Aag Cable To Boost Asia’s Internet Capacity In August

[block2]

Great news, but have CAT upgraded their Equipment yet?

And how about the links from TOT to CAT, what is the capacity now, and what will the future capacity be?

Cannot see it doing much unless the equipment is in place and the interconnects are upgraded as well.

I am wondering how much they gonna charge us here in Thailand?

Charge Us!!!!

I'm in a village in the middle of no where...35 klicks from nakhon sawan...last week had no internet for 2 days thursday /friday....got my wife to call the tot office..they came checked the line 1pm...but did not come to our home..got to 3.30pm and I told my wife to call them again..but this time ask for some one that can speak english..as i know theres 1 -2 that can speak english in the local town tot office.

Told them I had no internet for 2 days...they reckoned a big cable had been taking out in nakhon sawan and they would come and check again on monday...so i said ok thursday/friday no internet...now you say monday..so that will be 5 days...no problem...mai ben lie...but when i come and pay next week i only pay for 3 weeks and not 4...guess what...

An hour later there where 2 guys climbing up the same pole as they did at 1pm..5 minutes later knock on the door..is your internet working now...checked..running like a dream.

This place is unbelivable....

R&R

Block

[moonhunt]

It is physical cable expansion.

It won't matter until CAT/ToT/other ISP have new peering agreement with US-based ISP or IXP.

Map is not clear whether the other end from USA will be Seattle Internet Exchange Point or LA or SF.

I'm not sure whether Thailand Internet bottleneck for USA is from physical circuit capacity issue, or not.

If it is not from physical circuit capacity issue, it is each ISP/IXP's contract to buy Internet bandwidth from other parties in USA.

So it won't help much until they decide to spend some money for increasing the bandwidth for international traffic.

[bkk_mike]

It's 1.2 terabits for the whole of Asia.

It's going to all get used up by Hong Kong and Singapore,,,

100Mb is pretty standard now in Hong Kong, and you can get gigabit as a home package. (not cheap though - check PCCW's web page).

I had 100Mb in Tokyo 4 years ago (it's been pretty standard there as a home package for a long time.) I've got 24Mb ADSL at my place in London, and my most expensive internet... is the slowest... - guess where...

Even Luanda airport in Angola has free Wifi. I just figure that Thai's inability to travel to other countries because of the difficulty of getting visas means they don't even realise how far behind they are.

[minxwhale]

I don't really think it will be a significant speed improvement as it is claimed because dinosaur providers such as TOT hardly use the CAT-IIG. They want to save costs and get most of their bandwidth from TM. They will tap into it over there probably.

The reason why I state it is that overall speeds to the USA are very reasonable but speeds and connectivity to EUROPE is a complete DISASTER. Instead of adding more and more bandwidth to the USA it would make more sense to double the bandwidth to Europe instead.

That in itself will increase the speed to the USA as well as now 70% of all traffic to Europe is passing through the USA which makes it enormeously slow. Think of 500 ms instead of 200ms.

It would also be good to instead have a few technicians who at least know the basics of routing data around the world.

Often packets destined for the USA traverse the European backbone, while packets for Europe pass through the US. Absolutely ridiculous. I have sent them already many emails about it but as with everything in the CAT and TOT dinosaur companies... nothing happens and not even a reply is sent back even though the emails have a delivery report.

Must have some real geniuses working over there.....

And as along as Thailand's Ministry of Information and Technology continues to focus SOLELY on hunting down offensive websites instead of improving the nation's bandwidth, nothing will change.

Vietnam has better bandwidth than Thailand. True Dat.

[OldenAtwoody]

AAG cable to boost Asia’s internet capacity in August

Exclusive Thaivisa.com News

By John Le Fevre

Good news for Thailand's internet users. AAG -

Asia-America Gateway comes into operation

in August 2009.

BANGKOK (thaivisa.com): -- In just a few weeks internet users throughout Asia should start to see a dramatic increase in internet speed for websites located outside of the region when the $US550 million Asia-America Gateway (AAG) comes into operation.

The new 20,000km (about 12,400 miles) AAG - an optical fibre cable network stretching from Malaysia to the West Coast of America via Guam and Hawaii - is due to commence operating in August.

The cable has additional landing points in Hong Kong and the Philippines, with branches to Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam.

The proposed cable became a reality in June 2006, when AiTi of Brunei Darussalam, CAT Telecom (Thailand), PLDT (Philippines), REACH (Hong Kong), StarHub (Singapore), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) and VNPT (Vietnam) all signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) for its construction.

In addition to being one of the longest undersea cable rollouts in history, the AAG will actually shorten the route for data from Asia to America, avoiding some of the wolds’ areas most prone to seismic activity in the process.

The demand for better quality communications services throughout Asia has been an ongoing battle between foreign and local businesses and regional communications carriers, and one that has affected economic growth in some countries.

The AAG will will use the latest Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies with a minimum design capacity of 1.28 terabit/s and a design capacity of 1.92 terabit/s.

The last of the undersea cable work was completed in June and all 10 landing points were completed months ago.

The new cable will improve e-commerce traffic and help meet the increasing demand for faster and more reliable internet, video and other multimedia services and applications.

-- thaivisa.com 2009-07-24

Related link:

Test your broadband speed against Thaivisa.com Servers in Singapore.

"a dramatic increase in internet speed " = a dramatic increase in internet access PRICE

This won't be free. The higer speed will be offered at premium rates as an upgrade.

[oMega69]

Here is my Maxnet 3mbits . . .,, this speed i have 24/7 . . . im happy all my things moving smooth here in Pattaya . . .

Hopfully it gets better then . .

Edited July 24, 2009 by oMega69

[Rice_King]

... Thai's inability to travel to other countries because of the difficulty of getting visas means they don't even realise how far behind they are.

Very insightful observation. Imagine the improvements in ALL services -- if they only had a clue!

[infernalman7]

haven't seen anything but all of you are already bashing...

not quite fair

[bilal]

looks like there are few lucky people in thailand . like ' mouse ' and ' omega ' with good speed . as i have tried maxnet tot true all i get max download here is 200 KBps . i dont know y thailand isp's arent moving on like malaysia and other neighbours

i have been to malaysia and they are offering home user's now 20 mbps

i hope this new upgrading by AAG will make things run faster.

[Rdrokit]

The solution, if you really must have speed, is to get a 1MB Fiber Optic line dedicated to you. It costs a lot per month (15.000 Baht/mo) but it is worth it.

This is what you get during the busy time of the day when testing Seattle from here. Other times usually come out at 5-10MB/sec down and 1MB/sec up;

This is Indy 3Mb since they fixed it earlier today. I'm happy but for how long?

[infernalman7]

looks like there are few lucky people in thailand . like ' mouse ' and ' omega ' with good speed . as i have tried maxnet tot true all i get max download here is 200 KBps . i dont know y thailand isp's arent moving on like malaysia and other neighbours

i have been to malaysia and they are offering home user's now 20 mbps

i hope this new upgrading by AAG will make things run faster.

Which provider in Malaysia are offering 20Mbps?

I am from Malaysia and I'm so desperate of getting even 4Mbps... I live in KL.

[sassienie]

Great news, but have CAT upgraded their Equipment yet?

And how about the links from TOT to CAT, what is the capacity now, and what will the future capacity be?

Cannot see it doing much unless the equipment is in place and the interconnects are upgraded as well.

Yes, you make some good points here.

And to add:

Of course all this technology is going to be useless unless Thailand creates the infrastructure to support it.

Plus everything comes at a price. If the Internet does show improvements because of this new system, who is going to pay? Will the Government subsidise it’s installation, maintenance and running costs? Or is it all going to be down to the customers?

[anothertorres]

Maxnet 2mb Premier, at 3am nonetheless. but, this is a steady 2mb, 24/7.

[thesyndicate]

CAT provides MAX net with internet. Max net share with 20 customers CAT with 6. If you are unlucky you share with 20 in your nod and your speed will not even go close to 2.5. CAT have in their contract speed 700 max for outside Thailand and 2.5 inside. If you get 2.0 make sure nobody moves in the same area.

[billsykes]

It would be lovely to have fast interest here. I work and derive my entire income online.

We have the 8mb service from True. It was good for the first month and now its slower than the old 1mb. Called the engineers out and they showed that with in Thailand it was 8mb with a local true speed test. What it should have said was "8mb internet with Thailand only". Perhaps I should have read the small print. Me bad.

Last week in Hong Kong airport I logged on to the free throughout-the-airport internet service and it was incredible. I did the work that takes me 3 hours in Thailand in no more than 10 minutes.

Over there I waited 1 – 2 seconds for a web page. Here I wait 30 seconds.

Bring on the fast internet.

Does anyone know of any better services than "True 8mb"

(which is certainly not True in the sense of the word)

love to know what your job is? that you need such a fast internet conection, sending emails or uploadind? pesermists the lot of you? cant you all just say " hey, great, look out for subs hitting it?" Thaivisa have a free internet bandwidth meter, try it, works for meeee

[Acharn]

<snip>

I have sent them already many emails about it but as with everything in the CAT and TOT dinosaur companies... nothing happens and not even a reply is sent back even though the emails have a delivery report.

Must have some real geniuses working over there.....

I remember when the requirement to privatize TOT and CAT was first announced. Thaksin was interviewed and asked if he would be interested in taking a stake in the two entities. He said, "Well the problem is, they have 25,000 employees doing the work of a few thousand."

Most people now forget what TOT was like back in the 1990's. The waiting list to get a telephone line was five years. AIS won the contract to add 2,000,000 lines to the Bangkok area (TT&T won the contract for up-country). The work was almost entirely done by TOT employees working part time for AIS in addition to their regular jobs and took less than a year.

Oh, yeah, and I can remember spending 45 minutes downloading a 20KB file, and overjoyed to be able to get it.

[rippedoff]

AAG cable to boost Asia's internet capacity in August

Exclusive Thaivisa.com News

By John Le Fevre

Good news for Thailand's internet users. AAG -

Asia-America Gateway comes into operation

in August 2009.

BANGKOK (thaivisa.com): -- In just a few weeks internet users throughout Asia should start to see a dramatic increase in internet speed for websites located outside of the region when the $US550 million Asia-America Gateway (AAG) comes into operation.

The new 20,000km (about 12,400 miles) AAG - an optical fibre cable network stretching from Malaysia to the West Coast of America via Guam and Hawaii - is due to commence operating in August.

The cable has additional landing points in Hong Kong and the Philippines, with branches to Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam.

The proposed cable became a reality in June 2006, when AiTi of Brunei Darussalam, CAT Telecom (Thailand), PLDT (Philippines), REACH (Hong Kong), StarHub (Singapore), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) and VNPT (Vietnam) all signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) for its construction.

In addition to being one of the longest undersea cable rollouts in history, the AAG will actually shorten the route for data from Asia to America, avoiding some of the wolds' areas most prone to seismic activity in the process.

The demand for better quality communications services throughout Asia has been an ongoing battle between foreign and local businesses and regional communications carriers, and one that has affected economic growth in some countries.

The AAG will will use the latest Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies with a minimum design capacity of 1.28 terabit/s and a design capacity of 1.92 terabit/s.

The last of the undersea cable work was completed in June and all 10 landing points were completed months ago.

The new cable will improve e-commerce traffic and help meet the increasing demand for faster and more reliable internet, video and other multimedia services and applications.

-- thaivisa.com 2009-07-24

Related link:

Test your broadband speed against Thaivisa.com Servers in Singapore.

Great about time . But somethings up

[rippedoff]

Just wait for the price increases later this year when they charge us for their "service improvements".

(Loosely translated as now providing something like the speeds they have been charging for for the last 5 years, but not actually supplying.)

And banks will probably slap yet another surcharge on ATMs for foreign card transactions because they are now "faster... bla bla"

etc. etc. etc.

Faster Nid Noy..... Same Same but different .......price...

We just keep getting rippedoff over and over. 150.00 bhat to use a bank machine . Then they have the nerve to pay 7 eleven staff 200.00 bhat a day. We should start charging more for rice and soup back home.

[thaibkk]

as if thai companies like TOT will give you more than what u get now

promises of 1 mbit, at least that is what you pay for, with most of the time i get 10-20 kb and even some hours 0 kb / sec even on thai sites...

late 1ste of april joke indeed

[jackr]

Christ, what's with all the doom n gloom! This can only be a good thing as there is the potential for better connectivity.

[cyb]

The solution, if you really must have speed, is to get a 1MB Fiber Optic line dedicated to you. It costs a lot per month (15.000 Baht/mo) but it is worth it.

This is what you get during the busy time of the day when testing Seattle from here. Other times usually come out at 5-10MB/sec down and 1MB/sec up;

Bht 15,000 per month? You are crazy or made an error.

I suspect crazy.

[barryofthailand]

Internet speeds in Thailand is a joke. In the States, for $25.00 a month introductory price for six months, and after that $45.00 a month you get 20 MB download, and 12 MB upload with Comcast.

Barry

[monty]

My internet has never been as crap as it is now.

Edge GPRS is faster by a big margin.

On a 2000 Baht + per month 3 Mb Maxnet Premier package

This what I get to Malaysia, so a big pipe landing over there ain't going to me much good

[webfact]

Internet speeds in Thailand is a joke. In the States, for $25.00 a month introductory price for six months, and after that $45.00 a month you get 20 MB download, and 12 MB upload with Comcast.

Barry

This is not America.... you can't compare that. Thailand does not have the infrastructure (which is needed for such high-speed internet) like the US.

[rjj04]

None of it matters with the commies filtering/monitoring everything.... Oh wait, this isn't China??

Yeah, very strange, I noticed in China there are hundreds of Tor servers, but here less than a handful...

hmmmm... very odd say I

[CHINWA]

It would be lovely to have fast interest here. I work and derive my entire income online.

We have the 8mb service from True. It was good for the first month and now its slower than the old 1mb. Called the engineers out and they showed that with in Thailand it was 8mb with a local true speed test. What it should have said was "8mb internet with Thailand only". Perhaps I should have read the small print. Me bad.

Last week in Hong Kong airport I logged on to the free throughout-the-airport internet service and it was incredible. I did the work that takes me 3 hours in Thailand in no more than 10 minutes.

Over there I waited 1 – 2 seconds for a web page. Here I wait 30 seconds.

Bring on the fast internet.

Does anyone know of any better services than "True 8mb"

(which is certainly not True in the sense of the word)

I don't know where you live, but here in the Chaeng Wattana area my speed with True is never lower than 7 MB international. Evendo it would be nice to have an higer speed, because lifestream is not really perfect, back home I had 16 MB and for a price lower than 8MB in Thailand.

PS I have the TRUE 8MB and GOLD package.

A friend of mine who lives in the same area as you also has blazing fast internet from True. You guys most likely share the same bandwidth, and since there's far less users in Nonthaburi than downtown, it's far less congested. Downtown internet is very unreliable and most of the time it's slow. The only consistency lies in the torrents. I haven't gotten under my promoted speed torrent-wise in years.

I live near Chaeng Wattana. I have True internet (1 Mb) and recently I get betwwen 4.5 and 6 Mb in Saphan Mai which is a surprise. Last year we would have around 375Kb most of the time with luck. It seems that there has been some improvement by True. Let's hope it lasts.

[h90]

It would be lovely to have fast interest here. I work and derive my entire income online.

We have the 8mb service from True. It was good for the first month and now its slower than the old 1mb. Called the engineers out and they showed that with in Thailand it was 8mb with a local true speed test. What it should have said was “8mb internet with Thailand only”. Perhaps I should have read the small print. Me bad.

Last week in Hong Kong airport I logged on to the free throughout-the-airport internet service and it was incredible. I did the work that takes me 3 hours in Thailand in no more than 10 minutes.

Over there I waited 1 – 2 seconds for a web page. Here I wait 30 seconds.

Bring on the fast internet.

Does anyone know of any better services than “True 8mb”

(which is certainly not True in the sense of the word)

Was home and served internet on my mums very old computer....smallest internet package you can buy in Austria (256 KBit, but maybe they upgraded it for free in the past) on the first ADSL equipment ever made....

That 256 KBit were sooo fast on surfing compare to the the 8 Mbit here.

[Pib]

AAG cable to boost Asia’s internet capacity in August

Exclusive Thaivisa.com News

By John Le Fevre

Good news for Thailand's internet users. AAG -

Asia-America Gateway comes into operation

in August 2009.

The proposed cable became a reality in June 2006, when AiTi of Brunei Darussalam, CAT Telecom (Thailand), PLDT (Philippines), REACH (Hong Kong), StarHub (Singapore), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) and VNPT (Vietnam) all signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) for its construction.

The ol' saying of, "Build it and they will come" will probably be revised to "Build it but CAT won't use it."

[h90]

Internet speeds in Thailand is a joke. In the States, for $25.00 a month introductory price for six months, and after that $45.00 a month you get 20 MB download, and 12 MB upload with Comcast.

Barry

In USA they even call you for free if you download Torrents and explain you the troubles you may get.....

That saves a lot traffic...While here is freedom.

[vahack]

CAT provides MAX net with internet. Max net share with 20 customers CAT with 6. If you are unlucky you share with 20 in your nod and your speed will not even go close to 2.5. CAT have in their contract speed 700 max for outside Thailand and 2.5 inside. If you get 2.0 make sure nobody moves in the same area.

yea they overflow the servers in my town.

college town and everyone has the maxnet 500 baht plan.

i have both tot & maxnet because we have to switch depending on which one is having problems.

i have maxnet premium service and here is my speed right now (10am saturday)

i usually dont have d/l problem. its all upload issues.

of course maxnet was down here for 3 days last month because of "a flood in China" lol

another downtime before that was for "a flood in Chang Mai" - which is on the other side of the country.

Thailand is in the dark ages but at least they have SOME internet.

otherwise i'd have to force the wife to live in a better country haha