Internet Provider vs Sim Card Personal Hotspot

[JCP108]

I currently live in BKK and engage in video chats with people in the U.S. We upgraded our internet service in our apartment to the fastest non-business package offered by True. However, it just totally cuts out (for 1-3 minutes at a time) about 10 random times per day and regularly results in dropped video chats. I'm wondering if I get a personal hotspot device then buy a high-speed sim card via AIS (or other provider) then tie my computer to that if I would prevent these dropped chat sessions. Anyone done this type of work-around? I don't want to pay 50kB/month for a business connection. Seems like one can get a hotspot device for around 5k and a high-speed sim for 600-900B/month. That would be comparable to what we're paying for the current True service. 

[Eindhoven]

4G HotSpot device from around around 1.5k. 10 Mbps unlimited SIM, 200 baht per month

[Peterw42]

Internet via a sim card will always be slower or less data than a cabled in service. If your internet cuts off 10 times a day, that is a fault, 

Get your existing service repaired.

[JCP108]

12 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Internet via a sim card will always be slower or less data than a cabled in service. If your internet cuts off 10 times a day, that is a fault, 

Get your existing service repaired.

I'm going to talk to them to see if they can fix it. However, reading in here and elsewhere, it seems that Thai internet service providers are over-selling their services on inadequate infrastructure.  So, I'm only cautiously hopeful that True can provide a relative fix to the problem. I don't need a super fast speed as I'm using Skpe type (and smaller, lower resolution) video chats. 

[OneMoreFarang]

If you don't do many video chats in 4k parallel then almost any internet connection should do the job.

 

Unfortunately in some buildings they had bad cabling which was "fixed" to often and does not work in the way it should. Your internet provider should be able to find out if you at your connection get the service which you pay for and where the problem is.

 

[DaveBKK]

On 2/15/2020 at 6:07 AM, Peterw42 said:

Internet via a sim card will always be slower or less data than a cabled in service. If your internet cuts off 10 times a day, that is a fault, 

Get your existing service repaired.

This is false. Especially in the case of international access. Thai ISPs often route “home” users over the cheapest and most congested routes available and allow huge contention issues (putting 100 users on same line). I often get much better *real world* performance via mobile than broadband. 

[Peterw42]

18 minutes ago, DaveBKK said:

This is false. Especially in the case of international access. Thai ISPs often route “home” users over the cheapest and most congested routes available and allow huge contention issues (putting 100 users on same line). I often get much better *real world* performance via mobile than broadband. 

They are all sharing the same internet backbone, Once you get to the cell tower, its the same internet, the cellular base station plugs into the same internet infrastructure. The cable from bangkok to chaing mai would have the same shared traffic on it. There are only a couple of cables that leave thailand and all the internet traffic is on those cables. There is no seperate connections for cellular traffic

The Thai average real world speed for 4G internet is 10Mbps, a cabled in connection is 50-100 Mbps. That is faster and unlimited data.

 

[DaveBKK]

2 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

They are all sharing the same internet backbone, Once you get to the cell tower, its the same internet, the cellular base station plugs into the same internet infrastructure. The cable from bangkok to chaing mai would have the same shared traffic on it. There are only a couple of cables that leave thailand and all the internet traffic is on those cables. There is no seperate connections for cellular traffic

The Thai average real world speed for 4G internet is 10Mbps, a cabled in connection is 50-100 Mbps. That is faster and unlimited data.

 

Really bad and false information here. There are about a dozen international gateways in TH with over 40 different routes to various providers.  See the map here:

http://internet.nectec.or.th/webstats/show_page.php?nnHZtXzjeMp7AKW6g7hcmSa1mN5C39T8bDBolE1jU6CqoiAiI7e4KkWcrmoFJup+bWMSjuJXDz2aRJQzY1oXzw==
 

A physical cable isn’t as important as how much bandwidth is rented/purchased on that physical cable.

 

[BritManToo]

On 2/15/2020 at 7:52 AM, OneMoreFarang said:

If you don't do many video chats in 4k parallel then almost any internet connection should do the job.

 

Unfortunately in some buildings they had bad cabling which was "fixed" to often and does not work in the way it should. Your internet provider should be able to find out if you at your connection get the service which you pay for and where the problem is.

 

Didn't everywhere go fibre last year?

Surely the old network wiring is no longer relevant, I want fibre right to my router.

[Peterw42]

1 hour ago, DaveBKK said:

Really bad and false information here. There are about a dozen international gateways in TH with over 40 different routes to various providers.  See the map here:

http://internet.nectec.or.th/webstats/show_page.php?nnHZtXzjeMp7AKW6g7hcmSa1mN5C39T8bDBolE1jU6CqoiAiI7e4KkWcrmoFJup+bWMSjuJXDz2aRJQzY1oXzw==
 

A physical cable isn’t as important as how much bandwidth is rented/purchased on that physical cable.

 

There is nothing on the map that shows any greater capacity or bandwidth available exclusively to internet to/from a mobile phone. It shows the opposite, all ISP's connect to the dozen gateways and then off to the broader international internet. So far as the map is concerned cellular providers are just another ISP, nothing to say they route their traffic any differently or have a greater international bandwidth.

 

The only difference is the last couple of kilometres which is done wirelesly, slower and more expensive than a cable.

 

No matter how much bandwidth an ISP rents/allocates, the data cannot travel faster than the handset to tower speed, and for most that is under 10mbps.

 

 

[DaveBKK]

26 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

There is nothing on the map that shows any greater capacity or bandwidth available exclusively to internet to/from a mobile phone. It shows the opposite, all ISP's connect to the dozen gateways and then off to the broader international internet. So far as the map is concerned cellular providers are just another ISP, nothing to say they route their traffic any differently or have a greater international bandwidth.

 

The only difference is the last couple of kilometres which is done wirelesly, slower and more expensive than a cable.

 

No matter how much bandwidth an ISP rents/allocates, the data cannot travel faster than the handset to tower speed, and for most that is under 10mbps.

 

 

Dude... look at the map. DTAC has its own gateway and it’s own routes.  AIS has its own gateway (AWN) and its own routes. TRUE has its own gateway and it’s own routes. 
 

Each route has different costs. Lower cost users are put on lower cost more congested routes.  It’s not all equal. Look up the difference between TCP and UDP. 
 

Look up contention ratios for broadband.  

[DaveBKK]

30 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

There is nothing on the map that shows any greater capacity or bandwidth available exclusively to internet to/from a mobile phone. It shows the opposite, all ISP's connect to the dozen gateways and then off to the broader international internet. So far as the map is concerned cellular providers are just another ISP, nothing to say they route their traffic any differently or have a greater international bandwidth.

 

The only difference is the last couple of kilometres which is done wirelesly, slower and more expensive than a cable.

 

No matter how much bandwidth an ISP rents/allocates, the data cannot travel faster than the handset to tower speed, and for most that is under 10mbps.

 

 

10 mbps to the handset but broadband to Los Angeles will probably be only allocated 1-3 mbps. Maybe they get 50 mbps to the local CO,  doesn’t mean they get that out of TH. 
 

Indisputable verifiable FACT: I regularly get more bandwidth internationally on DTAC 4G than my broadband provider. Part of that has to do with tons of customers abandoning DTAC thus providing much better contention ratios.  DuckDuckGo it dude: contention ratios.  

[JCP108]

So, True isn't giving a convincing explanation of the issue or fixing it yet. We had 3BBB before and then pretty much everyone in the neighborhood switched to True..so, it may partly be an issue of how many local people are accessing the service. So, in the short-term, I did this: I went and had the old 3BBB service restored and I plugged right into the router with an ethernet cable. Now it's fast and no drops. And, easier than getting another device and sim card since we still had the old equipment.