True Ultra Hi-Speed Internet

[Pib]

yup these is the same form i signed when applying for the service please be advised if your current internet is working great do not try to switch services as this could make it worse and also you would be stuck with a contract As Pib and many other mentioned location location makes a big difference regarding the quality of your connection i may have been receiving good result since my house is just next to cat office. one of my friend who signed up with me for the same package is getting same speeds on international side as true adsl or true cable are getting.

It's so true that location, location, location sure can make a difference many times, but assuming both of you live fairly close together in Bangkok, since the CAT fiber system is pretty new, since he's getting full in-Thailand speed, and since he signed up for the same plan, I would think he would be getting very similar international speeds to you. Unless, CAT has his administrative/physical profile setup wrong which throttles him down for international speeds. I seen many ThaiVisa posts where someone on an ADSL plan was paying for a higher speed plan but only getting the speed of a lower speed plan....and their physical line characteristics for SNR, Attenuation, etc., were all good. Turned out the ISP just had them setup wrong.

I expect the only real difference between most of the various CAT fiber plans of basically the same in-Thailand speed is how CAT sets up the profile for each customer (i.e., in their database he paying for plan XYZ but in another area it's setup to limit speed to a lower speed plan...and administrative error in setting up the profile). Or, a central office/station hardware connection where they have his account/line plugged into a port that limits international bandwidth to XYZ like you mentioned in your post #373 talking about how the Silver Plan has throttled international speed.

He might want to check that out since you are getting so much better international speed; but for him not to specifically mention your name/account just in case they made an error in your profile which is giving you a much higher international speed....would be bad for no change in speed to occur for him but they spot an issue with your account. But hopefully, your account is setup properly and just getting the outstanding international speed that you are paying for in your Platinum 25Mb/3Mb Bt8900/month plan. I would definitely want international speed approaching my in-Thailand speed on such a plan. Cheers.

[negreanu]

So this CAT fibre is only available in pattaya? Or has it been rolled out in BKK?

[Pib]

So this CAT fibre is only available in pattaya? Or has it been rolled out in BKK?

shariq607 is in Bangkok according to his post#366.

[negreanu]

Trying to get blood out a stone to find their coverage areas.

Just got the mrs to speak to them on the phone for sukhumvit area. Cannot confirm coverage over phone need go their office in BKK.

Oh and platinum plus 100mb fibre is 25000THB a month tad on the pricey side.

Edited September 11, 2011 by negreanu

[Pib]

Trying to get blood out a stone to find their coverage areas.

Ain't it always true with Thai ISPs. Kinda like True was when first rolling out their Cable Internet....and their cable internet coverage area info is still out of date the last time I looked a month ago since my moobaan/area of western Bangkok had not be added to the coverage area yet...and today I can't even find the True page on their website identiying the coverage area....it's probably still there somewhere, it's just they keep changing the page addresses so much instead of keeping the same page address/name and just updating the info on the page. Oh well.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Here's one sois list for True Cable, Pib... Dunno whether or to what extent they're keeping it up to date...

http://onlinetv.true...e/index_en.html

But here's a different page for their cable internet service in Thai...that's actually linked from their main pages...

http://www.trueonlin..._area/index.php

BTW, True now seems to have two other Thai pages for checking service availability for their DSL service...

http://support.truec.../checkPhone.jsp

http://support.truec...ed/checkMap.jsp

Here's the main True page that leads to the various pages above...allowing to check coverage for both their DSL and cable systems...

http://www.trueonline.com/en/coverage_area/dsl_cable.php

Edited September 11, 2011 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Negreau, you have what now... the 50 Mbps True VDSL service??? For how much per month?

That VDSL service isn't available to most of us...

But it would be interesting to see how the international speeds of True's VDSL compare to CAT's fiber, based both on comparable plan speeds, and comparable monthly pricing...

BTW...DANG Pib... You're right... Half of my True bookmarks as I checked them now are dead links... They DO love changing their web addresses....

I can't even find their page for their VDSL service anymore....

Trying to get blood out a stone to find their coverage areas.

Just got the mrs to speak to them on the phone for sukhumvit area. Cannot confirm coverage over phone need go their office in BKK.

Oh and platinum plus 100mb fibre is 25000THB a month tad on the pricey side.

[norway1965]

So this CAT fibre is only available in pattaya? Or has it been rolled out in BKK?

its not coming to pattaya yett cat or true but its coming, i dont know when

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Let's see if I can begin to make some comparisons here...

Of course, these are PLAN speeds, not international download speeds, which is what a lot of us are most interested in...

Based on Pib and my past testing on True's regular DSL and cable internet services, they seem to typically yield between 25% and 35% of their plan speeds for international, single stream downloads... But for connections to the U.S. (as opposed to Thailand or the Asia region), not much difference between True's 10 and 20 Mbps cable connections.

What was interesting about the CAT fiber speed result posted above was a single stream download speed from the U.S. that was much closer to the CAT actual plan speed.

That I can recall, we've never really had any meaningful single stream speed test results from the U.S. posted here by anyone using True's 50 or 100 Mbps cable internet service, so hard to know whether those would do much better than their cheaper 10 and 20 Mbps cable plans in terms of U.S. connections.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

100 Mbps D / 10 Mbps U

True Cable - 4,999 per mo

100 Mbps D / 10 Mbps U

CAT Platinum Plus - 25,000 per mo

50 Mbps D / 20 Mbps U

True DSL - 3,599 per mo

50 Mbps D / 10 Mbps U

CAT Platinum Plus - 19,470 per mo

50 Mbps D / 5 Mbps U

True Cable - 2,799 per mo

30 Mbps D / 3 Mbps U

True Cable - 1,799 per mo

30 Mbps D / 5 Mbps U

CAT Gold Plus - 11,050 per mo

30 Mbps D / 2 Mbps U

CAT OnNet Gold - 8,500 per mo

30 Mbps D / 2 Mbps U

CAT OnNet Silver - 3,500 per mo

Edited September 11, 2011 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

So I'm trying to follow along with the info Shariq has posted...

If I'm tracking the various posts correctly, he seems to be saying he's got one of CAT's Platinum plans.. sounds like either the 25/3 or 35/3 versions. He mentioned paying 8,900 baht per month.

On the CAT price chart I posted above, it shows their 25/3 Platinum plan at 8.900 baht and their 35/3 Platinum plan at 11,900 baht.... Perhaps Shariq can clarify here just what service he's got...

In any event, thus far, he's posted one speed test to Chicago with about a 12 Mbps download, and a couple from the West Coast using a different speed test site with a 16-17 Mbps speeds...

If he's got the 25 Mbps plan, then at 16-17 Mbps he'd be getting about 65% of his rated plan speed based on the West Coast tests...

If he's got the 35 Mbps plan, then he'd be getting a bit under 50% of his rated plan speed...

That compares to True cable's rate of 25% to 35%.... obviously for substantially lower cost.

Of course, the troublesome part is....he's also reporting a friend with supposedly the same CAT plan who's only getting 3-5 Mbps down.

[shariq607]

So I'm trying to follow along with the info Shariq has posted...

If I'm tracking the various posts correctly, he seems to be saying he's got one of CAT's Platinum plans.. sounds like either the 25/3 or 35/3 versions. He mentioned paying 8,900 baht per month.

On the CAT price chart I posted above, it shows their 25/3 Platinum plan at 8.900 baht and their 35/3 Platinum plan at 11,900 baht.... Perhaps Shariq can clarify here just what service he's got...

In any event, thus far, he's posted one speed test to Chicago with about a 12 Mbps download, and a couple from the West Coast using a different speed test site with a 16-17 Mbps speeds...

If he's got the 25 Mbps plan, then at 16-17 Mbps he'd be getting about 65% of his rated plan speed based on the West Coast tests...

If he's got the 35 Mbps plan, then he'd be getting a bit under 50% of his rated plan speed...

That compares to True cable's rate of 25% to 35%.... obviously for substantially lower cost.

Of course, the troublesome part is....he's also reporting a friend with supposedly the same CAT plan who's only getting 3-5 Mbps down.

yup i am using the 25/3 plan however when i applied for it last month the 8900 baht was for a 20/3 plan now they have upgraded to 25/3 for same price so i am not sure which one i am getting as yet since i didn't ask them yet

I am getting good i speeds both locally and internationally however i am trying to get my friend to do a speedtest so he can send me to it and i can post it here of what he is getting

[negreanu]

Negreau, you have what now... the 50 Mbps True VDSL service??? For how much per month?

That VDSL service isn't available to most of us...

It was around 5k a month for 50mb VDSL. But we have moved to another condo which does not have the VDSL capability yet - although it is in the pipeline for this particular building but depends on True SLOW rollout. VDSL packages are now listed on the website under x-dsl products no more vdsl dedicated pages. They robbed the name ultrahigh speed from the vdsl product and applied it to the cable product.

[shariq607]

here is a speedtest of my friend

he has contacted cat and they are saying that this is what he should be getting and they cant guarantee

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Negreau, you have what now... the 50 Mbps True VDSL service??? For how much per month?

That VDSL service isn't available to most of us...

It was around 5k a month for 50mb VDSL. But we have moved to another condo which does not have the VDSL capability yet - although it is in the pipeline for this particular building but depends on True SLOW rollout. VDSL packages are now listed on the website under x-dsl products no more vdsl dedicated pages. They robbed the name ultrahigh speed from the vdsl product and applied it to the cable product.

Ahh...I see from your comment in the VPN thread, you're now using True's 16 Mbps DSL plan...

Ya... True did rob the VDSL name for their cable package... As I've said before, they're a confusing mess when it comes to their marketing and website presentation... apart from their increasingly producing content web pages only in Thai with graphic-based content that can't be Internet translated to English.... Yeesh....

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

here is a speedtest of my friend

he has contacted cat and they are saying that this is what he should be getting and they cant guarantee

That's not good... I'm paying 599 a month for a backup True 7 Mbps DSL plan...and doing that well or better....

Don't suppose CAT is offering to give him his money back....

Is he REALLY on the same CAT OnNet Platinum plan as you???

Edited September 11, 2011 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[shariq607]

here is a speedtest of my friend

he has contacted cat and they are saying that this is what he should be getting and they cant guarantee

That's not good... I'm paying 599 a month for a backup True 7 Mbps DSL plan...and doing that well or better....

Don't suppose CAT is offering to give him his money back....

Is he REALLY on the same CAT OnNet Platinum plan as you???

yes he is using the Same Package as me i am 101% sure we signed the same package on same day same time

In fact i am more sure since the user name which was given to him ends with @platinum same like me so that means he is also on the same account as me

[Pib]

here is a speedtest of my friend

he has contacted cat and they are saying that this is what he should be getting and they cant guarantee

That's not good... I'm paying 599 a month for a backup True 7 Mbps DSL plan...and doing that well or better....

Don't suppose CAT is offering to give him his money back....

Is he REALLY on the same CAT OnNet Platinum plan as you???

yes he is using the Same Package as me i am 101% sure we signed the same package on same day same time

In fact i am more sure since the user name which was given to him ends with @platinum same like me so that means he is also on the same account as me

Yea, if I was your friend I would be mad in not getting more international speed than that, especially at 8900 baht/month. I see he did the test above at 7:12GMT today, which would be 2:12pm/today Bangkok time. I just did a test on my True cable 20Mb/2Mb plan at 10:36GMT/today which is 5:36pm/today Bangkok time and got over a 4Mb speed to L.A., and I'm now closer to primetime evening hours versus his mid afternoon test which should have been less busy. But with Sunday's the only real day most Thais have off from work and school, maybe anytime on Sunday is busy/lots of users.

Normally, a person can get out of contract a lot easier within the first 30 days of a contract if the person can prove the internet service is not living up to its advertisement....but I expect CAT don't advertise/guarantee an international speed...only in-Thailand speed. I wouldn't want to be paying 8900 baht/month for only 3Mb speed to the U.S. Heck, I would consider that almost highway robbery with all the much lower cost ADSL//Cable plans which can equal or exceed 3Mb speed to the U.S. Here's my L.A. test from 5:36pm today/Sunday afternoon..

[shariq607]

here is a speedtest of my friend

he has contacted cat and they are saying that this is what he should be getting and they cant guarantee

That's not good... I'm paying 599 a month for a backup True 7 Mbps DSL plan...and doing that well or better....

Don't suppose CAT is offering to give him his money back....

Is he REALLY on the same CAT OnNet Platinum plan as you???

yes he is using the Same Package as me i am 101% sure we signed the same package on same day same time

In fact i am more sure since the user name which was given to him ends with @platinum same like me so that means he is also on the same account as me

Yea, if I was your friend I would be mad in not getting more international speed than that, especially at 8900 baht/month. I see he did the test above at 7:12GMT today, which would be 2:12pm/today Bangkok time. I just did a test on my True cable 20Mb/2Mb plan at 10:36GMT/today which is 5:36pm/today Bangkok time and got over a 4Mb speed to L.A., and I'm now closer to primetime evening hours versus his mid afternoon test which should have been less busy. But with Sunday's the only real day most Thais have off from work and school, maybe anytime on Sunday is busy/lots of users.

Normally, a person can get out of contract a lot easier within the first 30 days of a contract if the person can prove the internet service is not living up to its advertisement....but I expect CAT don't advertise/guarantee an international speed...only in-Thailand speed. I wouldn't want to be paying 8900 baht/month for only 3Mb speed to the U.S. Heck, I would consider that almost highway robbery with all the much lower cost ADSL//Cable plans which can equal or exceed 3Mb speed to the U.S. Here's my L.A. test from 5:36pm today/Sunday afternoon..

Here is my speedtest on the same server at about 6.20 pm

[Pib]

17Mb to L.A......Smoking!!!! I'm jealous.

[norway1965]

17Mb to L.A......Smoking!!!! I'm jealous.

thats in bangkok, i dont know what happen in pattaya them are better with speed with cat or true i dont know

[shariq607]

17Mb to L.A......Smoking!!!! I'm jealous.

thats in bangkok, i dont know what happen in pattaya them are better with speed with cat or true i dont know

if fiber is not available in pattaya you could try with the cat Hi-net thats basically Adsl using copper wires i am sure they have that in pattaya

[norway1965]

17Mb to L.A......Smoking!!!! I'm jealous.

thats in bangkok, i dont know what happen in pattaya them are better with speed with cat or true i dont know

if fiber is not available in pattaya you could try with the cat Hi-net thats basically Adsl using copper wires i am sure they have that in pattaya

i know that but i want have fiber so most wait but them say in true at fiber are ready 3 days time, if true fiber are wery bad, in 10 or 20 or 50Mbits so most wait for cat fiber when them have that

[norway1965]

17Mb to L.A......Smoking!!!! I'm jealous.

thats in bangkok, i dont know what happen in pattaya them are better with speed with cat or true i dont know

if fiber is not available in pattaya you could try with the cat Hi-net thats basically Adsl using copper wires i am sure they have that in pattaya

i know that but i want have fiber so most wait but them say in true at fiber are ready 3 days time, if true fiber are wery bad, in 10 or 20 or 50Mbits so most wait for cat fiber when them have that

i downl much so i dont want have bad speed here

[JacChang]

Even my 7 mb true adsl does better than shariq's friend's

Ask your friend to talk to a supervisor or a manager in charge. Dont talk to the front desks, they will only say there is nothing we can do. Worst comes to worst, ask for a downgrade. From that 20mb to the lowest one, atleast you pay less.

Sometimes I wish the isp were more competitive, so we customers would not be treated as idiots. The recent True adsl upgrade from 6 mb to 7 mb was completely pointless. Yet they get to brag about it and advertise their speeds as 7 mb.

They should have a government regulating this that Advertised Speed must be near +/- 10% of actual speed. That way isp are forced to keep their quality checks and advertise the speeds correctly with fair prices. Instead of having a 3mb line and advertising it as 6 mb. Then competition arises, guess what, let's change the advertise speed to 7 mb WITHOUT making a single change.

[shariq607]

Update

Before i was on Cat 20/3 plan as i applied last month today i got a call from cat said they have upgraded me to 25/3 plan

And the technician came my home to check the power of my fiber he said my line is overpowered, i asked him what he means and he told fiber are designed for long distances such as 9-10 km

so me being opposite to there branch my fiber distance is lower then 500 meter and he said this could explain the frequent disconnects as the power is very high for the modem to handle

So after a 25/3 upgrade this is what i am getting on LA

[Pib]

Yes, cable modems like I have, and I expect or fiber modems like you have, are probably very similar and more sensitive to power levels than ADSL modems. For cable/fiber modems, too much power can be almost as bad as not enough power. Hopefully the technician added an attenuator to your line to knock down the power by X-amount.

Here's my True Cable 20Mb/2Mb result to L.A. about 1 hr 20 min after your test to L.A.

Your 8900 baht/month CAT 25Mb/3Mb fiber plan definitely beats my 1299 baht/month True 20Mb/2Mb cable plan.

But I think I'm beating your friend's results on his fiber 25Mb/3Mb plan.

[JacChang]

Nah pib, you are doing well. Shariq is 5 times faster than yours but 7x more expensive.

So your more value for money

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The problem, of course, is thus far, we have one CAT fiber customer reporting terrific speeds... one indirectly reporting lousy speeds.... and no one else using CAT fiber reporting...

So given that CAT, I gather, is asking for one-year service commitments, you could find yourself either a very happy or very angry CAT customer, it seems...

With True, at 600 to 1000 a month, I can put up with some grief and headache... But for 8,900 per month for Platinum, CAT had better be good as gold guaranteed...

BTW... in his earlier post today, Shariq alluded almost in passing to "frequent disconnects" -- something I don't recall him mentioning in his previous comments.

I guess to sum it up thus far re CAT fiber... I'll say I'm intrigued... but far from persuaded or convinced.... We just don't have enough information or direct reports....

Personally, if we could figure out what areas they're actually serving (which we can't thus far), I might be willing to give one of their lower priced plans a try...

But right now, I've already got two ISP plans... one True cable and one True DSL as a backup.... So I'm not looking to take on a 3rd ISP. Someone else would need to be the guinea pig here...

[Pib]

A person also needs to decide just how much speed they really need (especially international speed) for what they want to do on the internet.

IMHO if you can get a smooth/consistent data flow at around 3Mb (versus a stop & go 3Mb data flow) then that will pretty much do everything the great majority of folks do on the internet, to include streaming video. Anything faster probably benefits folks who want to download files/torrents as fast as possible or to share the bandwidth with several people. I'm getting that international speed of 3Mb or more with my True cable plan (10-20Mb to Singapore), streaming video works fine, and it been 100% reliable since being on it for almost 3 months now.

Also, my first 3 months on the TrueOnline cable 20Mb/2Mb plan is only costing me 650 baht/month, as that was the promotion in place when I signed up for the cable internet and cable TV at the same time....even got a 1 free month of TrueVisions CATV Cable TV. Basically, I just switched from TrueVisions DSTV Satellite TV and also got the cable internet. Now, I'm just hoping in about a year or less True lowers its price on cable internet just like they have already done once and how they frequently lower their ADSL prices.

So far, I'm till a happy camper with my True cable 20Mb/2Mb plan. (knock on wood...a.k.a., my head)

Some current results with my Wifi 54G router upstairs and running the tests on my laptop downstairs.

To L.A. at 5:14pm Bangkok time today

To Singapore at 5:19pm Bangkok time today. Note: the Singapore connection seems to be more of a direct line and a lot of WWW websites are hosted/mirrrored there.

To Bangkok at 5:24pm Bangkok time today (a.k.a., in-Thailand speed, advertised speed)

[norway1965]

A person also needs to decide just how much speed they really need (especially international speed) for what they want to do on the internet.

IMHO if you can get a smooth/consistent data flow at around 3Mb (versus a stop & go 3Mb data flow) then that will pretty much do everything the great majority of folks do on the internet, to include streaming video. Anything faster probably benefits folks who want to download files/torrents as fast as possible or to share the bandwidth with several people. I'm getting that international speed of 3Mb or more with my True cable plan (10-20Mb to Singapore), streaming video works fine, and it been 100% reliable since being on it for almost 3 months now.

Also, my first 3 months on the TrueOnline cable 20Mb/2Mb plan is only costing me 650 baht/month, as that was the promotion in place when I signed up for the cable internet and cable TV at the same time....even got a 1 free month of TrueVisions CATV Cable TV. Basically, I just switched from TrueVisions DSTV Satellite TV and also got the cable internet. Now, I'm just hoping in about a year or less True lowers its price on cable internet just like they have already done once and how they frequently lower their ADSL prices.

So far, I'm till a happy camper with my True cable 20Mb/2Mb plan. (knock on wood...a.k.a., my head)

Some current results with my Wifi 54G router upstairs and running the tests on my laptop downstairs.

To L.A. at 5:14pm Bangkok time today

To Singapore at 5:19pm Bangkok time today. Note: the Singapore connection seems to be more of a direct line and a lot of WWW websites are hosted/mirrrored there.

To Bangkok at 5:24pm Bangkok time today (a.k.a., in-Thailand speed, advertised speed)

if true not be better this year in pattaya, i go with cat i want see how long way to sentral, i hope not so long, shorter u have to sentral better speed u gett sure i have now 3bb, them say fiber text 5 to 10 years time, my ass