Upgrading DSL to Fibre - what will i get?

[turgid]

I've had 75Mbs/25 DSL for a long time at 500 Baht a month and am now thinking about upgrading to 599 1Gbs/500 Fibre BYOD  (i provide the routers and network).  I dont know how fibre works with regards to home networking so be gentle.  

The Fibre  installation fee is 4800 Baht but they absorb it if you contract for at least 12 Months. However  the sales folk are very vague about what installation includes.

 

I live in a two bed apartment. At the moment i have a wired TV, NAS, Desktop PC.   Scanner Printer, various phones, appliances  and main bedroom TV on WiFi.  There is a wired backhaul from the under the TV DSL  ASUS  WiFi 6 router to  an  Archer BE800 WiFi 7 router in the spare bedroom / office.

 

I  have the  WiFi 7  router which i use to stream my Desktop PC to a VR headset but  WiFi 7  speed drop off is brutal at about 5 Metres so I need to ideally  have the WiFi 7 router wired in the centre of the apartment.  I've tried mesh networking but I have an agricultural noisy  NAS banished to the  office room and the only way I could get stutter free performance was with a wired backhaul.

 

I understand from the internet that  the incoming fibre usually terminates to something called an ONT or optical network terminal fibre to ethernet adapter  which ideally I want to be in the middle of the apartment but i suspect will be drilled through the utility riser in the corner of the hallway.

 

Anyone have practical experience of AIS Fibre, what the installation provides and what the actual Fibre to Ethernet termination is ?

I'm guessing i will have to run 40 metres of Cat 7 cable around the apartment from the hall to under the TV  but i'd really rather not.

 

 

 

 

 

[topt]

23 hours ago, turgid said:

I understand from the internet that  the incoming fibre usually terminates to something called an ONT or optical network terminal fibre to ethernet adapter  which ideally I want to be in the middle of the apartment but i suspect will be drilled through the utility riser in the corner of the hallway.

I don't know specifically with AIS but they may just run the fibre to where you want depending on the distance. The only issue is the fibre is not like coax so may not be able to keep it as flush to all surfaces (think corners) as coax.

 

The ONT is basically the modem and the fibre terminates into it with probably an SC or LC connector and will have an ethernet socket to connect a cable from there to your router. It also needs a power supply.

Here is a picture of a True box -

[KhunHeineken]

On 1/23/2025 at 10:31 AM, turgid said:

I'm guessing i will have to run 40 metres of Cat 7 cable around the apartment from the hall to under the TV  but i'd really rather not.

You may have to, but depending on your property, you might be able to pay the Thai guys a few baht on the side and they will run the fiber to where you want your router, then put the ONT there, then it's just a 1 meter ethernet cable from the ONT to your router.  

 

The ONT has a quirk.  There may be four ports, but the ISP only assigns one port to work.  The Thai guys will arrange the port number, but that's the port you have to use.   You can't use any of the others.  

[mitebbots]

On 1/24/2025 at 5:39 PM, topt said:

I don't know specifically with AIS but they may just run the fibre to where you want depending on the distance. The only issue is the fibre is not like coax so may not be able to keep it as flush to all surfaces (think corners) as coax.

 

The ONT is basically the modem and the fibre terminates into it with probably an SC or LC connector and will have an ethernet socket to connect a cable from there to your router. It also needs a power supply.

Here is a picture of a True box -

 

 

I wonder how hard to get this to replace the true gigatex modem/router? I much prefer my own router. I can't even see a place to enter DNS settings, unless I am missing something.

[topt]

2 hours ago, mitebbots said:

 

 

I wonder how hard to get this to replace the true gigatex modem/router? I much prefer my own router. I can't even see a place to enter DNS settings, unless I am missing something.

You could try asking them to put it into bridge mode - that is what I had a for a number of years prior to getting them to switch the package to the  CYOD 1GB down 500 up a couple of months ago. That was a struggle but eventually they replaced the modem'router with the ONT in the pic.

 

If they say the router/modem can't do Bridge push them to change it for one that does or change your package.

[turgid]

What I got for the fibre termination  was a Huawei 2.5Gbs optical interface,  1Gbs X 4 Port HG8245H wired only Router.

 

Despite saying multiple times before install that I wanted the termination under the TV in the living room they wanted to install it on top of the fridge because that was the closest point to the riser with any available power.   

 

After "robust"  discussion they spliced and tacked a black fibre round the top of the white hall and living room walls.

I ended up pulling it down and putting it in  the thinest white trunking I could buy from Thai Watsadu. 

I stripped the copper reinforcement off and the laser beam seems to go round 3 right angle bends OK . 

Took 48 hours to actually get it working which I suspect given the splicing that took place in the riser was due to mislabelling of the building fibre.      

Performance is great compared with  DSL  - on most network testing I consistently  get  975 Mbs down and 600 mbs up with 1Gbs occasionally and the latency is significantly lower in single digits.  

 

My config is  AIS Fibre ---1Gbs ----- HG8245H  ----1Gbs wired-------BE800-------10Gbs wired---------BE800

 

The TpLink BE800 is a WiFi 7 router with 4 x 2.5Gbs ports and 2 x 10Gbs Ports one of which can be used as SFP+

 

First BE800 serves 2  TVs,  2 x WiFi 6E** Phones,  IOT, VR headset. The second AP BE800  serves a NAS, Desktop and streaming for a VR headset.

 

I have two   BE800    in a Main - access point configuration. Mesh was hopeless both in performance and the ability to turn off some Wifi bands  or configure anything on the second router.  

The BE800  has  SFP+  ports so I wanted to explore the possibility of buying a PON direct optical interface. After some hopeful discussions that was a very hard no on support  from AIS.  The performance impact is negligible but I do see double NAT issues sometimes and am I looking at Bridging the HG8245H but haven't progressed this so far.

 

I'm interested in (and willing to waste time and money playing around with )   this stuff but anyone looking at WiFi 7 for performance currently I really wouldnt bother. The performance drop off is really dramatic and more than about 2 Metres away I get the same or better performance on WiFi 6. I tried a WiFi 7 backhaul about 4 metres away  through the bedroom  wall and it was under 1Gbs.   Also the components are clearly still evolving. Every firmware upgrade on the BE800 improves one part of performance and breaks another part, every vendor blames the other end of the link for the problem.

 

**The global marketing says the Samsung S24U is a WiFi 7 phone but it only displays 6E in Thailand and seated on the couch i get better throughput on WiFi 6. She likes to see the 6E logo though.