Internet By Cat (hinet)

[monty]

Reading lots of posts from people terribly unhappy with their internet providers, another, less well known option, is available in quite some areas in the bigger Pattaya district.

It is called Hinet by CAT, and gets delivered to your door through a dedicated cable. Whether or not you can get a phone line (TT&T or TOT) is irrelevant, CAT will put up a cable to your house for you.

I have no experience with the cheaper "standard" packages, however due to their low price they will probably perform well until their subscriber base starts to grow.

One package they have is reasonably unique in Thailand, and can be very nice for people needing to do big uploads. It's a 2mbps/2mbps symmetric line, where the 2 mbps upload speed is quadruple of what you usually can get at other ISP's. At 2850 Baht it is not cheap, but this is a premium account with low contention ratio, ensuring pretty stable speeds throughout the day.

Most other ISP's are much more expensive for a 2 mbps/512kbps premium adsl line!

My experience is with the 4mbps/1mbps premium line, which at 5000 Baht/month is bloody expensive, but it's also bloody good. I never ever test under 3 mbps internationally, and it's stable as a rock! I'm not a p2p person, but for my work I have to upload/download lots of very big files, and having them come in at over 400kBps and often close to 500 kBps makes me really forget the price.

More info can be found here:

<a href="http://www.cat.net.th/hinet/promotion.html" target="_blank">http://www.cat.net.th/hinet/promotion.html</a>

And on ADSL Thailand's forum there is a poster, presumably an employee from CAT, kind of trying to update the coverage area's. Don't panic if your area is not mentioned, he is running a bit behind so you might still be lucky!

<a href="http://www.adslthailand.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=14" target="_blank">http://www.adslthailand.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=14</a>

Look for ksurin's posts... like this one

[Mobi]

Thanks for that Monty.

I assume that we won't be getting it in the Mabparachan/Pong area any time soon then?

[genobkk]

I just posted a topic on CAT.....commikng to my area sooon....the flyer says by Jan 2008....I am not in pattaya very often, really I only need a 600 or 700 kps connection, but with TOT I am only getting 50 to 100 kps during peak times and a max of 400 to 500 at 3 am......I am thinkikng about the 2m/800 plan, but for 250 THB I could get 2m/2m. I even tryed CSLoginfo on and it was just as bad or worse then TOT, maybe it is TOT's outdated equitment ......when it finaly comes I iwll post my exspierence with it.........just hope it does NOT get overloaded .....

[monty]

Thanks for that Monty.

I assume that we won't be getting it in the Mabparachan/Pong area any time soon then?

No problem in Pong!!! Engineers have done a survey already...

Only drawback is that they have to put up an extra relay station (whatever that is) and pull quite a lot of cable. cost price for bringing it in around 20,000 Baht...

[Mobi]

Thanks for that Monty.

I assume that we won't be getting it in the Mabparachan/Pong area any time soon then?

No problem in Pong!!! Engineers have done a survey already...

Only drawback is that they have to put up an extra relay station (whatever that is) and pull quite a lot of cable. cost price for bringing it in around 20,000 Baht...

So are you going the hinet route, or are you happy with your BTV cable internet connection?

BTW I now have cable TV - still awaiting the internet.

[monty]

Staying patient... Have the Hinet at home though...