Broadband options for old Condominium

[DUS]

Hi,

 

Whilst I rely on having 24/7 internet access at my Condo here in BKK I am not very good when it comes to understanding how all these things work and the peculiarities of choosing an ISP here in Thailand. So, I hope somebody is willing to help me with a few information on my questions below.

 

I am currently renting in an old condominium and am currently using a company called P.N. Cable Network for my internet. Actually, they are using 3BB´s network, so I assume they can be called a 3BB reseller. The maximum speed they can offer here is 30/10 at a price of 499/month. Since they are technically using 3BB I recently asked them if I could upgrade to some of the much faster packages available on the 3BB website but they said they were not in a position to offer these higher speeds. Now, my issues with P.N. Cable / 3BB off late are that

 

- they´ve become very unreliable with the internet connection not available at all or at unacceptably low speeds for a few hours (at least 1-2 times per week) and

- the international speeds when using servers in the UK, the US or Germany are somewhere around 3 - 7 Mbit only (using testmy.net).

 

So I went to the office management today asking if there were alternative ISPs available in the condo. Other than P.N. Cable there is only True left as an alternative, they said.

 

Now, as somebody who isn´t very familiar with all the technicalities and the quality of the various providers (other than I hear a lot of people moaning about True here on Thaivisa), I have the following questions:

 

- If I went to a True shop (any recommendations for a specific shop for someone living near Asoke?) would they actually be able to tell me what maximum speeds I could expect in my condo? I see that they´re advertising very high speeds on their website but given that our building and cables etc are 20 years old, I am not sure how much of an 200Mbit connection to the building would actually make it up to my 24th floor. ???? Do they realistically know or would that require one of their guys to actually come out and run a few tests? If the latter, would they actually be willing to do so when they cannot be 100% sure that I will sign up with them (as it depends on the speed results)?

 

- Last weekend I had a chance to run speed tests on a friend´s True connection. When using testmy.net again, the results were so much better than mine. London or US servers repeatedly came in with 20 - 25 Mbit on his 30Mbit line. I was quite impressed, to be honest. Question: Does True generally provide fairly decent international speeds to Europe? 

 

- Lastly, If neither P.N. Cable Ltd nor True were in a position to provide a reliable and fast connection, is my only option to move to another place with better options? What about "mobile" / Wifi access? I read about 4G and 4.5G (AIS) but I don´t know what that means in terms of max speeds and whether this could be used as a viable alternative for using internet on the computer as well as for streaming IPTV. Is it? If so, any services and packages that I should have a look at?

 

Sorry for the long message. I hope someone can help me with some background info so that I can decide on what to do next. Thank you!!!

 

DUS

[OneMoreFarang]

There is a big TRUE center on the 6th floor of Terminal 21 - on the cinema level.

Another, even bigger TRUE center is in Fortune Town

 

What is available for you depends on your region (part of town, soi) and on your building.

Faster internet connections need better (newer) equipment which may or may not be installed in your area and/or in your building.

You will only be able to get a fast connection if it's available in your general area (which TRUE should be able to check in the shop or if you call them) and if the necessary equipment is installed in your building. I don't know if TRUE has a database about that.

 

The fact that your friend in another building has a fast connection means basically nothing for you. Some time ago I was on the phone with a customer in Rama 3. He had the fastest available and expensive TRUR connection at that time and his internet was slow. At the same time (life on the phone) my cheaper connection in Sukhumvit was a lot faster...

[KneeDeep]

Far be it from me to state the obvious, but if PN and True are the only two allowed at your condo, then it seems likely that someone else in your condo has a True connection. So ask the management to get you some feedback from the people who already have it there.

 

Mobile Internet can offer a decent connection, but of course no guarantees at you location. You'll need, once again, to poll your immediate neighbours on network and speeds they can get with the individual networks.

[DUS]

Thanks to everyone who replied! Much appreciated!

 

Just to follow-up on my original post: 

 

After I mentioned my ongoing issues with P.N. to the condo management, they called them again (probably for the 5th time in recent weeks) and the ISP sent over 2 happy and cheerful young lads who looked into the issue, yesterday. After about 2 hours of saying hello to me and disappearing somewhere in the building, they arrived back at my flat in a very happy mood and said: "We found some issues with the cables in the building and have replaced them. Everything should be back up and much faster than before." 

 

Well, I ran a few tests on testmy.net and, well, what can I say, ... it feels like I am using a completely different and much faster ISP. When I signed up with them they officially called my connection a 40/20 Mbit line but contrary to every wisdom, the upload stream has always been faster than the dl stream. It usually looked something like 25-40 Mbit down and 40-50 Mbit up with the international connections coming in -as said in my OP- at around 5Mbit on average. I hesitate to write it since most of you might not believe me but when I check the connections now, I get up to 87 Mbps down and 102 Up (for local connections) and up to 30-40 Mbit downstream for connections to servers in the UK and US. And that´s using Wifi rather than a connection with a cable from the modem to my PC. I am puzzled but obviously very happy about this significant improvement. Mind you, let´s wait and see how reliable the service will be in the days and weeks to come. Knocking on wood whilst typing this.

 

Again, thanks for all your replies above and have a nice w/end.

 

DUS

Edited October 19, 2018 by DUS