Khonkaen - Cat Cdma Or Other Choise? Fast Or Not?

[Acer1]

Looking for users of CAT Cdma in KhonKaen city. Fast and reliable or not?

Presently I use my mobile as modem and get download 100-200 Kbps and upload around 40-90 Kbps. Now using AIS sim and get disconnected 1-2 times a hour. This surprise me because have a base station less than 50 meters straight outside my window.

Salespeople at Cat in Tukcom had expresscard with 3.1 Mbps and they claimed normal speed around 500 Kbps - real or not? Cost 5-7.000 to buy and 790 monthly.

Other faster choise without a inhouse telephone line?

[KhaoDam]

I have been using CAT CDMA in Chiang Rai for over a year now and have no complaints...very reliable, never goes down,easy to use, no time limits. I have the Sierra Wireless PC card version and I get download speeds to a Thai server of around 1-1.5 Mbs, and to servers outside Thailand of 500-700Kbs...upload rates are terrible though, 8-10Kbs...yes, that bad, but if you aren't uploading much, it's quite good. I hear the newer USB modem is even faster, a friend is getting over 2.5Mbs to a Korean server, and it should be about the same to other non-Thai servers. 790B/845B w/tax...and the mobility is great...works virtually everywhere I go, except BKK...that's another issue of CAT/Hutch for another day. Hope this helps.

[HDRIDER]

Hi

I have the CAT cdma usb card MC 727, cost is 10.000 and 845 a month, mine is about 800-1700 download 300-500 upload, dont know if it will help you, this is Phuket, go and try it in the CAT office, here in Phuket you can get your money back if you come back with the card same day

[thunder30101]

Not sure where you live but I live in ban pet out west and get wimax service. It is sold by bp tv, I think the company that has it is called netaxxa ? But great service I had the 2M service for 590 a month same as maxnet prices only thing was torrents sucked because of bandwidth limitations.

[thunder30101]

Okay here is their website netaxa.com

[Acer1]

Not sure where you live but I live in ban pet out west and get wimax service. It is sold by bp tv, I think the company that has it is called netaxxa ? But great service I had the 2M service for 590 a month same as maxnet prices only thing was torrents sucked because of bandwidth limitations.

located in Khon Kaen city

[Gary A]

CAT EVDO reminds me of one of my previous service providers. It started out GREAT and five months later has turned to crap. I apologize for recommending CAT EVDO in the past.

[Acer1]

oooops, different experience here I see. Gary A: what do you recommend then?

Now using my mobile as modem realy suc_k, so terrible slow and disconnect all the time.

This coming Monday Cat have a "one day discount" here in KK, so I need to make up my mind before that. Hate to spend 7.000 on things that might not work any better.

[Digitalbanana]

I am still getting best service vs other ISP's using CAT EVDO in central plains area. COst of MC 727 modem 8250B and monthly unlimited 790B. Speeds averaging 1mbs but up and down. Nothing else better for now.

[Gary A]

oooops, different experience here I see. Gary A: what do you recommend then?

Now using my mobile as modem realy suc_k, so terrible slow and disconnect all the time.

This coming Monday Cat have a "one day discount" here in KK, so I need to make up my mind before that. Hate to spend 7.000 on things that might not work any better.

I have the CCU 680 modem. I think I paid 9,950 baht for it. As mentioned it worked great after I first bought it. Unfortunately the service has gone downhill since then. Your options are VERY limited. I used Ipstar for about four years until it became REALLY bad. I then used GPRS EDGE. Dtac was by far the best for this area but it was/is pretty slow. AIS is nearly useless here. I can't recommend CAT EVDO but it is the best option of what is available out here in the boonies. TIT!

[loong]

Hi Acer,

I'm 25Km north of Khon Kaen and 3Km from the nearest CAT tower.

I used to have Ipstar which was really useless and changed to CAT a few months back. Despite being so close to the tower I could not get anything like good service and had to have an exterior antenna fitted. With the antenna, I was very pleased initially. It's still a lot better than Ipstar, but I get frequent disconnects and sometimes speeds are very low.

I would say I average 500 down and about 100 upload. Ping to Bangkok about 180, but ping to outside Thailand between 700 and 1000.

It's been much better the last few days, this test to Bangkok

but I don't expect it to last.

I'm generally happy with the service, but then anybody who has had to suffer Ipstar would be. Those who are used to a decent landline broadband connection would not be happy.

[Gary A]

EVDO is unusable right now. It comes and goes. Sometimes it is very good but like now it has died. I am now online using AIS EDGE. Before I paid the big baht for EVDO, I was using a combination of Dtac and AIS EDGE. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have paid for the EVDO modem.

AIS speed test;

Last Result:

Download Speed: 217 kbps (27.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 45 kbps (5.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 589 ms

Sun Jun 07 2009 09:35:59 GMT+0700 (SE Asia Standard Time)

Edited June 7, 2009 by Gary A

[Gary A]

EVDO is working again.

Speed test;

Last Result:

Download Speed: 522 kbps (65.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 99 kbps (12.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 750 ms

Sunday, June 07, 2009 9:53:27 AM

The stop, start is VERY irritating. I would indeed cancel the service if I had not paid the ridiculous price for the modem.

I do have a full signal.

[ThaiLife]

Ive been using a CAT MC727 for some time now, after suffering TOT dial up headaches for some years, I am too far away for ADSL, although the speeds I am getting change day by day , the thing now is that although the signal is showing full , and the connection speeds look ok, for some un known reason the connection just stops, every now and then , but after a few minuets its ok again. Ive just been playing around with Firefox, and accidentally set a web page to automatically re load after 5 seconds, since I did this the connection seems to be more stable, Don't ask me why , but it does.. any one know why this should seem to make a difference ?

so yes I am happy , it could be better, and its still worth putting up with the current problems , Vs my old TOT dial up of the past . as my old grandmar use to say ... what choice do you have

[loong]

Yes, CAT good for a few days, but now messing about again. Took many attempts and about 5 minutes to load this page. Same with Gmail, so not a Thaivisa hiccup.

[HDRIDER]

Hi

Happy with my MC 727, no problem steady most of the time.(in Phuket)

[Gary A]

Yes, CAT good for a few days, but now messing about again. Took many attempts and about 5 minutes to load this page. Same with Gmail, so not a Thaivisa hiccup.

Once in a while I become suspicious that maybe my computer, Firefox or Google Chrome is causing the poor EVDO performance. I then hook up with my pretty decent laptop just to see if that is the case. I always find that it too has problems. The problems ARE with CAT EVDO. Today the EVDO performance is particularly bad.

[Acer1]

Thanks to all for your input.

Reading your responses, some place Cat work ok, other place near KK have problem. The "one day only discount" is tomorrow. Guess I take my laptop and test it in the shop before make up my mind. Price tomorrow is unknown "it will be down to ????" so that is another factor.

[HDRIDER]

Acer

Buy it, go home and try it if it dont work go back the same day and you will get full refund, (in Phuket you will)

[Gary A]

CAT EVDO speed today;

Last Result:

Download Speed: 137 kbps (17.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 54 kbps (6.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 1637 ms

Tuesday, June 09, 2009 9:47:28 AM

Disgusting indeed!

[HDRIDER]

HI

This is my CAT EV-DO

Last Result:

Download Speed: 2100 kbps (262.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 501 kbps (62.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

have to say its a bit high today

[ThaiLife]

Gary , I totally agree . my speeds have been up and down , not what they use to be

[loong]

Gary, has your antenna shifted? Which speedtest do you use?

Maybe you should get the engineers out to check. You shoulddn't be getting service like that ALL the time

I had a couple of days of service as good as it ever has been, but now is not so great again.

Often takes a number of attempts to connect initially

Frequent disconnects

Connected but no service

When I'm connected with no service, if I disconnect and reconnect it always seems ok again.

Took 3 attempts to connect this time, but is working well now..........

[Gary A]

Gary, has your antenna shifted? Which speedtest do you use?

Maybe you should get the engineers out to check. You shoulddn't be getting service like that ALL the time

I had a couple of days of service as good as it ever has been, but now is not so great again.

Often takes a number of attempts to connect initially

Frequent disconnects

Connected but no service

When I'm connected with no service, if I disconnect and reconnect it always seems ok again.

Took 3 attempts to connect this time, but is working well now..........

My menu shows a full signal. I don't have an antenna. I too do the disconnect and reconnect. That normally gets me about 20 minutes before it stalls again.

[HDRIDER]

Hi

Have you tried to move your notebook about a few km to see if it help??

[loong]

Gary,

It does seem to me that you are getting the worst service of all the EV-DO users who have posted in this forum.

Initially it wasn't great for me here, but the engineers from Khon Kaen were really good and they seriously wanted me to be happy with the service. They did go to the local tower and did something that made a difference.

[Gary A]

Gary,

It does seem to me that you are getting the worst service of all the EV-DO users who have posted in this forum.

Initially it wasn't great for me here, but the engineers from Khon Kaen were really good and they seriously wanted me to be happy with the service. They did go to the local tower and did something that made a difference.

Today it is not too bad;

Last Result:

Download Speed: 481 kbps (60.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 149 kbps (18.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 714 ms

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:56:37 AM

At its best it was about 1,500 - 250 with a 380 PING time. At the Loei CAT office they said, "Sometimes good, sometimes bad". I wasn't very impressed with that diagnosis. Do you have a CAT contact that I could email?

[loong]

Gary,

It does seem to me that you are getting the worst service of all the EV-DO users who have posted in this forum.

Initially it wasn't great for me here, but the engineers from Khon Kaen were really good and they seriously wanted me to be happy with the service. They did go to the local tower and did something that made a difference.

Today it is not too bad;

Last Result:

Download Speed: 481 kbps (60.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 149 kbps (18.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 714 ms

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:56:37 AM

At its best it was about 1,500 - 250 with a 380 PING time. At the Loei CAT office they said, "Sometimes good, sometimes bad". I wasn't very impressed with that diagnosis. Do you have a CAT contact that I could email?

Sorry Gary, I don't have any email details. The people in the CAT office are basically salespeople and are not too helpful. When I had problems, they just were not really interested and said that the engineers could not do anything as they were too busy. I got the mobile number of the engineer from them and called him myself. It was the truth, they were too busy and came out on their own time after finishing work.

They fitted the antenna, but still no good and came back a few days later in the evening, raised the antenna higher, went to the local tower and did something and got everything working well.

Obviously, they earned the profit on supplying and fitting the antenna, as it was not done through CAT and I gave them a 500 Baht thankyou.

You may not hear this too often in Thailand, but these engineers were professional, good at their job and wanted to give good customer service.

Get the mobile number of the local engineer and you maybe as lucky as I was.

[ThaiLife]

GaryA: Please try to use another speedtest than AIS. I would not be suprised if AIS would slow down connections coming from another network.. use www.speedtest.net for example.

In your case, I would be worried about the latency. For me a good latency to the speedtest.net Bangkok server is about 110ms from Phuket. Last friday the latency jumped really high. Specially when I put load to the network. At some point 4-5seconds.

I called to CAT engineers and they said that my connection had jumped from normal BS just couple a kilometers away to the other BS in Pang Na. Therefore my signal was weak and the modem dropped in to slower mode. The CAT engineers reseted the connection and it worked an while. This did happen for 4 days. Slow connection, call, reset...

After these days the CAT engineers (who were service orientated btw.) figured out that the BS close to my home was not feeling too well. There was a microlink problem between the BS and CAT network. This got fixed and the connection is quite steady again.

However I still have the connection halting problem every now and then. Not an good feature for realtime applications like IRC. Also downloads halts, which is recoverable with most browsers, but not with for example Nokia S60 podcast application.

In overall there is something funny going on in the CAT network. A moment ago my connection was ok and I could ping www.google.com. Then I got halt and recovery for it, but can not ping any host anymore. Wierd. Sounds a bit that they have couple of load balanced servers which are not configured in the same way.

-Pekka

Just what I was thinking ... there is something funny going on in the CAT network.

[MYKTHEMIN]

oooops, different experience here I see. Gary A: what do you recommend then?

Now using my mobile as modem realy suc_k, so terrible slow and disconnect all the time.

This coming Monday Cat have a "one day discount" here in KK, so I need to make up my mind before that. Hate to spend 7.000 on things that might not work any better.

I have the CCU 680 modem. I think I paid 9,950 baht for it. As mentioned it worked great after I first bought it. Unfortunately the service has gone downhill since then. Your options are VERY limited. I used Ipstar for about four years until it became REALLY bad. I then used GPRS EDGE. Dtac was by far the best for this area but it was/is pretty slow. AIS is nearly useless here. I can't recommend CAT EVDO but it is the best option of what is available out here in the boonies. TIT!

Hi gary where is the CAT office in Loei, I have looked and asked everywhere and drawn a blank.