New Tot Broadband Service

[phuketsub]

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

TOT broadband: 1Gbps by July

PHUKET (Nation/Gazette): TOT kicked off its project to build a new fiber-optic broadband-Internet service for Phuket with the awarding yesterday of a 136.8-million-baht network-construction contract.

“We picked Phuket as the first location to launch the service because the island has affluent consumers who can afford the premium-priced service,” said Sayan Tinsamran, TOT senior executive vice president for marketing and product development.

Under the contract, a consortium led by Italian-Thai Development and Siam Fibre Optic will install a 200-kilometer fiber network with 3,200 broadband-Internet ports.

The service will deliver voice, data and video on demand at speeds of up to 1Gbps over FTTx, or “Fiber To The x”, where “x” could be a home, buildings or any other location hooking up to the network.

Fujikura, a Japanese vendor, will supply its FTTx technology, while NTT-West Co, a Japanese telecom company, will act as project consultant.

K. Sayan said that the state enterprise had spent two years on the project’s feasibility study.

FTTx technology costs about 50,000 baht per port, more than conventional asynchronous digital subscriber line technology (ADSL). The service fee is expected to be high, but TOT will not finalize the rate until the launch date.

“We expect to break even in four years,” said K. Sayan.

The first phase will offer only voice and data; video on demand will come later.

“If the service in Phuket proves successful, FTTx will be expanded to other provinces, including Khon Kaen and Chiang Mai,” he added.

Pairoj Somsri, who heads the TOT office in Phuket, said he expects the system to be operational around the beginning of July.

Fiber-optic cables up to 20 kilometers in length will originate from the main Phuket TOT office in Phuket City as well as its two sub-branch offices in Thalang and Patong.

The network should cover most of the island, he said.

“I think it is great that Phuket was chosen to be the pilot province for this project, because this is new technology with a high investment cost,” he added.

K. Pairoj declined to estimate what prospective users would have to pay for the service once it becomes available.

Upon learning that the contract had been signed, Gazette computer-columnist Woody Leonhard was cautiously optimistic.

“If TOT is able to deliver 1Gbps international Internet access to offices and homes in Phuket, it will represent a major breakthrough in the island’s efforts to establish itself as an IT hub for Southeast Asia. Fiber in Phuket should prove to be a very wise investment, but to get a return on that investment, TOT must offer high-speed service not only to locations inside Thailand, but out to the rest of the world as well.”

Another source in the local IT community was more doubtful that the average Internet user would benefit.

“It’s not the speed on the last mile, it’s the speed from Thailand to the international lines,” he said. “What should I do with a 1Gbps-wide fiber line if I get served over the international lines with only 1,000Kbps? This will not help us at all. This is for radio stations, telephone… Internet users using international lines are not targeted with this plan at all.”

He added that the service would only become more strained with the increased demand unless CAT and other providers first expand Internet bandwidth internationally.

[LivinLOS]

Love it to happen.. But at 50k a port is a bit pricy for home use.. I would pay 5 - 8k happily.

Could be done by a savvy landlord to an apartment block tho..

CAT has to have thier monopoly blocked and let the free market supply international bandwidth.

[ozymandious]

Love it to happen.. But at 50k a port is a bit pricy for home use.. I would pay 5 - 8k happily.

Could be done by a savvy landlord to an apartment block tho..

CAT has to have thier monopoly blocked and let the free market supply international bandwidth.

can 5 people split one for 10K a peice?

it then becomes a logistical thing hungh? you all have to live close to each other right?

[LivinLOS]

Of course sharing an internet connection is possible, justs needs the correct equipment..

I Gbit to a whole housing estate would be a huge improvement over what we are currently offered..

Tho I still say the whole thing is moot while the CAT controls the international bandwidth and sells it at many multiples of normal international rates. If this service goes through cat it will probably be a 1Gbit connection with a Mbit or two bandwidth.

[ade100]

Sounds like good news to me. I already find the Phuket ADSL service much better than that of BKK in fact its almost as good as in Singapore. Just one teeny little thing, not that I am racist in any way shape or form, but this did not inspire me with confidence:

"a consortium led by Italian-Thai Development"

[DrDave]

I think that people are mis-understanding the 50,000 baht figure.

This appears to be the capital investment cost per port for TOT providing this service, NOT the monthly rate that would be charged to subscribers.

I believe that they mentioned they plan to recover their investment (capital) costs in about 4 years time, so I'd expect a monthly rate of somewhere around 2,500/month assuming their internal cost for providing the underlying service (administration + gateway bandwith/access) is 1,000-1,500 baht/month.

Guess we'll find out in July.

[steelepulse]

I think that people are mis-understanding the 50,000 baht figure.

This appears to be the capital investment cost per port for TOT providing this service, NOT the monthly rate that would be charged to subscribers.

I believe that they mentioned they plan to recover their investment (capital) costs in about 4 years time, so I'd expect a monthly rate of somewhere around 2,500/month assuming their internal cost for providing the underlying service (administration + gateway bandwith/access) is 1,000-1,500 baht/month.

Guess we'll find out in July.

Doesn't matter how fast things are, until the gov't lets us tie into that international fiber off the shore of phuket, it's still going to be a cluster**** getting the data out of the int'l gateway in BKK.

[alphason]

Does port mean a single end user or does it mean a local hub, like a single point in the street that users are connected to?

[woodyleonhard]

DrDave is right - TOT has not yet set a monthly price. If you do the math (B 136.8 million / 3,200 customers = B 42,500 per customer) it looks like the B 50,000 quoted in the article is, more or less, the capital cost. Heaven only knows how much they will charge for the service - or where they'll find the people to support it.

I'm working on an article for the Gazette that kicks around some of the numbers. Consider. NECTEC says that Thailand has a total of 23 Gbps international bandwidth, and that amount hasn't changed substantially in the past year. If you add 3,200 customers at 1 Gbps this year...

Common wisdom has it that CAT controls international bandwidth, but that doesn't seem to be, uh, true any more. True Internet Gateway Inc was given a concession in February 2007 to connect to the Internet backbone directly, bypassing CAT. Last month TIG claimed that it had 17.3 Gbps international bandwidth. If that's the case, and the NECTEC numbers are correct, True is by far the largest international bandwidth provider in Thailand. There are also several companies in Phuket (including Island Technology) that claim to connect directly to Singapore. In running Tracerts recently, I was surprised to see that pings to google.com over a CAT Hinet ADSL line were routed to Singapore.

Connecting to the backbone line off of Phuket isn't economically feasible. You can't exactly dig up the cable and splice in a fiber optic line. I'm told it's much cheaper to route via landline or satellite to one of the existing backbone nodes.

I've found that Internet response times in Phuket go to hel_l in a handbasket around 10:00 to 11:00 every morning - no matter what ISP you use, no matter how much you pay. We're running tests right now, but I've seen nominal 2 Mbps CAT Hinet, TT&T Maxnet and TOT Goldcyber lines go from 1600 Kbps in the morning to 40 Kbps in the afternoon, all over the island.

In the end, it's a question of money. Bandwidth isn't cheap. The people who advertise fast lines should make sure that their international connections are up to snuff. Sadly, right now, that isn't the case - and all of the ISPs are at fault.

[InspectorGadget]

Just curious...does anyone know if this is what the excavation and pipe laying work in Sai Yuan is, near the Sinbi Muay Thai gym? It looks like they are laying cables along the roadside down there on the way towards Kata.

[ozymandious]

DrDave is right - TOT has not yet set a monthly price. If you do the math (B 136.8 million / 3,200 customers = B 42,500 per customer) it looks like the B 50,000 quoted in the article is, more or less, the capital cost. Heaven only knows how much they will charge for the service - or where they'll find the people to support it.

......

In the end, it's a question of money. Bandwidth isn't cheap. The people who advertise fast lines should make sure that their international connections are up to snuff. Sadly, right now, that isn't the case - and all of the ISPs are at fault.

Thanks for weighing in Woody

What I'm curious about is that will a person have to purchase a 50K port then pay what ever the extortion fee er, ... monthly fee to TOT for service.

Or, hopefully TOT will use some of these ports to upgrade their ADSL service? a 1GBps line gets shared a lot better than what ever it is now at a ratio of about 20:1

Is there a comparative list anywhere that shows what the split ratio is for what provider/plan you have?

i.e. I'm on TOT's 1MBps ADSL service for 1,000 a month. I think my ratio is 20 people sharing the bandwidth at a go.

[stuandchris]

Rather than offer a new super fast service at a ridiculous fee, they would be better concentrating on getting the existing service offered up to scratch.

Interent here is a joke and one on seems to give a rats a**,

[LivinLOS]

DrDave is right - TOT has not yet set a monthly price. If you do the math (B 136.8 million / 3,200 customers = B 42,500 per customer) it looks like the B 50,000 quoted in the article is, more or less, the capital cost. Heaven only knows how much they will charge for the service - or where they'll find the people to support it.

......

In the end, it's a question of money. Bandwidth isn't cheap. The people who advertise fast lines should make sure that their international connections are up to snuff. Sadly, right now, that isn't the case - and all of the ISPs are at fault.

Thanks for weighing in Woody

What I'm curious about is that will a person have to purchase a 50K port then pay what ever the extortion fee er, ... monthly fee to TOT for service.

Or, hopefully TOT will use some of these ports to upgrade their ADSL service? a 1GBps line gets shared a lot better than what ever it is now at a ratio of about 20:1

Is there a comparative list anywhere that shows what the split ratio is for what provider/plan you have?

i.e. I'm on TOT's 1MBps ADSL service for 1,000 a month. I think my ratio is 20 people sharing the bandwidth at a go.

I think you will find the cheapie packages are 50:1 usually..

The SME ones upgrade to anything bewteen 10:1 to 5:1 depending on value / costs last time I looked around I think.

[LivinLOS]

Rather than offer a new super fast service at a ridiculous fee, they would be better concentrating on getting the existing service offered up to scratch.

Interent here is a joke and one on seems to give a rats a**,

Exactly ADSL can be very fast and its here already.. My mother has 7Mbit speeds (I think thats the lowest offered) with a possible 12Mbit or 20 Mbit package options.

Blistering fast.. streaming vids.. Hidef stuff.. Etc.

But TOT can rarely keep a line connected and stable for 1 day without drop outs.

Just get what they have working to max potential and we would all be happy campers.

[ade100]

Oh heavens. I have a place in Muang district right now – served by TT...&… er… T. I use maxnet4life. Its so fast and reliable, its like I’m on a little street in Singapore.

But I am soon to be moving to Thalang district served by TOT. You say they can’t keep online for longer than an hour. Say it ain’t so Joe please!

[LivinLOS]

I have used TT&T with Hinet and later maxnet.. I found them to be almost as much of a joke as TOT.. comparing them to Singapore or 1st world broadband is crazy..

[stuandchris]

In the UK I was on 4Mbs 10 years ago and it wasn't as costly as anyhting here then. Never stopped and always got the full service offered.

I know this isn't 1st world but this was 10 years ago for gods sake, other Asian countries seem to be able to offer good sevices for the home consumer, why not here?

[ade100]

I have used TT&T with Hinet and later maxnet.. I found them to be almost as much of a joke as TOT.. comparing them to Singapore or 1st world broadband is crazy..

I currently have homes in both Singapore and Phuket and broadband in both so I have some idea of what I am talking about. Maybe I have just been very lucky but my maxnet service has only had about 2 or 3 hours of downtime over the past year and the speed very rarely drops below 500k. It is double the price of my Singtel connection in Singapore but speed and reliablility are very similar.

Sounds like I have been lucky and sounds like switching to TOT will soon wipe the smile off my face :-)

[LivinLOS]

And in Singapore you only get 500k ?? I would have thought 10x was more then norm ?? For half the price..

[LivinginKata]

We have 2 TOT ADSL accounts and 3 TT&T Maxnet ADSL accounts. I have found the Maxnet accounts over the past 1+ year very reliable and almost always up. TOT a more mixed picture, when down then that's it for at least 3 days. Although in the past few months TOT have become much more reliable, and I can't really complain, OTHER than the very slow speed on ALL server to international sites MUCH of the day.

[ade100]

And in Singapore you only get 500k ?? I would have thought 10x was more then norm ?? For half the price..

Its a good question. In my experience, Singapore boasts incredible bandwidth but does not deliver. I used to have a Starhub 6Mbps line but at weekends it was dropping as low as 30k. Starhub even offers a 100Mbps line now. (If you read the small print, the figures are maximimum speeds to servers based in Singapore)

I switched to a Singtel 3Mbps which is more reliable and more stable and probably averages at about 1Mbps. My Maxnet4life in Phuket is 1.5 Mbps and probably averages around 900k.

So yes the two services deliver about the same bandwidth and the same reliability. Maxnet4life in Phuket costs 2kthb and Singtel line in Singapore is 40SGD (about 1kthb).

[ade100]

We have 2 TOT ADSL accounts and 3 TT&T Maxnet ADSL accounts. I have found the Maxnet accounts over the past 1+ year very reliable and almost always up. TOT a more mixed picture, when down then that's it for at least 3 days. Although in the past few months TOT have become much more reliable, and I can't really complain, OTHER than the very slow speed on ALL server to international sites MUCH of the day.

Interesting. I noticed that TOT do an SME package which is very expensive. I thought I might have to upgrade to that. Which type of TOT accounts do you use?

I have also noticed this outfit that claim to do broadband direct from Singapore:

http://www.islandtechnology.com/

Anyone any experience with them?

[SurferBob]

We have 2 TOT ADSL accounts and 3 TT&T Maxnet ADSL accounts. I have found the Maxnet accounts over the past 1+ year very reliable and almost always up. TOT a more mixed picture, when down then that's it for at least 3 days. Although in the past few months TOT have become much more reliable, and I can't really complain, OTHER than the very slow speed on ALL server to international sites MUCH of the day.

Interesting. I noticed that TOT do an SME package which is very expensive. I thought I might have to upgrade to that. Which type of TOT accounts do you use?

I have also noticed this outfit that claim to do broadband direct from Singapore:

http://www.islandtechnology.com/

Anyone any experience with them?

Yes, I have been Island Technology for the last year now and have found them to be very good, if a bit expensive.

To cut a long story short - I moved into a property that didn't have the phone line I was promised and the local exchange was fully subscribed for ADSL connections, Maxnet that is. I got recommended to Island Tech by an acquaintance and decided to check them out. It's crucial for me that I have a decent line in the house as I'm always sending data between Thailand & the UK on various protocols. Within 2 weeks they ran a fiber optic straight into the house and setup a new node/hub for me @ a cost of 20,000 baht. The initial ongoing monthly cost for leasing the line was 4,000 baht for 512KB line. So.. a tad expensive but a very good service. The line has been up 99.9% of the time over the last year, only going down twice from what I can remember, and only for a few hours. I always get the maximum speed, usually a bit over, up to 600KB down speed. There is no limit on bandwidth and I can send data safely over all protocols required. As I'm the local hub in my area, when a new customer subscribes nearby they run a copper type phone line out to them from my house and set up a new connection from the hub. Every time this happens I get a discount on my monthly bill.

Regards,

//Bob

[woodyleonhard]

Thanks to Henry at X-Net, we're starting to gather Internet response time data from all over the island.

You can take a look at the results at http://www.live-access.com/PhuketInternet.aspx .

SurferBob, if you'd like to join the reporting group, please drop me a line. I'm particularly interested in logging Island Technology results, because I don't know any Island Technology subscribers.

Ozymandious, the split number would be interesting - but in the end it's probably not the controlling factor. What matters is how much people are using the line, at the time you want to use it. My guess is that the slowdown at the international gateway completely dwarfs all of the local bottleneck effects. Thus, if you had to share an ADSL port with 5 people or 500 people, my guess is that you'd see the same infernal slowdown in the late morning when accessing sites overseas.

But it's only a guess. The numbers we're collecting should give more of a clue.

[HDRIDER]

HI

This is CAT CDMA USB modem in Nai Harn @ 17.30

Download Speed: 970 kbps (121.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 112 kbps (14 KB/sec transfer rate)

[woodyleonhard]

HDRider -

Could you please run the test at http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?loc=97 so we can get consistent results across all of the tests?

I think you'll be surprised by the results.

- Woody

[george]

I am in Singapore at the moment, and the Thaivisa Speedtest is now showing:

Last Result:

Download Speed: 1353 kbps (169.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 1880 kbps (235 KB/sec transfer rate)

Traceroute:

C:\Users\custom>tracert www.thaivisa.com

Tracing route to thaivisa.com [203.174.84.82]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

 1	72 ms	11 ms	 3 ms  10.72.208.1
 2	 9 ms	 3 ms	17 ms  203.101.198.89
 3	19 ms	 2 ms	40 ms  220.232.20.221
 4	 5 ms	 6 ms	 9 ms  203.208.233.9
 5	29 ms	 6 ms	 6 ms  test233segment.singtel-expan.com [203.208.233.2]

 6	 4 ms	15 ms	 6 ms  203.208.232.37
 7	70 ms	21 ms	80 ms  165.21.48.153
 8	 8 ms	 5 ms	 4 ms  165.21.12.95
 9	 7 ms	18 ms	 7 ms  165.21.45.94
10	28 ms	 5 ms	 6 ms  203.118.7.16
11	22 ms	51 ms	41 ms  ge-starhub.newmediaexpress.com [203.116.9.122]
12	53 ms	72 ms	15 ms  203.174.80.98
13   130 ms	23 ms	18 ms  203.174.80.50
14	13 ms	42 ms	10 ms  thaivisa.com [203.174.84.82]

Trace complete.

[HDRIDER]

HI

Here is the DSL speed test;

Speed Test #44692062 by dslreports.com

Run: 2008-01-27 09:44:57 EST

Download: 555 (Kbps)

Upload: 87 (Kbps)

In kilobytes per second: 67.8 down 10.7 up

Tested by server: 55 java

User: 2 @ dslreports.com

User's DNS: cdpm1.com

[woodyleonhard]

Excellent, HDrider.

555 Kbps download speed to the US over a CAT EV-DO card is great.

If you look at the speeds people are reporting all over the island, the CAT EV-DO card wins hands down, except early in the morning. That's a big change from early December 2007, when the CAT Hinet ADSL line was almost always the fastest.

[markg]

I am seriously, SERIOUSLY naffed off with TTandT Maxnet just at the moment.

I ve had the account for about a year and on the whole it's been fine. Reasonably reliable and reasonably fast enough for me. I use Skype and email and a bit of surfing.

However, the last month or so has been completely <deleted>. COMPLETELY.

I can't use Skype at all, and even normal email access is pititully slow.

I have TTandT's bill on my desk and am going to complain when i go in and pay it.

A few days of mediocre service i can live with. But consistent speeds lower than dial-up are not acceptable in this day and age.

Its just gone 10pm on a Sunday night. Here are my results from the speed test Woody posted

Speed Test #44693185 by dslreports.com

Run: 2008-01-27 10:08:58 EST

Download: 34 (Kbps)

Upload: 333 (Kbps)

In kilobytes per second: 4.2 down 40.6 up

Tested by server: 55 java

User: 2 @ dslreports.com

User's DNS: tttmaxnet.com

That's right. 4.2kbs is less than dial up in my book.

And i pay 790baht a month for a supposed service of 1mbs.

MY ARSE!