What The Best Internet Speed I Can Get In Pattaya

[Ground Engineer]

Im moving to Pattaya in July and will be working over the internet. I would like to get similar internet speeds as I get here in the UK or as fast as possible. Can anyone recommend the best set up for me. Im willing to pay upto 7000 Bhat per month.

[monty]

Maxnet premier 2048/512 falls nicely into your budget at 5200 Baht (+7%vat)/month

The premier package is aimed at the small business/heavy home user market segment and seems to have an acceptable contention ratio.

I get consistently over 70% of rated speed, with 95% of the time at 90% of rated speed, but I'm on the 256/128 premier package, so not sure if the 2 Mbps returns the same high percentages of rated speed.

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

When you go to a different ISP, prices tend to go up a lot.

Ji-net plus (also a small business package) will already cost more for a 512/256 package!

http://www.ji-net.com/home/indexget.php?pid=16

Both are available when on a TT&T phoneline, but for the higher speeds (especially the 2048 kbps package) you need to be pretty close to the phone exchange, as the maximum speed your phone line can support decreases a lot with increasing distance!

[Ground Engineer]

Maxnet premier 2048/512 falls nicely into your budget at 5200 Baht (+7%vat)/month

The premier package is aimed at the small business/heavy home user market segment and seems to have an acceptable contention ratio.

I get consistently over 70% of rated speed, with 95% of the time at 90% of rated speed, but I'm on the 256/128 premier package, so not sure if the 2 Mbps returns the same high percentages of rated speed.

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

When you go to a different ISP, prices tend to go up a lot.

Ji-net plus (also a small business package) will already cost more for a 512/256 package!

http://www.ji-net.com/home/indexget.php?pid=16

Both are available when on a TT&T phoneline, but for the higher speeds (especially the 2048 kbps package) you need to be pretty close to the phone exchange, as the maximum speed your phone line can support decreases a lot with increasing distance!

THanks Monty, Im going to be based in East Pattaya. Got a feeling this is going to be too far away from the exchange.

I may have to rent an office in Pattaya.

[monty]

Whereabouts in East Pattaya?

TT&T has substations in East Pattaya, so with a bit of luck renting an extra office might not be needed!

There is one substation pretty close to crocodile farm, so in a radius of 3 kilometers there is fast internet to be had.

I have an ADSL line in Soi Siam Country club road, about 1 kilometer past the railroad when driving away from Pattaya, don't know where the substation of that line is, but from the parameters in my adsl modem (attenuation/Noise ratio) it would definitely support a connection of over 1mbps...

[alexth]

What The Best Internet Speed I Can Get In Pattaya?

+/- 0 kbps

[Myke]

I live in Jomtien and have TT&T MaxNet Indy ADSL 1024/512. Options for ADSL are limited here. This ADSL used to work fine until the last few months. The service is now bottlenecked by TT&T. I now experience VERY SLOW international surf speeds, down from 600 kb. It is now comparable to a 56k modem. Typical tests at www.numion.com reports international speeds of 35-40 kb/sec. Calls to TT&T tech support result in an unbelievable answer that this service is "for in Thailand" and I should change to a much more expensive 512/256 service at 1990 baht for better service. Just about all websites that most people use are .com, not co.th or whatever and are "international". The charge of 1000 baht/month is rediculous for 56k modem like internet. 1000 baht is more than the people in BKK pay for much faster and higher quality service. It feels like I have been suckered into this service and then the service was changed.

[monty]

Well Myke, looks like you didn't do your homework properly!

If you take alook at TT&T's Maxnet site you'll see it's stated that this package is best suited for "Thai surf" and that both P2P and VOIP have bandwidth limiters in place...

Since TT&T has to pay around 24,000 Baht/month to the CAT(=government monopoly) for a 1024 kbps international connection, it has to share this line with a LOT of subscribers just to break even!

What you experienced is not TT&T "bottlenecking" your connection, but the simple fact that they are filling the line to capacity. Most probably you are now sharing this 1024 kbps with over 30 other subscribers!

What you can blame them for, is very poorly communicating the limits of their packages to you!

The actual speed of your international connection has to be blamed on the government monopoly charging outrageous amounts for their links to the outside world.

That's why I clearly stated to the OP to go for the more expensive Premier package. As you noticed yourself, you pay double for half the speed. Which means that Maxnet can share the line by 4 times less subscribers (10 instead of 40) and still maintain the same profit margin...And presto, up shoots your internet speed!

[monty]

Oh, and if you are interested in pretty much guaranteed (pretty much, not 100%!) speeds, check out here what it's going to cost you, courtesy of your friendly CAT...

Actually not too bad, if you compare to for example Ji-net....

[Ground Engineer]

Whereabouts in East Pattaya?

TT&T has substations in East Pattaya, so with a bit of luck renting an extra office might not be needed!

There is one substation pretty close to crocodile farm, so in a radius of 3 kilometers there is fast internet to be had.

I have an ADSL line in Soi Siam Country club road, about 1 kilometer past the railroad when driving away from Pattaya, don't know where the substation of that line is, but from the parameters in my adsl modem (attenuation/Noise ratio) it would definitely support a connection of over 1mbps...

Hi Monty Im just by the 7 eleven / market off Soi Siam Country Club. Problem is the village I stay doesnt have only has TOT and the internet with them is preety useless.

Maybe I can find an office in East Pattaya with TT&T connection.

[Myke]

I suspect that TT&T has developed a way of routine MaxNet Indy customers thru a reduced 30/40 user port on a 24/7 basis. Surf speeds now never exceed 80 kb/sec when Numion is run on a continued test. Interesting thing is that I can download from sites like Download.com with DAP or even regular and obtain speeds of 800+ kb.

What kind of realistic international surf speed may I expect from a MaxNet Premier 512/256?

[Myke]

That is routing not routine.

[monty]

Hi Myke, This is my result with Numion, I'm on the 256/128 Premier package...

Download speed: 228.64 (28.58) 100%

Upload speed: 109.46 (13.68) 100%

Surfspeed outside Thailand: 118.64 (14.83) 100%

Latency: 632 milliseconds

I must say this is the first time I tested using Numion, you'll see that my download speed is almost 90% of rated speed.

The surfspeed is in my opinion a very objective test, one which in Thailand will always give slow results simply due to the big distance from the USA. For each and every small banner (40 of them) a DNS request has to be sent out, and the server where the banner is hosted has to be contacted for the download. That's a lot of roundtrip requests to far away servers.

I also think it's not very representative, because very few websites will have content spread out over 40 different servers, each and every one necessitating a DNS request!

Also with the surfspeed test you'll see the speed difference between download and surf become bigger the faster your package is, since the majority of the time used to load the page is eaten up by these dns requests and communication round the globe instead of actually downloading content. It's low ping times which will speed up your surfspeed test, not actual download speed!

I also suspect that the cheaper ISP packages might limit the amount of simultaneous http connections (port 80), which will slow down the surfspeed test tremendously since it tries to open 40 http connections to 40 different servers simultaneously.

[Myke]

Thanks Monty

[Phil Conners]

Actually Monty, I have TT&T and Maxnet Indy 1024/512 and I routinely get 40-50 kB/s BOTH up and down with µTorrent (encrypted mode)

[Naam]

question for our resident expert Monty:

i was switched today from Maxnet "life" 512/256 to Maxnet "premier" 1024/512 and from all indications i am getting double down and upload speeds.

what i don't understand is that my router diagnostics show "worse" data than before.

512/256 package

noise margin downstream: 22 db

output power upstream: 13 db

attenuation downstream: 63 db

1024/512 package

noise margin downstream: 16 db

output power upstream: 14 db

attenuation downstream: 61 db

my question is "does it make sense to double again to 2048/1024 or is the quality of my phone line not sufficient?"

big thanks in advance for your qualified advice.

[Naam]

numion shows:

Download speed: 501.83 (62.72) 100%

Upload speed: 438.56 (54.82) 100%

Surfspeed outside Thailand: 238.89 (29.86) 100%

Latency: 527 milliseconds

TV:

download 855

upload 415

[monty]

Hi there Dr.

Simple explanation (for me anyway )

The higher the speed of the data you try to push over the phone lines, the more difficult it becomes for your router to distinguish between the actual signal and the noise picked up along the line.

Main reason is that for higher data speeds, higher frequencies are needed.

What your "downstream noise margin" number indicates, is how much spare margin your router has to still be able to distinguish between the noise and the signal.

Simply explained, if your noise margin is 16db, the signal can drop 16db until the router loses connection, or alternative, the noise might increase 16 db to make the connection drop or a combination of the two...

As said before, the higher the speed, the more difficult to distinguish the signal, the lower that spare margin will become!

Hence the drop from 22db to 16db! Perfectly normal!

Now, since the noise on a line is never really constant, nor is the strength of the signal received, as a common rule it is accepted that at least a 12db margin has to be there, so your router won't drop connection each and every time there is a small spike in the noise, or when the signal drops a bit...

With less then 12 db margin, you tend to get a very iffy connection, where your router is half of his time trying to re-sync with the DSLAM (at the phone exchange).

Also, noise margins tend to drop quite a bit just before dawn, mostly because of dew on the lines and electric equipment in the neighborhood of these lines..

My very very rough guess would be that if you upgrade to 2048 kbps, your noise margin will drop below that magic 12db...I'm not exactly sure but I think that the drop will be bigger then when you upgraded from 512 to 1024kbps...

Hope this helps

[luckyfarang]

This pricing sounds mighty high to me.

I have 1024/512 adsl service thru TOT in north pattaya/beach road area which costs only 1000B per month and usually tests out at about 75% of the rated speed. Is there some reason that everyone else here can't get the same service?

[putdk]

I have this Maxnet packed Premier 1024/512 and pay 3400 + 7%vat.

its working perfect near Jomtien and i use it every day for my VoIP box and can download with good speed the most of the time, any one here have the 2048/512 premier packed in pattaya and if, what download speed can you get from this packed ?

maybe i will upgrade som i can see TV with a better picture from some of my slingboxes in Europe.

[frenchFARANGbkk]

Both are available when on a TT&T phoneline, but for the higher speeds (especially the 2048 kbps package) you need to be pretty close to the phone exchange, as the maximum speed your phone line can support decreases a lot with increasing distance!

hello,

Can you tell me where are the phone exchange locations in Pattaya?

Thanks.

[Prasert]

question for our resident expert Monty:

i was switched today from Maxnet "life" 512/256 to Maxnet "premier" 1024/512 and from all indications i am getting double down and upload speeds.

what i don't understand is that my router diagnostics show "worse" data than before.

512/256 package

noise margin downstream: 22 db

output power upstream: 13 db

attenuation downstream: 63 db

1024/512 package

noise margin downstream: 16 db

output power upstream: 14 db

attenuation downstream: 61 db

my question is "does it make sense to double again to 2048/1024 or is the quality of my phone line not sufficient?"

big thanks in advance for your qualified advice.

Monty has already explained the differences.

Added to that:

Do you know how far away you are from the exchange? The attenuation is quite high on your line, so I would guess it's around or over 3km

If your router also displays the values for each slot, you might be able to determine if a speed increase will give you 2048/1024. I guess the download will go up, but the upload might not.

You can always ask the ISP if they can test it first - changing the speed is just a matter of choosing a different profile (=software setting) for your port on the dslam.

About the slots: the whole frequency available for the ADSL signal is divided into slots or bins. During the line setup (training) the router (and dslam) quickly test each slot to determine the quality and useability. The total amount of good slots will determine the line speed. If the signal-noise ratio is too low, the dslam will cut back the speed in steps until a stable connection is established.

[JakeBKK]

Im moving to Pattaya in July and will be working over the internet. I would like to get similar internet speeds as I get here in the UK or as fast as possible. Can anyone recommend the best set up for me. Im willing to pay upto 7000 Bhat per month.

Maxnet premier ? for the same money you get also a 4/1 Mb Cat HiNet Package.

CAT 4/1 MB 5500THB

CAT 2/512 2600 THB

Customer Service from CAT is superior! NO CALL CENTER. You call HQ in pattaya and in 98% you receive a solution to your problem within 30 minutes.

Edited March 29, 2008 by JakeBKK

[thaiclan]

I moved into my home (up near Cholchan) in Dec. I had to get TOT as no TT&T in my area. As I trade online ADSL was very important. I pulled my hair out for 3 months with no internet and then patchy internet. They told me in Feb that I couldnt have the 2mb where I was but could have the 1.5mb. Since then that is exactly what I have got at all times of the day! I've been expecting interruptions and to move over to True - but touch wood all very okay for the past 5 weeks.....