I am thinking of getting internet put into my house, close to Rimping, Mee Chok, in Laguna gated community. I have no idea who to go with, at this stage, as it seems that all providers are unreliable. I've noticed a few threads recently complaining about their connection being terrible. So was just wondering if anyone had advice, on who to go with / steer away from. I'd rather have a reliable 2 meg connection than an iffy 6 meg line.

So, I really need a good, reliable connection, and I want to also download torrents. A lot of my work invoves uploading large files.

Any ideas?

Apprciated.

Go around your new gated community door to door and ask your neighbors who they use and their opinion of their ISP. Then take the best one and keep you fingers crossed. What works great next door may be the shytes in your home. Good luck. Remember what works across town or in Bangkok can and will be the pits up hear and the same for our ISP.

gotlost has given great advice. The problem is, as he mentioned, its so variable. Also, one provider may work well around one part of town, but not well in another. Although in the other thread i was complaining about 3bb, its actually the best provider for where i live. Usually my net is working very well, but fluctuates occasionally. Just that it was consistently bad recently, so wanted to ask others opinions. You need to find what provider is more bad than good for your specific area. Maybe someone on here lives around your way, but the best bet is to ask your neighbours. Good luck.

Ah, good idea, thanks for that gotlost.

eek, I hope your connection is better now. nothing worse than unreliable internet! Especially once you've signed up for the yearly contract!

Am getting so many mixed reports that I really don't know what to do.

A lot of the threads seems to be about BBB, not so many about TOT. I don't know if that's a good sign, or merely means that TOT is so bad that users on not able to be on Thai Visa, LOL

3BB usually works, but it is often so slow that I feel on the edge of having a stroke as I get so frustrated. It drives me crazy, but not quite to the point where I start looking for another provider that probably will not be any better.

I live around your area. My experience with providers in Thailand is that TOT is the worst and that CAT's Hi-net is the best. Unfortunately, TRUE is not in our area. That leaves 3BB in the middle. Hi-net rates are high and they're restrictive about networking your home. I have 3BB and it's okay. Avoid the "indy" 5Mb and go for the 12Mb or higher plan. Their 5Mb Premier service promises to be the best for torrents, VPNs, bandwidth reliability etc., but it's 2,500 baht per month. You can easily upgrade if you need to with 3BB. Don't make your expectations too high though.

Here on Phuket everybody in our computer group agrees that TOT is absolutely the worst of the lot. Extended periods (hours, days) of barely crawling interspersed with no service at all. CAT landline service seems the most reliable, 3BB generally OK.

Everyone we know here in CM who feels that they absolutely must have 100% reliable internet service has more than one provider, sometimes three or more. None of them are 100% reliable. Gotlost's recommendation is the best & if you MUST have 100% reliability (as in your job depends on it) then go with the top 2 recommendations from your neighbors.

Gotlost has given good advice and right on.

There is no best or worse Internet in Thailand, it is a case of choosing the best of the worst.

Everyone we know here in CM who feels that they absolutely must have 100% reliable internet service has more than one provider, sometimes three or more. None of them are 100% reliable. Gotlost's recommendation is the best & if you MUST have 100% reliability (as in your job depends on it) then go with the top 2 recommendations from your neighbors.

Never were truer words spoken.

I have 3 internet connects!

I don't think CAT is available in her area. I live right around the corner from Laguna and it is not available where I am.

My internet is absolutely excellent. Stuff comes in around 300-450 kb/sec. Stating the provider won't help you much though, as you don't know where I live.

How can we find out what the speedtest results mean? I have no idea from looking at it.

Sorry, those were actual download speeds. Speed-test / bandwith tests typically just test speed within Thailand, which tends to be high. And meaningless. (Unless Camfrog video performance matters, but for the purpose of this post I'll assume we're all non-perverts.

So, to give an indication of what it actually means, real-world: A movie in standard quality runs about 700 Mb. A one hour TV show (such as the BBC Match of the Day, Top Gear, etc) also runs about 700 kb but definition tends to be higher. Either way, for example at 350 kb/sec I would pull those in in: 700 * 1024 / 350 / 60 = 34 minutes. That also means it's more than adequate for streaming TV.

And THAT means in the stone-coldest real-world objective truth that UBC/Truevisions'd days are NUMBERED!!

Im on Tanawan which is just behind Rimping, Mee Chok and I have CAT, the service is great but a little expensive at 1756thb a month. But I don't mind paying extra as it works everytime I turn on the computer. In 2 years it has only been off twice and when I rang the CAT office they told me the truth unlike Maxnet who always told me that an engineer would call and never did. CAT told me it would be back up in 2 hours on both occasions and it was.

3BB usually works, but it is often so slow that I feel on the edge of having a stroke as I get so frustrated. It drives me crazy, but not quite to the point where I start looking for another provider that probably will not be any better.

Agree muchly with everything said. It really is a case of house by house reliability but I believe 3BB are about the best for the Hang Dong area. Had two power cuts yesterday which doesn't help at all and it's about time somebody thought about providing a new Sub-Station in an area where new houses are springing up on an almost daily basis.

What UG says: 3BB usually works, but it is often so slow that I feel on the edge of having a stroke as I get so frustrated. It drives me crazy, but not quite to the point where I start looking for another provider that probably will not be any better.".

Actually much better in the past few weeks, apparently they were having intermittent connections in that they had been aligning with Maxnet which apparently they took over. So... here's crossing our collective fingers that 3BB connectivity continues. Always a helping, courteous, English speaking, and 'get-bak-to-ya-soonest' service if things prove troublesome for you. Their mobile techs are smart and can-do folks.

I'm not telling you who's good because then you'll take up some of the traffic, thus slowing my connection down.

With that in mind, sign up to AIS 3G.

Ah, good idea, thanks for that gotlost.

eek, I hope your connection is better now. nothing worse than unreliable internet! Especially once you've signed up for the yearly contract!

Am getting so many mixed reports that I really don't know what to do.

A lot of the threads seems to be about BBB, not so many about TOT. I don't know if that's a good sign, or merely means that TOT is so bad that users on not able to be on Thai Visa, LOL

Correct, a big cross on your list covering TOT.

A major problem with all ISPs is the more people that sign up on a given ISP the worst their service gets. That's just a fact.