Anyone Got Tot Broadband?

[Guderian]

My ISP seems to have simply given up, so I have to change. TOT seem to be offering cheap deals, 4 Mbps for 590 Baht/month and 6 Mbps for 790 Baht/month, but are they any good? Does anyone have TOT broadband at the moment, and are you happy with it or not? I know that a few years back everyone said that it was dreadful, so I'm wondering if they have invested in some new equipment and are now providing a decent service? Thanks for any info.

[neilf]

its rubbish and as expected their figures are lies

the 4 meg is arrived at---------------i love this---------by adding up an alleged download speed of 3 plus an alleged upload of 1 so making the claimed 4

in reality its 1.3 down and 0.4 up when questioned they blame somebody else in true thai style and say they have too many customers but make sure you pay us

[neilf]

i forgot--------------the 499 becomes 700 with phone line and mantenance

[PattayaParent]

I've been using it for 3.5 years now and am happy with it.

I did have some problems at first but then found out the fault was with my computer so can't blame TOT.

I guess it all depends what you want to do with it though. I surf the net and send emails.

If you're an online gamer or want to view live streaming television it might not be so good, I don't know, although I was able to watch the IM World Championship live streaming with no problem. I've never tried it for footy matches or F1 though.

[neilf]

I've been using it for 3.5 years now and am happy with it.

I did have some problems at first but then found out the fault was with my computer so can't blame TOT.

I guess it all depends what you want to do with it though. I surf the net and send emails.

If you're an online gamer or want to view live streaming television it might not be so good, I don't know, although I was able to watch the IM World Championship live streaming with no problem. I've never tried it for footy matches or F1 though.

be interested to know what www.speedtest.net shows for you also what area you in

[sillyman99]

Wong Amat , Pattaya.

TOT 4MB connection, 590 Per Month.

[thequick7]

Depending on where you live, I have found all the main ISP's seem to be quite similar when it comes to downloading/uploading. I am using TOT atm, but have used CAT, True Internet and 3BB before. The real difference comes in the customer service... In my experience, True have been the easiest and most professional to deal with. TOT is a fully government controlled company and as such have government staff and as in most countries their service comes off as "we will get to you in our own sweet time". 3BB are ok... CAT is very expensive for what they provide and do not install their phone lines (I had to get a TOT contractor to install a phone line).

[Rimmer]

I am on TOT 6Mb way out in the sticks, It's OK, stable and stays in there 99% of the time costs 790baht plus the rent of the telephone line comes out around baht 1000 a month. They have a special on at the moment, if you sign up for 5 years the price drops to some where around 500 baht a month.

I believe they are trying much harder now to give a good service.

[PattayaParent]

be interested to know what www.speedtest.net shows for you also what area you in

I'll check it when I'm back there at the weekend.

[Pdaz]

CAT I live on the darkside near Siam CC Rd.

[doctormann]

ToT is now 590 Baht for 6Mb/512kb.

They are a lot better than they once were but TiT so don't expect miracles. I have the 6/512 service now and typically get 5.25 - 5.5 Mb/s download and 460 kb/s upload - measured on Speedtest.net to their Bangkok server. International speeds are normally a lot slower.

Very little problem with disconnects and service seems available 24/7. Some times of day things do slow down when the kids get into the local internet shops but the service rarely becomes unusable.

I'm located on the Dark Side, Soi Khaotalo.

I think it's a case of 'watch this space' as ToT seem to be continually playing catchup with BBB. As soon as BBB start offering 8Mb for 590 Baht you can be sure that ToT will follow. You'll have to ask for the upgrade though as it doesn't come automatically.

DM

[Guderian]

Thanks, folks. Interesting replies and some useful information there. I pay 2000 Baht/month for a nominally 1.8 Mbps connection. If it's there, it's fine but very expensive, pretty similar to CAT though less reliable. For the last month instead of 1.8 Mbps I have been getting more like 180 Kbps or less, which is a joke when you are trying to download gigabyte files. They sent two simian 'technicians' to my condo and blamed the slow speed on me and my computer. This annoyed me, but I later demonstrated that the condo office had exactly the same problem so it couldn't be my PC, and at an internet shop outside the condo with CAT internet I could download the same files with no problems. This probably caused them to lose face, so they decided not to do anything about it.

By and large from the responses TOT seems OK at the moment. How long that will last I have no idea, but it's much cheaper than what I've got from ThaiIT/True at the moment and can't be any worse. I think I'll get my external phone line reconnected and give it a whirl.

Do TOT insist on a 1 year contract, or can you suspend the service any time you become dissatisfied with it?

[doctormann]

Thanks, folks. Interesting replies and some useful information there. I pay 2000 Baht/month for a nominally 1.8 Mbps connection. If it's there, it's fine but very expensive, pretty similar to CAT though less reliable. For the last month instead of 1.8 Mbps I have been getting more like 180 Kbps or less, which is a joke when you are trying to download gigabyte files. They sent two simian 'technicians' to my condo and blamed the slow speed on me and my computer. This annoyed me, but I later demonstrated that the condo office had exactly the same problem so it couldn't be my PC, and at an internet shop outside the condo with CAT internet I could download the same files with no problems. This probably caused them to lose face, so they decided not to do anything about it.

By and large from the responses TOT seems OK at the moment. How long that will last I have no idea, but it's much cheaper than what I've got from ThaiIT/True at the moment and can't be any worse. I think I'll get my external phone line reconnected and give it a whirl.

Do TOT insist on a 1 year contract, or can you suspend the service any time you become dissatisfied with it?

I think that you get locked into a 1-year contract and if you upgrade I think that this amounts to taking out a new contract so the time starts again. It's not really so bad as the cost is fairly cheap for what you get. You could always not pay but then they would cut your telephone service. The 590 Baht/month doesn't include the line rental for the land-line telephone by the way so by the time you've payed the VAT you're looking at around 700 Baht. Still not too bad.

DM

[GeorgeO]

I've been using it for 3.5 years now and am happy with it.

I did have some problems at first but then found out the fault was with my computer so can't blame TOT.

I guess it all depends what you want to do with it though. I surf the net and send emails.

If you're an online gamer or want to view live streaming television it might not be so good, I don't know, although I was able to watch the IM World Championship live streaming with no problem. I've never tried it for footy matches or F1 though.

I have also been using TOT for about three years and have never had any complaints. The only time I went without broadband access was when they were building the rest of our housing estate and someone screwed up (probably severed the line).

I download/upload research and conference papers (sometimes up to 6 or 7 Mb), but also like to watch some of the classic British comedy shows, and have little or no problems with any of that.

[craigt3365]

The last two weeks, downloads have been really slow. This week, they are back to normal. I wanted to get the 6Mb package, but they told me to only get the 4Mb. Just ran the test and I was at 3.81 down.

The service cuts out every so often, but does an auto redial and all is well. In the past 3 months, have only had one outage that lasted longer than a few minutes. I think ToT is doing a fine job...especially for the money! The call center sucks, but we just call the local office and everything gets sorted out...

[Sunny Valentine]

Once it works, TOT is as good (or rather as bad) as any other provider in Thailand. But I have yet to see any other company anywhere in the world, whatever their field of operation may be, to constantly and without exception show more utter incompetence when it comes to solving problems. I had two times problems this Year, first time the line did not connect due to some PPP script errors which I logged and then tried for about 4 month (!!!) to speak to someone who has any idea what I was talking about. And then the line got extremely noisy, and took them almost 4 weeks to fix it. Calling their helplessline 1100 is useless, other numbers they give you come and go, are manned or unmanned, connected or disconnected ....

Recently they are trying to block Torrents, but luckily they show a similar level of competence so getting over that was not too hard.

[noudb]

On TOT 6Mbps package in Sri Racha Connected through the laem chabang interchange

IP adress is not recognised as TOT but I assure you it is.

[doctormann]

And from Soi Khaotalo today on my 6/512 connection ...

[NALAK]

speedtests to bkk are normally good, try them to the states, much slower.

[Guderian]

Thanks, folks. Again, some mixed reviews, but the positive views seem to outweigh the negative by quite a margin. If I went with the current 'special offer' of 6 Mbps for 590 Baht, call it 700 Baht including the line rental, then that would be around 8400 Baht for a year. I am currently paying that for just 4 months with ThaiIT/True, so as their service is very dodgy now it seems like a no-brainer. The only advantage of the ThaiIT/True set-up is that they allow me to suspend the account when I am back in the UK, so I only pay for it during the 10 months a year that I am in Pattaya. But if I get a reasonable TOT connection then even after taking that into consideration it would still save me over 10,000 Baht/year. That will be a big help to my charitable mission among the young ladies of South Pattaya and Jomtien. The big unknown is what will the quality of the connection be like in Jomtien Complex?

[Guderian]

Once it works, TOT is as good (or rather as bad) as any other provider in Thailand. But I have yet to see any other company anywhere in the world, whatever their field of operation may be, to constantly and without exception show more utter incompetence when it comes to solving problems. I had two times problems this Year, first time the line did not connect due to some PPP script errors which I logged and then tried for about 4 month (!!!) to speak to someone who has any idea what I was talking about. And then the line got extremely noisy, and took them almost 4 weeks to fix it. Calling their helplessline 1100 is useless, other numbers they give you come and go, are manned or unmanned, connected or disconnected ....

Recently they are trying to block Torrents, but luckily they show a similar level of competence so getting over that was not too hard.

My ThaiIT/True connection has always blocked torrents, so I have been using the file hosting/sharing sites like Rapidshare and Megaupload. I suspect that True do sometimes throttle back the DL speed on these services, especially on Rapidshare - maybe when they are having problems with their service being overloaded, I don't know? Anyway, can you tell me if TOT messes about with the file sharing sites at all, or can you download from them without any problem as a free user?

Thanks.

[Suradit]

but are they any good?

When everything is working well they are execrable. The other 51 weeks of the year they're far worse.

[somtampet]

I have 4mb from TOT and my d/l speed is just over 3mb,but they seem to be throttling when downloading from Torrent sites,as i ahve 28kbps at the moment and its been like this for 2 weeks

[Guderian]

I have 4mb from TOT and my d/l speed is just over 3mb,but they seem to be throttling when downloading from Torrent sites,as i ahve 28kbps at the moment and its been like this for 2 weeks

That's pretty much what ThaiIT/True seemed to be doing to me the last month. Pay for 1.8 Mbps, speedtest to Bangkok says it's there, but Rapidshare et al were downloading at around 40-80 Kbps. AFter endless complaints they seem to have done something the last two days and I'm currently getting the full 1.8 Mbps from Hotfiles.

Does TOT try and mess around with the file sharing services at all?

[Rimmer]

Interesting little story. Having seen the test results on this thread I decided to run a test on my TOT 6 Mb/s connection, I got 0.89 Mb/s. Something is not right so I took the test result down to the office this morning, they took one look at it, made one telephone call and said to go back and check, I did and I am now getting a whopping 5.24Mb/s

Apparently they had forgot to press the 6Meg button on my account

[frenchfarangjomtien]

I have TOT and 3BB at JOMTIEN's beach.

Tot is a lot better than 3BB, but i don't have the 3BB Premium, just the cheapest one.

(but i also have the cheapest TOT and it is still better)

[kamluan]

soi khao talo

999bath a month

[rmicheald]

I live in Jomtien Beach and always get about 3.5 MB/sec. It is seldom down and I am very happy with it. I am on the "5 MB" package. I download movies, music etc and never have a problem.

[eyebee]

TOT now has a promotion of 6Mb for 390 baht a month for the first 2 months, and 590 baht thereafter. No set-up charges. I went to their office yesterday to be told that it is not available in my area (I live at Markland on the corner of soi 1 and Beach Road)! They said they could upgrade me to 3Mb for 390 baht for the first 2 months, and 490 thereafter. As I was paying 490 for 2Mb, this seemed a good deal. I checked today and am getting 3Mb from Bangkok, Taiwan, Tokyo and California. So all is well. As others have said, though, there is an extra 100 baht for line rental, plus VAT. So the true cost comes to about 630 baht per month.

[PattayaParent]

I've been using it for 3.5 years now and am happy with it.

I did have some problems at first but then found out the fault was with my computer so can't blame TOT.

I guess it all depends what you want to do with it though. I surf the net and send emails.

If you're an online gamer or want to view live streaming television it might not be so good, I don't know, although I was able to watch the IM World Championship live streaming with no problem. I've never tried it for footy matches or F1 though.

be interested to know what www.speedtest.net shows for you also what area you in