Does anyone have experience with 5G Internet and here especially in Pattaya?

[Mickeymaus]

Would be interesting to know how far 5G is available especially in Pattaya and what experience you have with it regarding speed and signal strength / availability. Also which SIM card package you use would be interesting as well as the phone / tablet / router. 

[Peterw42]

It comes down to the package you take up, yes there is 5G "BUT" they sell 5G packages that are speed restricted, or data restricted, or both.

Read the fine print, unlimited means unlimited data, not always unlimited/full speed.

Depending on your usage, you would probably be better off with a cheaper 4G package with unlimited data and a decent speed.

People have the mindset that it has to be 5G, because 5G is better. its not better if the speed is comparable to existing 4G.

Many of the telcos 5G packages are just a higher price (because its 5G) with 4G speeds.

If you are looking at a router/hotspot, and multiple devices will be using the same internet, anything less than 20mbps soon becomes unworkable.

[Mickeymaus]

22 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

It comes down to the package you take up, yes there is 5G "BUT" they sell 5G packages that are speed restricted, or data restricted, or both.

Read the fine print, unlimited means unlimited data, not always unlimited/full speed.

Depending on your usage, you would probably be better off with a cheaper 4G package with unlimited data and a decent speed.

People have the mindset that it has to be 5G, because 5G is better. its not better if the speed is comparable to existing 4G.

Many of the telcos 5G packages are just a higher price (because its 5G) with 4G speeds.

If you are looking at a router/hotspot, and multiple devices will be using the same internet, anything less than 20mbps soon becomes unworkable.

I use a 4G SIM card router at the moment - DTAC 30 Mbps with unlimited data. I didn't cancel 3BB VDSL yet but it is paused / suspended at the moment. You can do this 2 times for 3 months a year with 1 active month between it.

 

I am not sure if I will keep 3BB in the long run. I don't see a difference for me. Only 4K YouTube videos start to buffer sometimes with DTAC - but this is no real problem. I had unlimited speed for some days (was included in the DTAC package) but this didn't make any difference at my location. 

 

I don't have a 5G device to test. But does it make sense to have a 5G device now already? This I want to find out. 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Mickeymaus

[Peterw42]

45 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

I use a 4G SIM card router at the moment - DTAC 30 Mbps with unlimited data. I didn't cancel 3BB VDSL yet but it is paused / suspended at the moment. You can do this 2 times for 3 months a year with 1 active month between it.

 

I am not sure if I will keep 3BB in the long run. I don't see a difference for me. Only 4K YouTube videos start to buffer sometimes with DTAC - but this is no real problem. I had unlimited speed for some days (was included in the DTAC package) but this didn't make any difference at my location. 

 

I don't have a 5G device to test. But does it make sense to have a 5G device now already? This I want to find out. 

 

I would keep the VDSL, it will be cheaper, faster, (it would be 50 mbps), no reception problems.

Like I said above, when you read the fine print, many of the 5G packages are capped at similar speed to your current 4G, and just cost more (full speed is stupid prices). If your 4G reception isn't great, 5G wont be any better as it would probably be on the same tower, and it has less range.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Peterw42

[Mickeymaus]

1 hour ago, Peterw42 said:

I would keep the VDSL, it will be cheaper, faster, (it would be 50 mbps), no reception problems.

Like I said above, when you read the fine print, many of the 5G packages are capped at similar speed to your current 4G, and just cost more (full speed is stupid prices). If your 4G reception isn't great, 5G wont be any better as it would probably be on the same tower, and it has less range.

This is not correct. 3BB VDSL costs me 631.30 Baht. The last 1 months DTAC SIM with unlimited calls to all networks was 234.66 including delivery (see picture). Almost 400 Baht less per month. And if you take a yearly SIM package you pay much less per month than for this monthly DTAC SIM. Activation is quick and easy via LINE.

 

Regarding speed. I get about 30 Mbps with DTAC. No problems especially since I am the only user. I tested months ago already and was worried that the high season could show speed problems because of more users. But no problems. I also tested during the Fireworks Festival. Also no problems. 

 

I have a bigger topic "Your experience with SIM card routers" here in this forum (I don't want to link it again and again). There you can find the many tests I have done before and this with True Move, AIS and DTAC. 

 

The second picture shows an example for True Maxspeed (1000 Mbps) but limited to 70 GB for yearly 1240 Baht plus free calls. Perhaps there are cheaper and better offers. I didn't look. So this means about 100 Baht per month. Need more data? Buy a second one. For the same price that you pay for your 3BB VDSL per year you can buy 6 such SIMS. 

 

But now of course the question is if 5G is really available and at what speeds and where. Is there nobody using 5G? 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Mickeymaus

[Peterw42]

22 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

The second picture shows an example for True Maxspeed (1000 Mbps) but limited to 70 GB for yearly 1240 Baht plus free calls. Perhaps there are cheaper and better offers. I didn't look. So this means about 100 Baht per month. Need more data? Buy a second one. For the same price that you pay for your 3BB VDSL per year you can buy 6 such SIMS. 

Have you looked into your average data usage ? I think you may be underestimating, I use 20GB a day some days, 10 on an average day. Stream one 1080 movie a day and thats 3-4 gig, thats half your 70 GB data gone in one week.

You maybe dont notice at the moment, being on unlimited data. but I think you would burn through 70 G pretty quickly.

 

[Mickeymaus]

1 hour ago, Peterw42 said:

Have you looked into your average data usage ? I think you may be underestimating, I use 20GB a day some days, 10 on an average day. Stream one 1080 movie a day and thats 3-4 gig, thats half your 70 GB data gone in one week.

You maybe dont notice at the moment, being on unlimited data. but I think you would burn through 70 G pretty quickly.

 

An app logs my data volume. 70 GB wouldn't be enough for me too since I (legally) download movies. Up to now I have collected more than 1000 movies over several years and I guess I should stop this behaviour... The day might come when I can watch the same movie every day because I don't remember it anymore. And somehow it gets boring to watch movies all the time. 

But buy 4 SIM cards where each provides 1000 Mbps (if they do what we don't know without a 5G user) and you have 4 x 70 GB data. With (1240 x 4) 4960 Baht still cheaper and more flexible than the 3BB VDSL with about yearly (12 x 631) 7572 Baht.

 

And if you can live with 30 Mbps and unlimited data then the DTAC yearly SIM is only 1690 Baht - a fraction of the 3BB VDSL 7572 Baht price.

 

I didn't check all of them. Perhaps there are even cheaper SIM card options. 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Mickeymaus

[liddelljohn]

In UK most 5g plans are same price now as 4g plans as telco migrate .so 5g is no brainer ,

 

but Thailand still lagging on 5g plans

[spidermike007]

Yes. Unbelievable speeds with True. I sometimes clock 300mbps!

 

I am in the US right now, and the True network blows away the speeds I get here with Verizon. At a quarter of the price. Impressive. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by spidermike007

[Mickeymaus]

What I know so far is that AIS has the widest coverage, followed by True and followed by a wide margin by DTAC (but there is the planned merger with True). Regarding 5G experiences, I could find older posts here in the forum:

 

https://aseannow.com/topic/1241978-5g-in-thailand-what-is-your-experience/

 

https://aseannow.com/topic/1234741-what-speeds-are-you-getting-on-4g5g/