achieve the values they specify unless you are the only user on the network which is never going to happen

You're missing the point, there is nothing wrong with their "best effort", internet in Thai is plenty fast now.  What I'm saying is that their fastest internet packages are faster than most people's wifi equipment and I'm wndering if there is, or soon will be, a way to overcome that other than by using a wired (ethernet) connection.

[robblok]

10 minutes ago, suzannegoh said:

You're missing the point, there is nothing wrong with their "best effort", internet in Thai is plenty fast now.  What I'm saying is that their fastest internet packages are faster than most people's wifi equipment and I'm wndering if there is, or soon will be, a way to overcome that other than by using a wired (ethernet) connection.

To be honest I think its you who is missing the point. Not disputing that the internet is plenty fast but in general your equipment is not limiting it but the websites that you visit are the limiting factor. You can have great speeds from a speed test but real websites are a different thing. The only times i really get the speed advertised is if the website or download site i visit has great servers and is not located too far from Thailand. 

[mtls2005]

Also do a site survey, choose a channel which is less congested, adjust the channel width to 40 MHz, select 802.11n only, adjust country setting and TX power.

 

In some places, we see so many nearby WiFi networks it can be challenging to get throughput. And none of these networks are near the BTS.

 

Distribute WiFi network units via wired ethernet, and/or link two units over WiFi and then distribute via wired ethernet.

 

 

[suzannegoh]

43 minutes ago, robblok said:

To be honest I think its you who is missing the point. Not disputing that the internet is plenty fast but in general your equipment is not limiting it but the websites that you visit are the limiting factor. You can have great speeds from a speed test but real websites are a different thing. The only times i really get the speed advertised is if the website or download site i visit has great servers and is not located too far from Thailand. 

Even if the websites you visit aren’t limiting your speed, few of them require much bandwidth.  Even streaming 4K video only requires about 20 Mbps.   

I could understand that Gigabit internet might have tangible benefits in a business environment where there are a large number of simultaneous users.  802.11ac is specified to have a max throughput of 1.3 Gbps.  I don’t get anything near that when testing with only one device but if it means that the router could support up to 100 devices simultaneously, each drawing 13 Mbps simultaneously, then maybe in some environments it would be possible to saturate a 1 Gbps connection.