Internet Speed In Thailand

[nikster]

Some facts I read recently in a BKK post article - I thought I post them here because despite the fact that I am very interested in these things and have been here for almost 2 years, this was all news to me.

- CAT has a monopoly on the International Gateway (IIG) but True now has a license to connect to overseas providers directly.

- CAT charges 24,000 baht for 1Mbit of international bandwidth vs. 15,000 baht that international providers charge

- IIG was out for a total of 230 hours in 2006, vs. the international standard rate of 8 !!!

- Thailand has 10.5 Gbit total bandwidth vs 80Gbit in Singapore and 100 Gbit in Hong Kong

Feeling your connection is slow? Just look at the numbers...

[Pattayaman]

Some facts I read recently in a BKK post article - I thought I post them here because despite the fact that I am very interested in these things and have been here for almost 2 years, this was all news to me.

- CAT has a monopoly on the International Gateway (IIG) but True now has a license to connect to overseas providers directly.

- CAT charges 24,000 baht for 1Mbit of international bandwidth vs. 15,000 baht that international providers charge

- IIG was out for a total of 230 hours in 2006, vs. the international standard rate of 8 !!!

- Thailand has 10.5 Gbit total bandwidth vs 80Gbit in Singapore and 100 Gbit in Hong Kong

Feeling your connection is slow? Just look at the numbers...

Must be mistaken as Toxin told us Thailand would be the hub for IT in asia

[monty]

I have tried to explain this to a lot of people, but most didn't seem to believe this!

If any ISP wishes to cover their expenses (overhead, salaries, investment etc) they'd need to collect roughly 40,000 Baht per 1mbit they sell.

If you pay 1000 Baht/month for 1024 kbps download speed, then you'll be sharing with at least 40 people!

Simple math actually!

I pay 1605 Baht/month for 256/128 kbps (which would equal to 6400 Baht for 1024 kbps) so my line most probably is only shared by 7 people.

I get my full speed 85% of the time, and it'll never drop under 75% of rated speed!

[meadish_sweetball]

Yes. Until the other ISPs get licenses to negotiate and run their international links, we will be stuck with this situation.

[monty]

Actually, CAT does not have the monopoly anymore on international bandwidth, but they're being terribly slow issuing licenses to the ISP's enabling them their own international links...

Csloxinfo is one of the others having direct international access!

[Crushdepth]

If you pay 1000 Baht/month for 1024 kbps download speed, then you'll be sharing with at least 40 people! Simple math actually!

And 1MB / 40 = 25KB :-)

[tonga]

List of Thailand's internet connectivity charts 1995-present:

Click me

The latest one:

[roblin]

wow, not more. kind of get the feeling that most swedish technical highschools have more bandwidth than thailand.

miss my old 100/100mbit $20/month connection

[Bottlerocket]

Yeah, I feel really sorry they'd have to spend money to get bandwidth and all that, but here's my problem with it. They lie to consumers and say they are able to provide bandwidth that they don't have and charge sphincter-curdling prices for it. My 512 connection frequently gives me rate as low as 26 kbps. What is the proper channel to lodge a formal complaint?

[Firefoxx]

Most of this is stuff that I've stated repeatedly in this forum for many many years. Well, at least now I feel that I've been proven right, at least to those who like to ridicule me. CAT doesn't get bandwidth fast enough, and even if a Thai ISP could afford it, they couldn't buy it since CAT doesn't have it.

Look at these numbers. Think about the fact that Thailand's population (70 mill) far exceeds that of SG (3 mill) or HK (8mill). Even if only 10% of Thailand's population and 100% of SG/HK's population used the net, it would still be disproportionate (1:10).

Two big problems here, first is CAT's monopoly (which is sort of being broken, but it won't be quick and painless). Second is the fact that Thai ISPs don't do anything about biiiiiig downloaders, the 1% of users who use 99% of bandwidth. Like Monty says, you can't sell broadband this cheaply if there are people like this.

[SoMeOnEnUlL]

Firefox, I don't know who ridicule you and your posts here. But, your information relating the internet in Thailand always is a useful one to me.

Cheers!

[Bottlerocket]

1%!!! You've got to be kidding me. I've worked at two different rajabhats and biiiiig downloading was rampant in almost every office I walked into. They download music, movies, ringtones, games, porn-clips--you name it. They chat online with messenger, icq, etc. People all over are sucking up bandwidth. And so do I. Don't you download big things? Chat? Isn't that what the internet is about--downloading things? Connecting with people around the world via video conference, voice chat, etc.? This country has a GDP that has fluctuated between 4.5-7% growth. You can't really tell me that they can't budget to expand their bandwidth allocation and further develop infrastructure. It's a zero reinvestment society.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

1%!!! You've got to be kidding me. I've worked at two different rajabhats and biiiiig downloading was rampant in almost every office I walked into. They download music, movies, ringtones, games, porn-clips--you name it. They chat online with messenger, icq, etc. People all over are sucking up bandwidth. And so do I. Don't you download big things? Chat? Isn't that what the internet is about--downloading things? Connecting with people around the world via video conference, voice chat, etc.? This country has a GDP that has fluctuated between 4.5-7% growth. You can't really tell me that they can't budget to expand their bandwidth allocation and further develop infrastructure. It's a zero reinvestment society.

Hey they can't build a reliable Airport or enforce basic laws like "prostitution being illegal" or wearing a motorbike helmet. How the heck are they going to master something complicated like the Internet. They rank in the bottom 10% for network performance just like they rank low in other areas. At least they are consistent. I think we should be thankful the internet works as well as it does. Knock on wood.

[monty]

Bottle rocket,

Yep, internet is about downloading things, using chat, e-mailing, downloading ringtones etc.

Apart from the first one, most internet usage hardly makes a dent in the available bandwidth...

If I like a movie, or music, I just download it. No problems there.

But there are users around downloading stuff just for the heck of it. Lots of stuff they'll most probably never even will look at.

They have this feeling that since they pay for a 1mbps connection, they better run it at full throttle 24 hours a day, downloading stuff they never even have the intention of watching or using. Just principle, I pay for it, I use it to the max...

If a 1mbps connection is delivering promised speed 24 hours, and you use it 100%, you can pull around 10gb in a day. Thats 12 full movies in DIVX or XVID format. How many people watch 12 movies a day? Every day???

Firefoxes' and my opinion is that if people use their internet smartly and responsible, everybody would have a much better surfing experience and cheaper access!

Downloading 4 movies a day, some hundred songs, plus the assorted other internet usage would only load a 1 mbps connection way under half it's theoretical capacity! Should be plenty for most people methinks

So if the ISP's would put a download cap of a couple of gigabytes a day, they would free up lots of precious bandwidth. They don;t have to block people of if they reach the limit, just throttle them back to for example 25% of rated speed. So chatting, e-mailing, surfing would still work, only the full blast ownloading would slow down...

Only that

[jeffrosner]

Excuse me, but I pay triple for my TT&T connection. I get a consistent download speed day and night. Can't say the same for my TOT connection - they suck.

[Firefoxx]

Like monty said. Remember (again) that we're only against the 24/7 100% bandwidth users, not the people who download at their office like you mentioned. That's kid's stuff (and very normal, and sustainable by the current infrastructure) compared to the *real* big downloaders. In Australia (which is actually a bad example, since their broadband policies are fairly backward), many isps will throttle you down to 128k if you exceed your data transfer limit. In the UK, if you use just way too much bandwidth (and by that I mean WAAAY too much) your account is simply terminated.

Actually, for rajabhats (and any other institution) if they had any sysadmins worth their salt they would not have any problems with any type of heavy downloader. Of course, the sysadmins employed at these places tend to be rather... incompetent, to put it mildly.

Also for any non-corporate connection here, there is never a speed guarantee. There is always a clause stating that your actual transfer rates may vary according to congestion. That's because it's always shared, and if the people who you're sharing the bandwidth with are behaving, then it's ok, if not, you're screwed. So no, it's not really false advertising. Maybe misleading, but the fine print in the contract (if you read it) states the terms pretty clearly.

[monty]

Yep, people don't read the small print!

Look at the price list of the Maxnet TT&T Indy package (which is the el cheapo home use package)

http://www.maxnet.co.th/product_Indy.php

It clearly states (although in a mix of Thai and English) right under the prices that this package is best suited for "Thai surf" and that both VOIP and P2P applications will have only limited bandwidth available at all times.

Yet we have people complaining here that they only get 10% of rated speed when downloading from servers located outside of Thailand...

Just like Jeffrossner I have the -more expensive- sme package from TT&T and get pretty consistent speeds throughout the day.

I do understand that when people move up to the more expensive packages and they see no improvement, that they get annoyed! At the lower contention ratios they should even be able to keep your speed up even if there is a heavy user in your area.

Problem here is either overselling or bad management of the load balancing capabilities of their routers...

So sometimes they have reason to complain, but unfortunately this is only a very small percentage of the complainants.

Pretty much everybody else is on the cheapest fastest package they can get their hands on!!!

[cat1981]

use a proxy server thats what warez junki use when download from chinse ftps

[fxe1200]

Yeah, I feel really sorry they'd have to spend money to get bandwidth and all that, but here's my problem with it. They lie to consumers and say they are able to provide bandwidth that they don't have and charge sphincter-curdling prices for it. My 512 connection frequently gives me rate as low as 26 kbps. What is the proper channel to lodge a formal complaint?

I do have an ADSL-line (Maxnet, TOT) with 512/256 and average 65 % of the speed I pay for. I have never reached more then 433 kbps . The line I am working on is capable of 3.2. meg measured with a Sunset MMT device. Upon my written complaints which included the recent statistics, measured on their own (maxnet) speetest server, I NEVER received any email, but calls from TOT, that they are working on "my case". For good reasons they never reply to an email, as they do not want to give anything written into the hands of a complaining customer. Further more upon my complaints, I was urged to upgrade my account to 1024 down. I told them: "How can you offer me an upgrade to 1024 when you even cannot deliver 512?" And nothing has changed until today.

The whole thing is plain fraud, but I have to stick to this company because they do have a monopoly in the area I live in. I used to work with a DSL cable from TRUE and I was very satisfied with their service and the speed delivered.

[penguin]

I do have an ADSL-line (Maxnet, TOT) with 512/256 and average 65 % of the speed I pay for. I have never reached more then 433 kbps . The line I am working on is capable of 3.2. meg measured with a Sunset MMT device.

If you're getting 433 bps on a 512/256 line then you're getting 85%, not 65%. Depends a lot on the sites you're surfing. If l download something from MS then l can get 95% when downloading while some small local website might be only 20%. Seeing you can get up to 85% now l'd upgrade to the 1024/512 package if you're not happy with the current speed, just don't expect everything to run at 85%.

[Guest Reimar]

I do have an ADSL-line (Maxnet, TOT) with 512/256 and average 65 % of the speed I pay for. I have never reached more then 433 kbps . The line I am working on is capable of 3.2. meg measured with a Sunset MMT device.

If you're getting 433 bps on a 512/256 line then you're getting 85%, not 65%. Depends a lot on the sites you're surfing. If l download something from MS then l can get 95% when downloading while some small local website might be only 20%. Seeing you can get up to 85% now l'd upgrade to the 1024/512 package if you're not happy with the current speed, just don't expect everything to run at 85%.

The speed you're able to download from some sites it depends on the upload speed of that sites on first hand and on second hand depends on the settings of their Web-Server. I've limited my webserver for max 256 kbps for downloads from my site. Thats the reason also that ,many of the torrent sites quite "slow" becauise their uploadspeed ios very limited.

Using a downlopad accelerator helps to get out as much as possible. I download from MS with IDA on 2560 mbps downstream with up to 300 kByte/s but without IDA not more than 70 kByte/s

433 kbps out of 512 kbps looks very6 good and reasonable for the cost (in Thailand)!

[penguin]

433 kbps out of 512 kbps looks very6 good and reasonable for the cost (in Thailand)!

i agree

[paveet]

Hi all. Let me introduce myself, I'm a Thai who has been reading this forum for quite sometime now but mostly in the threads discussing politics. I consider myself a techie in a way. Here's my analysis and a small history+review of the broadband internet (or just internet) in Thailand.

Let me start by giving you a brief history of Thai broadband from the date it started. I gave up 56kbps back in late 2003 when ADSL by True (the local net one first) was just emerging. This was one of the first affordable broadband internet for us. Back in those days, international bandwidth was not a problem as users were still required to pay per hour for "international" internet. If we refer to the NECTEC Internap Map, Thailand had about 3-4gbps of international bandwidth. However, in mid 2004 True offered @truehisp accounts giving unlimited "international" internet. During this time, from a 2.5mbps line I subscribed, I would get about 1.5mbps off-peak and 700kbps peak. BitTorrent and other P2P applications were not shaped (i.e. the ISP's did not put a device which de-pioritised P2P traffic/data). This was acceptable.

However, as times went by the internet speed deterioriated. This was because the number of internet users had grown exponentially (and I meant degrees of ten folds) from mid 2004 to late 2005. Many ISP's emerged including CSLoxinfo who began offering consumer ADSL packages in late 2004. This put constraints on the ever limiting internet gateway. As of year end 2005, Thailand had 7gbps international bandwidth. The fastest growth in international bandwidth came about in late 2006 up till now. As of March 2007, Thailand's international bandwidth has grown over two times since year end 2006 (15gbps vs 7gbps). In my opinion, this was also sparked by the Taiwanese earthquake that Thailand could not only depend on links to the US (such as NTT and Teleglobe). Many links such as the TIS (Telecom Italia Sparkle), C&W (Cable and Wireless UK), FT (French Telecom) were put into place. Thailand now has about 30-40% of it's total bandwidth going through these three international IP transit carriers.

So looking at these figures, it becomes obvious that broadband connection has only become "properly" available to the main consumer market for a maximum of 2-3 years. This is a very short amount of time considering the other places such as the US has had it before the turn of the centuring making it 7-8 years minimum. This is more than the twice the amount of time. (I have my own views towards reasons, influenced by politics, of why during those 2-3 years it didn't grow as fast as it should have.. but that's another story).

So why does Thailand not just buy more bandwidth to the levels of the countries in Europe? The answer to this is distance. The larger the distance, the more it will cost to lay the under water cables, the higher the cost of bandwidth. The world's largest internet exchanges reside in Seattle, New York, Amsterdam and London. The data has to flow through undersea cables (submarine cables) in order to go to these exchanges where most of the web servers (or servers in general) are hosted. Thailand as far as I'm aware has four submarine cable landing. These are APCN (dated back from 1998 landing in Petchaburi; this cable is reaching it's saturation operation limit at 5gbps), SEA-ME-WE2, SEA-ME-WE3 and FLAG (Fibre-Optic Link Around the Globe). Thailand does not have the APCN2 landing point (the newer and much higher capacity (5gbps vs 2.6Tbps!) Asia Pacific Cable Network that was put in place in 2004 linking countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan together). The number of cables landing pose a limit on the amount of bandwidth that the country can have. So why not put more cables in the ocean? It's expensive and since it goes through/under international water, it must be a joint international effort.

This brings in the idea of CAT not allowing ISPs to have their own international gateway. This is because it is not feasable. CAT jointly invested with agencies in other countries in laying some of these cables including the APCN which was a joint effort mostly between the ASEAN countries (+ Japan, Taiwan and Korea). It would pose a threat to network stability should everybody (e.g. True) want to have their equipment connected directly to these submarine cables. Plus, the use of these cables for the purpose of peering (internet traffic exchange) is governed by rules written by the agencies that paid the money to lay the cables. The ISPs (such as True) did not pay to lay these cables. Satellite connectivity is unstable (vunerable to weather conditions) and latent. The amount of time for the data to go through the Earth's atmousphere and be relayed back down is a heck of a long time (say 1-2 seconds). The standard in the relaying times of submarine cables of 200ms (0.2s) to US West Coast, 230ms (0.23s) to the UK, satellite communications obviously lags behind. This makes them inappropriate for main uplinks for international bandwidth despite what some people might say.

To conclude, consumer broadband internet access in Thailand is growing rapidly from what it started from back in mid 2004. Given the amount of grown it had in the short amount of time it has had during the past 3 years, it still is in its infant stage. Statistics clearly show that the growth has been accelerating and is still accelerating. Given 3-4 years despite the foremensioned difficulties, I strongly believe that Thailand will catch up in terms of internet service with other more developed nations in the region such as Singapore and Hong Kong (I consider Hong Kong as not China sorry) within the next 3 years.

Thanks for reading

Pavee

PS

When people say companies such as CSLoxinfo have their own international gateway (as they seem to have implied on their website about their Singtel link in Network Status), this remains at most an urban myth. What happens is that they are buying this bandwidth from CAT IIG, but they're buying it on a dedicated scale where the international link to mapped to them 1 to 1. To convince yourself this, try tracerouting (start > run > tracert www.singtel.com) from your computer to Singtel's website on CSLoxinfo. The hops of CAT IIG Service is still there.

PS2

Thailand has better consumer internet connection than Malaysia (believe it or not). TM (Telekom Malaysia) has a monopoly on ADSL media (the actual line) whereas Thailand has TOT, True, ADC, CAT, TT&T and Samart providing the media.

PS3

Don't believe too much propaganda about the downtime of CAT IIG True claims when comparing to TIG on its website.

[ThaiGoon]

Great info krab K. Pavee.

[sabajja]

Thailand does not have the APCN2 landing point (the newer and much higher capacity (5gbps vs 2.6Tbps!) Asia Pacific Cable Network that was put in place in 2004 linking countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan together).

(Great post Paveet)

That is called forward thinking.

Something that's non-existent in Thailand.

Instead of putting the god stuff in from the beginning, let's save a buck instead...

Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan is, and will always be, ahead

of this [irrational thai-bashing removed; please read forum rules] country.

[monty]

Yeah,

I recall when talks were underway about that APCN2 cable thingy, that the authorities deemed it completely over the top, especially considering there were already talks about Thailand's iPSTAR satellite, able to supply whatever Thailand needs....

I do realize that the location is increasing the cost for Thailand, but it didn't seem to be a big hurdle for Singapore and Hong kong???

[sabajja]

Yeah,

I recall when talks were underway about that APCN2 cable thingy, that the authorities deemed it completely over the top, especially considering there were already talks about Thailand's iPSTAR satellite, able to supply whatever Thailand needs....

I do realize that the location is increasing the cost for Thailand, but it didn't seem to be a big hurdle for Singapore and Hong kong???

Exactly.

Consider these facts again:

Thailand has 10.5 Gbit total bandwidth vs 80Gbit in Singapore and 100 Gbit in Hong Kong

And:

Think about the fact that Thailand's population (70 mill) far exceeds that of SG (3 mill) or HK (8mill). Even if only 10% of Thailand's population and 100% of SG/HK's population used the net, it would still be disproportionate (1:10).

Over the top, I don't think so.

Problem with decision makers here is, they think they know

everything, just cause they have some degree from Chulalongkorn.

But the sad fact is they know squat !!

[ThaiGoon]

I think K. Pavee also did say that he believes Thailand will catch up with Singapore and Hong Kong within the next 3 years. But by that time, I guess, bloody eff'ing retarded farang pieces of <deleted> will find something else to moan about.

[sabajja]

Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan is, and will always be, ahead

of this retarded backwater of a country.

We all have problems with the way some things are done in Thailand, but this remark is insulting, and over the top.

Tried to edit it out, but topic already "timed out".

Heat of the moment anger flip.

Have only had problems with the internet, since I started using it several years ago here.

Can't understand how the Thais can cope with it, for as long as they have ?

Have had TOT technicians at my house 4 times now, they can't fix my problem/s, and I only stay 300 meters away from the exchange.

It has gone into month 3 now, and still no solution...

If the underlying infrastructure is in shambles, (which it obviously is),

offcourse nothing works.

[Insight]

Great post paveet and welcome. Here's the main section I can see issues with:

This brings in the idea of CAT not allowing ISPs to have their own international gateway. This is because it is not feasable. CAT jointly invested with agencies in other countries in laying some of these cables including the APCN which was a joint effort mostly between the ASEAN countries (+ Japan, Taiwan and Korea). It would pose a threat to network stability should everybody (e.g. True) want to have their equipment connected directly to these submarine cables. Plus, the use of these cables for the purpose of peering (internet traffic exchange) is governed by rules written by the agencies that paid the money to lay the cables. The ISPs (such as True) did not pay to lay these cables.

To me, this spells out two things:

1. CAT invested the money, signed deals and got there first meaning nobody else can.

2. Even if an ISP did have the means, it wouldn't be allowed because it could pose a threat to CAT infastructure.

All agencies have rules on what cables can be laid and what data can pass through them. However, the countries using these agencies do not bar ISP's from laying cables providing they stick to those rules. It appears that in Thailand, CAT doesn't trust (or doesn't want to trust) ISP's to take on this responsibility.

Even as a business model this is dangerous. CAT is a single point of failure for the entire country. There's no reduncancy. Should anything catosrophic happen to that IIG the country is offline. You can try and reassure us with all sorts of facts such as distributed hosting around the country etc., but we're all dependant on this one single entity, whereever it may be. Most internet-dependant countries prefer to use two or more ISP's for backup purposes, but this setup does a lot to defeat the reasoning behind it.

In a country where corruption is epedemic I hope you can understand why alarm bells start going off with foreigners when greeted with such policies that stagger the development of the industry within the country and only seem only to benifit a small minority.