They propose 1 rate for home user for 1k / month, and 2.4k / month for office usage.

I asked the sales person what was the difference between the two options, and all he could answer was that the office solution was more stable.

Technical reality or commercial myth ?

thx

I believe the office rate is guaranteed 1mb data rate where the residential package has a higher number of users on each circuit meaning that you can expect slowdowns during times of peak usage. Peak usage normally happens between 6am and midnite.

The office rate is not exactly guaranteed speed

But the contention ratio is much lower, meaning the same line gets shared with much less people.

The home packages, when you are unlucky to be in a busy area, tend to slow down a lot during peak times, often to below dial-up speeds.

The office packages will still slow down, but much less so, my office package (TT&T, not TOT) seldom goes under 60% of rated speed, and will normally hover between 75% and 85% of rated speed.

Another advantage of the office rate package, is that there are no speedlimits (bandwidth throttle) on when using certain software. On the home package you stand a big chance of P2P programs not working or working very slow...

Guranteed speed packages are financially out of reach for most private users. The price for guranteed 1024 kbps with TT&T is 15900 Baht/month +VAT...

Someone's gotta be making huge $$$ on that. I pay 1400baht/mo equivalent for 10mbit that never goes under 9400. If it does they send out a repairman who certainly makes more than the 8-12baht TOT is paying their staff.

So true Vic,

When international bandwidth is supplied by a government monopoly, you get these silly prices!

The Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT), where each ISP has to buy their international bandwidth, charges a whopping 24,000 Baht/month per 1024 kbps of bandwidth!

So the so called "guaranteed" package from TT&T at 15,900 Baht/month is not even you own private line, but still is shared with other users, or TT&T would be selling at loss!

Luckily, when your ISP's routers are set-up properly, you'd never see your speed drop below 95% on a 1:2 shared line, since even if the other guy you are sharing with is downloading heavily, the routers will automatically find another router which is not maxed out completely and divert some speed from there...

Another small difference with the place you are staying, is the fact that 60% of the world's websites are hosted in your back garden, negating the need for expensive and long underseas cables to connect you to these sites!

They propose 1 rate for home user for 1k / month, and 2.4k / month for office usage.

I asked the sales person what was the difference between the two options, and all he could answer was that the office solution was more stable.

Technical reality or commercial myth ?

thx

There is something called QoS (Quality of Service) and that parameter is used by ISPs to prioritize traffic within their networks.

Business users have it set higher and packets traveling from such users simply have precedence over other packets.

When on the same network and competing for service with home users who exchange pictures, videos and use webcams, the difference could be quite significant. But, only up to the point controlled by that particular provider. The next one or gateway to the world, would ignore that parameter.