New Service To Speed Up Broadband

[george]

New service to speed up broadband

BANGKOK: -- Fibre-to-the-home technology is about to make an appearance in Thailand's telecoms industry when a local IT company introduces the technology to provide broadband communications service at up to 100 megabits per second, the fastest commercial broadband service ever seen in the country. Korbsak Shinwongwattana, executive director of Fiber-to-Home Co Ltd, said the broadband communication services which his company would provide would be delivered to homes via fibre optic cable networks.

Fiber-to-Home has already entered exclusive agreement with the Australian developer of the FTTH technology and was ready to introduce itself to the public next Friday, he said.

Target groups of the FTTH service include corporations, financial institutions, real estate firms, SMEs and other high-end users.

The FTTH technology, he said, will open a new era in Thai telecommunications service, because the technology could deliver the fastest speed of any available broadband service in the country and the Asean region.

It will be called ``ultra broadband'' because it is 400 times faster than the standard ADSL internet access of 256 kilobits per second.

Mr Korbsak said his company had negotiated with electricity state enterprises because they now have an optical fibre network linked to homes and offices.

He said the technology could provide three services simultaneously, a triple play _ high-speed Internet access, IP phone and TV on demand or interactive TV.

Although the penetration rate of broadband is still low, and FTTH is still not yet well-known, the company is confident the service will be a milestone because it can provide integrated digital services.

``When you just try the 100 Mbps broadband access, you'll feel the difference,'' he said.

One of the differences was low cost, he said. A leased, high-speed line for a corporate customer could cost up to 80,000 baht a month, but FTTH can offer service for just a few thousand, with better voice and image quality, he said.

FTTH technology was developed by an Australian consortium, including Scion Photonics, Senko, Viva Photonics, CEOS, Redcentre, the VPN-Victoria Photonics Network and other telecom companies.

--Bangkok Post 2005-09-05

[whooliggen]

Bring it on!

I was in the queue yesterday!

Very interested about this - we can offer this FTTH for a few thousand as opposed to the current 80,000Thb for a leased line...If that is true (??), then there'll be a few more people in that queue I would imagine!

Time will tell...

Edited September 5, 2005 by whooliggen

[Firefoxx]

Japan had this, say, more than 5 years ago? Moving on, moving on.

So we'll have lighting fast local connections, to places like sanook.com. International connections will *still* be dead slow. Whoop-dee-doo.

[ChiangMaiThai]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/05Sep2005_biz14.php

Did anyone see this article in the Bangkok Post today? Speeds up to 400 times faster than current ADSL. Packages starting from a few thousand baht a month. Does anyone know where to get more information and does anyone know if this is actually happening or if this is like the end of drugs and end to violence in the south and the fashion hub of asia and the technology hub of asia and TIT.

[astral]

I think this is pie in the sky at the moment.

I have 100mb/s network within my house,

but the limitation is the connection to the outside world.

Even the 1 Mb ADSL links cannot reach their capacity because CAT

refuses to invest in the suitable speed international links.

A real shame.

[ChiangMaiThai]

I think this is pie in the sky at the moment.

I have 100mb/s network within my house,

but the limitation is the connection to the outside world.

Even the 1 Mb ADSL links cannot reach their capacity because CAT

refuses to invest in the suitable speed international links.

A real shame.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd really like to get in touch with the company and find out for myself. If its the real deal, it seems like its the end to a lot of ADSL companies. For Thailand, it seems too good to be true. If anyone know how to get more info, please post here.

[Abandon]

yep - it would work well for business or large scale users in Thailand who need to shuffle lots of info about, but would not be much good for international Broadband internet until there are more permanent lines going abroad.

[ProThaiExpat]

Likewise, the cost of laying a fiber optic cable to a single domestic user would seem to be financially impractical.

[Firefoxx]

Actually, the network model would be like the current ADSL model, where the CO is the hub. The fiber lengths wouldn't be very long, since there would be a local hub.

But in order to be viable and affordable to home users, you would need to aggregate several services into the network, such as cable TV, telephony, etc, and there would have to be a substantial user base. It would be interesting to see how they plan to implement this.

Of course, as stated before, if the bandwidth to other countries is minimal, having unlimited bandwidth to your house isn't going to do you much good.

[richard10365]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/05Sep2005_biz14.php

like the end of drugs and end to violence in the south and the fashion hub of asia and the technology hub of asia and TIT.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You left out "eliminate poverty in Thailand".

I think that was a promise someone made last year too.

[Crushdepth]

Does anyone know where to get more information and does anyone know if this is actually happening

Yep...some place called Japan...

[Crossy]

Does anyone know where to get more information and does anyone know if this is actually happening

Yep...some place called Japan...

and Italy. Had FTTH in Rome, brilliant, VOIP phone, video etc etc

BUT

We endured two years of dug up streets whilst they put it in, and, of course, as others have said unless they fix the connection with the rest of planet Earth, nothing will change speed wise.

[ChiangMaiThai]

Why doesn't the Bangkok Post bother to mention that as long as there aren't more lines going abroad, this super fast internet is just bullshit unless you are really into Thai websites?

And why doesn't Thaksin get involved in lying some more international lines so Thailand can actually have real internet, which would in turn attract more serious businesses?

[chownah]

The previous post has remined me of a question I've had for a while. Google has a google.co.th address. Does this mean that they have a big computer (server?) in Thailand so that a fast connection would access it quickly and would this computer have a lot of data (cached results of common searches, for instance) on it which could also be accessed quickly?....or does a connection to google.co.th still have to go overseas to be serviced?

I don't know alot of the proper words to describe this kind of stuff so if anyone wants to help in updating my between the ears data base it is always appreciated.

[Crossy]

The previous post has remined me of a question I've had for a while.  Google has a google.co.th address.  Does this mean that they have a big computer (server?) in Thailand so that a fast connection would access it quickly and would this computer have a lot of data (cached results of common searches, for instance) on it which could also be accessed quickly?....or does a connection to google.co.th still have to go overseas to be serviced?

I don't know alot of the proper words to describe this kind of stuff so if anyone wants to help in updating my between the ears data base it is always appreciated.

According to this site;-

http://ip-to-country.webhosting.info/

Google.co.th is hosted in the US. Backed up by a slow ping that's about the same as a ping to Google.com.

[sajal]

yep - it would work well for business or large scale users in Thailand who need to shuffle lots of info about, but would not be much good for international Broadband internet until there are more permanent lines going abroad.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

or a group of angry internet users burn down the CAT building....

[cobra]

I would assume they first have to first hang the cable(s),

Looking at the tangle of new and old copper lines on any Bkk pole, finding space will be at a premium,

Unless there's some utilidors under the streets, getting fiber-optic cable up to residences is going to be the challange. High speed wireless or DSL over existing copper would be easier.

[The Coder]

At first it seemed a rather meaningless technology in the context of Thailand, but now I see a potential good use for this. It has enough bandwidth to stream full quality HDTV movies; in fact it can do several channels at once. So internet TV using FTTH might be very nice because it wouldn't have to have a crappy picture quality like UBC and no more rain related outages.

So think about it, what if a company were to make a TV service with this and gave you a cable box for 2000 baht a month (hey, their words were "a few thousand baht a month") AND you get hi-speed internet to your PC from the same port; ok so international would still be throttled. UBC would be Ssssssssooooooooooo gone for me!!! FTTH could offer more channels, better quality, overall better cost when you factor in internet access, and simpler billing. Is it a slam dunk and is anyone working on this?

[sajal]

I was working on IPTV solutions here few months ago...maybe u can find my old post here....but gave up due to bandwidth limitations here....and a major ISP rep told me FTTH they arent even thinking of in bangkok...planing/implementing is far off....the nearest thing would be a gigabit ring by an ISP here which serves very limited buildings.

now this FTTH has potential....but my interpretion of "a few thousand baht a month" means 10 to 20k

[Maestro]

Unless there's some utilidors under the streets, getting fiber-optic cable up to residences is going to be the challange.

I am confused. Doesn’t cable TV use fiber-optic cable?

In Switzerland, I got a cable Internet connection with 1000 Kbit/s download and 200 Kbit/s upload for CHF 60 (THB 2000) per month. Higher speeds up to 3000/800 Kbit/s available at higher prices.

In Thailand, this should be possible for a much lower price.

[Maestro]

…this super fast internet is just bullshit unless you are really into Thai websites

And why doesn't Thaksin get involved in lying some more international lines so Thailand can actually have real internet, which would in turn attract more serious businesses?

Wasn’t there a news story recently about a Thai company having launched a new telecommunications satellite for use, among other things, for fast Internet connection to the outside world?

Thailand really needs improved telecommunications services in order to become competitive with places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, etc.