3BB vs True internet

[vogie]

We are currently with 3BB internet, at a cost to ourselves 750 baht per month, for this we get 100 Mbps and 20 Mbps. However this afternoon True rang my wife up and offered her the same package for 399 baht per month. She has looked on the internet and has found that True is not as reliable as 3BB, has anybody else found this to be the case? I live in the Pattaya area. Thanks

[hereforgood]

I have had true for 6 years here in central pattaya and very few issues more than happy with true

[Issanman]

I've had both. I prefer 3bb.

There are better deals available than what you have now:

I've got the 500/500. It works great.

[KhunBENQ]

If you are satisfied with 3BB stay with them and pay less as described.

Prices and performance change quickly nowadays.

I recently changed to 3BB, 100/100 for 590 (not Pattaya).

Don't really have much use for 100 upload but who cares.

Maybe I join the cloud crowd sometime

The 3BB WiFi included is nice but coverage is not great even in Pattaya.

 

(and before bickering starts: add 7% tax to all internet prices)

[dddave]

Call 3BB customer Service and tell them you want to cancel your service because True made you a much better offer.  3BB will quickly offer you a comparable deal.

Also, if you read the True offer closely, you will probably find it's a limited time offer, like perhaps six months, then double the price.

[xylophone]

Along a similar vein, and hopefully not too far off track (if it is, then please put it in the correct thread for me).

 

I currently have 3BB supplying my apartment on a fixed line (the owner won't allow a new fibre-optic cable to be installed – – don't ask me why) and it is apparently 25 Mbps, although it does vary a little on speed tests I do.

 

However I am trying to watch football and rugby via some of the streaming services like HD Prime and Expat Prime (legal I've been told) but I get buffering and stalling when I try to watch them and the picture goes from good to poor to stall.

 

I was wondering whether 25 Mbps is too low?

 

Another friend has suggested that my computer might not be able to handle the football and movies that I want to watch and that the processor or graphics card might be the problem. I have recently upgraded the computer ram to 8GB anyway.

 

So questions would be whether I need to get a higher Mbps number, or whether my computer, a basic HP notebook, needs to be changed for something a bit more grunty, or I thought about changing to the AIS or True service that uses a dongle, but I am completely in the dark as to whether or not that would work.

 

True have told me that they can provide me with unlimited 4G using a dongle, but I don't know if that is going to be of any help to me on my computer problem?

 

I want to get something sorted before the football season becomes full on and also so that I can watch the rugby World Cup so suggestions would be most welcome.

[wgdanson]

5 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Along a similar vein, and hopefully not too far off track (if it is, then please put it in the correct thread for me).

 

I currently have 3BB supplying my apartment on a fixed line (the owner won't allow a new fibre-optic cable to be installed – – don't ask me why) and it is apparently 25 Mbps, although it does vary a little on speed tests I do.

 

However I am trying to watch football and rugby via some of the streaming services like HD Prime and Expat Prime (legal I've been told) but I get buffering and stalling when I try to watch them and the picture goes from good to poor to stall.

 

I was wondering whether 25 Mbps is too low?

 

Another friend has suggested that my computer might not be able to handle the football and movies that I want to watch and that the processor or graphics card might be the problem. I have recently upgraded the computer ram to 8GB anyway.

 

So questions would be whether I need to get a higher Mbps number, or whether my computer, a basic HP notebook, needs to be changed for something a bit more grunty, or I thought about changing to the AIS or True service that uses a dongle, but I am completely in the dark as to whether or not that would work.

 

True have told me that they can provide me with unlimited 4G using a dongle, but I don't know if that is going to be of any help to me on my computer problem?

 

I want to get something sorted before the football season becomes full on and also so that I can watch the rugby World Cup so suggestions would be most welcome.

25 mb/s is plenty to stream TV or movies. Forget 4G dongle, they only want your money. 

[timendres]

Whether 3BB or True is better depends on another very important consideration - the routers. Where I live, everyone said that True was better than AIS. And that was true - at the beginning. However, after about one year, with everyone following that advice, the local True router was getting overloaded, and suddenly the AIS connectivity was far superior to True. So the advertised speeds are not very meaningful until they are verified by a speed test, and even then that can change over time.

[wgdanson]

8 minutes ago, timendres said:

Whether 3BB or True is better depends on another very important consideration - the routers. Where I live, everyone said that True was better than AIS. And that was true - at the beginning. However, after about one year, with everyone following that advice, the local True router was getting overloaded, and suddenly the AIS connectivity was far superior to True. So the advertised speeds are not very meaningful until they are verified by a speed test, and even then that can change over time.

And Speedtest is not really a good test. If you use 3BBs connection it is always way up there. Use testmy.net and you get a very different reading. Luckily I live in the jungle village where there are max 6 subscribers, I have fibre to my home and get 200/200 no problem. But many sites I connect to in Thaialnd are not at 200mbs, so no real advantage. I find that if I connect via my VPN (Express) to Singapore, most sites come up quicker. But hey, what's few more milliseconds when you've been around for over 70 years!

[xylophone]

44 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

25 mb/s is plenty to stream TV or movies. Forget 4G dongle, they only want your money. 

Thanks........and if so, perhaps I should look at my computers ability to handle the content?

[vogie]

21 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

And Speedtest is not really a good test. If you use 3BBs connection it is always way up there. Use testmy.net and you get a very different reading. Luckily I live in the jungle village where there are max 6 subscribers, I have fibre to my home and get 200/200 no problem. But many sites I connect to in Thaialnd are not at 200mbs, so no real advantage. I find that if I connect via my VPN (Express) to Singapore, most sites come up quicker. But hey, what's few more milliseconds when you've been around for over 70 years!

You seem to be correct, I have speed test master pro, I should be getting 100/30, just checked it and it recorded a speed of 250/150. Checked it with check my net, it recorded 95/53, probably more like it, thanks for the advice.

[ThePioneer]

11 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Thanks........and if so, perhaps I should look at my computers ability to handle the content?

Your computer definitely can handle the content.

 

25 Mbps is plenty IF that speed is measured to the location where the servers are, and there are no servers in Thailand.

 

If you use the speed test from the provider or ookla you are testing to Thailand servers.

 

This link test to Europe. Make sure you see London GB at the top of the page, otherwise click on it and change it to London.

 

https://testmy.net/mirror?testServer=uk

 

That said, there are plenty of threads about Hdprime, which will explain why you content buffers, and no they are NOT legal.

 

There is no way that you can watch Sky sports legally in Thailand

[xylophone]

14 hours ago, ThePioneer said:

Your computer definitely can handle the content.

 

25 Mbps is plenty IF that speed is measured to the location where the servers are, and there are no servers in Thailand.

 

If you use the speed test from the provider or ookla you are testing to Thailand servers.

 

This link test to Europe. Make sure you see London GB at the top of the page, otherwise click on it and change it to London.

 

https://testmy.net/mirror?testServer=uk

 

That said, there are plenty of threads about Hdprime, which will explain why you content buffers, and no they are NOT legal.

 

There is no way that you can watch Sky sports legally in Thailand

Thank you for your reply, and I did test my speed using the link you gave me (thank you again) and it does vary tremendously with a minimum being 7.89 Mbps, midpoint of around 23 and Max of 53 – – some variation!

 

So I'm thinking that the variations/low readings will be the reason the programs buffer?

 

I had no idea about HD prime, so I did get onto this forum and search, but only came up with a few posts on it, and couldn't find out a reason why it buffered, so perhaps my assumption above is correct?

 

I'm not really worried about HDPrime per se or watching EPL football for that matter, because I can get that on True vision, but what I'm really interested in watching is the rugby World Cup and as yet haven't found how to watch it here in Thailand!

 

I have a friend who has something called Expat Prime and another who has HDPrime, and both of them seem to be able to receive a signal without any of this buffering or freezing, which obviously makes me wonder about my Internet connection or my computer as they connect via an android box directly to their television, so perhaps that's the clue?.

 

Any info you have, even if you have to send it by private message (PM) would be most appreciated.

[Beggar]

15 hours ago, ThePioneer said:

 

If you use the speed test from the provider or ookla you are testing to Thailand servers.

 

Just looked at the Ookla app. You can search for severs around the world. Where you can select servers enter in the search field at the top "London" and you will find many. 

[ThePioneer]

22 minutes ago, Beggar said:

Just looked at the Ookla app. You can search for severs around the world. Where you can select servers enter in the search field at the top "London" and you will find many. 

Yes you can with the Ookla Beta app.

 

Difference between ookla and testmynet is that the former uses multi-thread ( multi connections) , similar to a torrent or download manager, while the latter uses single thread since with a video stream you get only 1 connection.

 

If you look at a Ookla speed test you will notice that your speed starts low and continuously increase during the test, because more threads are added, and in real life an internet connection fluctuate constantly.

 

 

[xylophone]

On 8/17/2019 at 7:35 PM, timendres said:

Whether 3BB or True is better depends on another very important consideration - the routers.

 

On 8/18/2019 at 12:00 PM, ThePioneer said:

If you look at a Ookla speed test you will notice that your speed starts low and continuously increase during the test, because more threads are added, and in real life an internet connection fluctuate constantly.

Well I'm still no closer to a solution despite several replies here, so let me tell you what I've done so far: 

 

I did see on a website that it was possible that some type of VPNs could throttle/decrease the signal, so I changed to Express VPN as my other one was called Smart DNS, and apparently these are not quite as efficient as a pure VPN?

 

Anyway, that didn't seem to make much in the way of a difference, so I called in the guys from 3BB to come and have a look and test the router and Internet speed.

 

Of course they used a speed test which bounced off local servers, so they were getting in excess of 25 MBps and said that my system was fine.

 

I then showed them the buffering and slowness on my computer when I logged into BBC iPlayer or the like and they suggested it was because I had a Wi-Fi link between the router and my computer, which by the way is only about 10 m away.

 

In light of this I went and bought a LAN cable and connected it up to my computer directly to the router and.........this made no difference whatsoever.

 

I then explained to them that it was no use them testing my system to a local server because I wanted to access those which were overseas (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc) and their reply was that there was nothing they could do about it because all they were interested in was the speed of their local connection and therefore it has to be a problem with "overseas".

 

So here I am in the same position as I've always been, with severe buffering and stalling if I want to watch one of the aforementioned programs!

 

I did think about buying one of these "set-top boxes" (IPTV or similar) but I believe they also need a good Internet service to be able to operate, so I'm no further forward.

 

Any suggestions as to where to from here – – please?

[Beggar]

It is not easy to give a recommendation in respect of internet speed and provider. There are too many variables and even the location where you stay can make a difference. Best would be to ask people in your neighborhood if they experience similar problems. 

[xylophone]

6 hours ago, Beggar said:

It is not easy to give a recommendation in respect of internet speed and provider. There are too many variables and even the location where you stay can make a difference. Best would be to ask people in your neighborhood if they experience similar problems. 

Not as easy as it sounds because they may not watch content from the likes of the BBC, ITV etc. and my system is a fixed line one.

 

I suppose what I'm really looking for is an alternative to 3BB or a method by which to watch the above via other means/avenues or a "trick" to boost the wifi download speed??

[Beggar]

29 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Not as easy as it sounds because they may not watch content from the likes of the BBC, ITV etc. and my system is a fixed line one.

 

I suppose what I'm really looking for is an alternative to 3BB or a method by which to watch the above via other means/avenues or a "trick" to boost the wifi download speed??

I have 3BB here in Pattaya. VDSL 60/25 (this speed was a special promotion long time ago). If it helps you send me links where I can test for you. Will give you my results tomorrow. 

[xylophone]

53 minutes ago, Beggar said:

I have 3BB here in Pattaya. VDSL 60/25 (this speed was a special promotion long time ago). If it helps you send me links where I can test for you. Will give you my results tomorrow. 

Very kind of you, thank you, but unsure of how you can help because the sites I get on to need a VPN to access them.

 

I have tried many speed tests from various orgs, but those measuring to London (for example) all show low to unacceptable speeds?????

 

But then again maybe I am missing something (a few brain cells for example!).

[topt]

2 hours ago, xylophone said:

I have tried many speed tests from various orgs, but those measuring to London (for example) all show low to unacceptable speeds?????

If you are only starting with a theoretical max of 25mbs or even MBs and your testing shows the reduction it possibly means you need to start with a higher based plan to allow for the "leakage" you are going to get.

 

Eg. perhaps you need a 100 speed and you may get 25 for example.......

 

If you were getting 25 all the time as another poster mentioned it should be more than enough but obviously you are not.

My guess would be also that in peak demand periods (Sat and Sun night) the speed would be even more restricted by the number of local users.

[Beggar]

13 hours ago, xylophone said:

Very kind of you, thank you, but unsure of how you can help because the sites I get on to need a VPN to access them.

 

If you are using a VPN then this could be the bottle neck. In this case no Internet provider can help you. If your normal speed in connection with GB is acceptable then perhaps try a different VPN. But if the speed without using a VPN is slow already then perhaps try a different Internet provider.

 

I remember when 3BB had a service plan for connections inside Thailand with slower speeds for connections to outside Thailand. They also had a more expensive plan for higher speeds for connections to outside Thailand. This plan doesn't exist anymore. But different Internet providers could provide different speeds to the international gateway. To find out which one is good you really need to ask people to do several speedtests at different times and weekdays. 

 

 

[xylophone]

11 hours ago, topt said:

If you are only starting with a theoretical max of 25mbs or even MBs and your testing shows the reduction it possibly means you need to start with a higher based plan to allow for the "leakage" you are going to get.

 

Eg. perhaps you need a 100 speed and you may get 25 for example.......

 

If you were getting 25 all the time as another poster mentioned it should be more than enough but obviously you are not.

My guess would be also that in peak demand periods (Sat and Sun night) the speed would be even more restricted by the number of local users.

Thanks topt, as that has clarified my thinking a little, especially as I was tending to go round in circles with this problem.

 

I think you may have the solution to my problem and if you do, then my next move is to try and persuade the particularly belligerent owner of my apartment that I need to install fibre optic (all of which I will pay for as it has to come up a private drive) because at the moment my Internet is delivered via a landline which 3BB say can only handle a maximum of 25 Mb per second?

 

I have to say I have tried on a couple of occasions, but for some reason he is anti-this move (he is Italian and can be very "obstructive" when he wants to be).

 

Unless someone comes up with the way by which I can get over this (server hop if this is at all possible? Or a way to get internet to my apt via another means) then it looks like I'm stuck unless the owner gives me the green light.

[xylophone]

6 minutes ago, Beggar said:

If you are using a VPN then this could be the bottle neck. In this case no Internet provider can help you. If your normal speed in connection with GB is acceptable then perhaps try a different VPN. But if the speed without using a VPN is slow already then perhaps try a different Internet provider.

 

I remember when 3BB had a service plan for connections inside Thailand with slower speeds for connections to outside Thailand. They also had a more expensive plan for higher speeds for connections to outside Thailand. This plan doesn't exist anymore. But different Internet providers could provide different speeds to the international gateway. To find out which one is good you really need to ask people to do several speedtests at different times and weekdays. 

 

 

Thanks Beggar, and funny you should mention the VPN because I have just changed from Smart DNS to Express VPN to see if that would make a difference and it really hasn't, however I will disconnect it and see if my speeds are still slow.

 

Thanks for the tip and I will report back, and I wasn't aware of this "international gateway" of which you speak, so I will investigate that further.

 

What might help is if there was another provider who could use the existing landline cable (see my last post regarding this) and still provide me with, say, 100 Mb per second?

[vogie]

1 minute ago, xylophone said:

Thanks Beggar, and funny you should mention the VPN because I have just changed from Smart DNS to Express VPN to see if that would make a difference and it really hasn't, however I will disconnect it and see if my speeds are still slow.

 

Thanks for the tip and I will report back, and I wasn't aware of this "international gateway" of which you speak, so I will investigate that further.

 

What might help is if there was another provider who could use the existing landline cable (see my last post regarding this) and still provide me with, say, 100 Mb per second?

I don't know if this helps as I am not too much of a techie, but when my speed was 100Mbps and I connected my VPN, it throttled it down to 10Mpbs, but I did enquire about this at the time and Crossy said this was the norm.

[DickThrust]

Could you try using your mobile phone as a hotspot. I live in the middle of nowhere and use a true internet unlimited package. I am able to watch all the usual sports channels and movies via mobdro and redbox, abeit with some buffering at peak times.

The extra advantage of using this method is that you have internet connection on your phone where ever you go.

You can DM me if you need help in setting things up.

 

[Buuge]

48 minutes ago, DickThrust said:

Could you try using your mobile phone as a hotspot. I live in the middle of nowhere and use a true internet unlimited package. I am able to watch all the usual sports channels and movies via mobdro and redbox, abeit with some buffering at peak times.

The extra advantage of using this method is that you have internet connection on your phone where ever you go.

You can DM me if you need help in setting things up.

 

I cant recommend this (apart from if there is a stream provider from your favorite television)

 

Netflix and all kind of "ususal" streaming is fine, but as soon is I want to watch a stream from my home television (via VLC player in HQ) its buffering all the time and its annoying.

If i watch with wifi in our office or in cafes, then its fine so the speed isnt fast enough (if you go for the 1/4/10 mbps package)

 

But if you`re ok with the common streaming platforms, then it should be ok

[bearpolar]

3 hours ago, xylophone said:

because at the moment my Internet is delivered via a landline which 3BB say can only handle a maximum of 25 Mb per second?

25mbps is the maximum(and that's only 3 mb per second)

 

You could easily be stuck at 3-4mbps

 

You'd be better served with WiMax(with a dongle) or making your  landlord understand that were in the late 2010's and using something other than fiber is completely retarded.

 

Most people wouldnt even rent a place if they didnt have fiber. Even <deleted>hole in the middle of the jungle have fiber in thailand.

 

my 3bb 200-200 gets more than the advertised speed while using expressVPN and when i take the vpn off i get 800/1000 internationally with multi-thread.

[friend of siam]

On 8/17/2019 at 2:09 PM, xylophone said:

Along a similar vein, and hopefully not too far off track (if it is, then please put it in the correct thread for me).

 

I currently have 3BB supplying my apartment on a fixed line (the owner won't allow a new fibre-optic cable to be installed – – don't ask me why) and it is apparently 25 Mbps, although it does vary a little on speed tests I do.

 

However I am trying to watch football and rugby via some of the streaming services like HD Prime and Expat Prime (legal I've been told) but I get buffering and stalling when I try to watch them and the picture goes from good to poor to stall.

 

I was wondering whether 25 Mbps is too low?

 

Another friend has suggested that my computer might not be able to handle the football and movies that I want to watch and that the processor or graphics card might be the problem. I have recently upgraded the computer ram to 8GB anyway.

 

So questions would be whether I need to get a higher Mbps number, or whether my computer, a basic HP notebook, needs to be changed for something a bit more grunty, or I thought about changing to the AIS or True service that uses a dongle, but I am completely in the dark as to whether or not that would work.

 

True have told me that they can provide me with unlimited 4G using a dongle, but I don't know if that is going to be of any help to me on my computer problem?

 

I want to get something sorted before the football season becomes full on and also so that I can watch the rugby World Cup so suggestions would be most welcome.

get a better speed and a. new internet  android tv box that u connect to your current tv set....or a smart tv...

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, bearpolar said:

25mbps is the maximum(and that's only 3 mb per second)

 

You could easily be stuck at 3-4mbps

You are right on so many counts bp and I've tried many speed tests since my posts and I've even been on to the Express VPN chatline and have entered in some new DNS settings, but that has made no difference to the download speed.

 

As for your point about being stuck at 3 to 4 Mbps, more often than not that is the case.

 

1 hour ago, bearpolar said:

You'd be better served with WiMax(with a dongle)

Would that be the same as a dongle from AIS or the like? Don't know about WiMax.

 

1 hour ago, bearpolar said:

or making your  landlord understand that were in the late 2010's and using something other than fiber is completely retarded.

Believe me I have tried on so many occasions to try and persuade him that running a fibre-optic cable for me would be fantastic, and I would pick up all of the costs and because it is up a private drive, I will do it myself or get someone else to help me with it, so he wouldn't be inconvenienced – – – but because he has made up his mind, he won't change it, he is one of those stubborn aholes and no matter how much one tries to persuade, his resolve not to do it gets stronger.

 

1 hour ago, bearpolar said:

Most people wouldnt even rent a place if they didnt have fiber.

When I moved here eight years ago, what they had in place was fine for me because all I used my computer for was emails and reading an NZ newspaper online.

 

Now I want to access programs on BBC iPlayer, ITV and Channel 4, but as you have seen, it's not really a viable proposition with the download speeds I'm getting.

 

I have thought about moving, but as I've been here a long time and gotten used to the place, I really do like it as it is so convenient for just about everywhere, and this guy's Thai wife (he's Italian) is just lovely and I knew if I was ill or something like that, she would check on me and make sure I was well or taken to hospital – – and that becomes a comfort when you get to the early 70s as I am.

 

Really between a rock and a hard place and feeling so frustrated about it. Furthermore and something which will inflict more pain is the fact that ITV have the rights to showing the world cup rugby and I was hoping to watch my beloved All Blacks from the comfort of my front room!

 

The dongle thing sounds interesting and it may just be that I get it for the Rugby World Cup and see what goes from there?

 

1 hour ago, bearpolar said:

my 3bb 200-200 gets more than the advertised speed while using expressVPN

Another poster, topt, did suggest that VPNs can throttle download speeds and because of this it would be great to get an Internet provider who could provide me with say 100/200 Mbps to compensate for this, but of course what prevents this is that I cannot have access to fibre-optic cable/services.

 

So in a word, at this moment in time, would seem as if I am "firked".........