From First World To Third World Internet

[myauq]

One of the things I have been very grateful for my time living in Thailand - aside from the low cost of comfortable living, friendly people, healthy food and travel - is the brilliant internet around the city.

I realise this even more now since coming back to Australia, which is like a third-world country by comparison, in terms of its internet availability, speed and price.

In Brisbane, for instance, there are no free wireless services in the city. A few places like coffee shops and McDonnald's offer wireless services, but they are in awkward locations, with low usage caps, and require expensive purchases like coffees or junk food. I recently discovered that the State Library has free unlimited wireless, but then the recent floods put an end to my free browsing (arrghh!).

The only other option is to buy a home connection, which isn't always available in country or remote areas. We can buy dongles for wi-fi connections, for instance, but they are ridiculously priced with shamelessly low quota caps (I am paying $150 for 12 GB cap for instance). The contracts are even worse - all of them have download limits, and you have to commit to a contract (which will end up being for anywhere between 6-24 months, for a grand total, including a connection fee(!), for between $600-$3000). If you have to move to another country, or change jobs and relocate to the country, tough - you're stuck. For a country like Australia, this is truely shameful.

OK, I know that if there is a power cut in Thailand, you will have to wait for the one tech person to come back off his holiday back from the country to get it fixed. But that is only a minor problem, when you realise you can just walk outside the house to the nearest coffee shop, head to the down-town free wireless zone, and just log-in - no hassles, no major price, and no <deleted>' download limits!!!!

Australia needs to catch up, not just to Thailand in this respect, but to the rest of the world.

[garyh]

<deleted> are you on about, give me my ADSL2+ connection I had in Australia, beats the crap out of Thailand Internet any day.

If you did not know already there is a government subsidy for those in remote areas to get internet at competitive prices.

I am sure if there was an ISP in Thailand that operated at Australian standards they would have most of the Thai market.

[Crushdepth]

Australia suffers from a serious lack of competition, which is where the ridiculous prices and crap service come from. The price of mobile phone calls is horrendous, and the mobile data plans are just laughable. It's a real shame.

[gkinbkk]

I agree. Even though True is far from perfect, for the money I pay I really get value in terms of download quantity and mobile data too.

2 years back in a brand new house in Sydney I had to fight hard to get a 3rd party access to Telstra's exchange. They kept saying sorry, its at capacity and we cant allow any more connections on that exchange, new housing estate. Telstra amazingly could give me a connection for, I think, around $129 a month WITHOUT unlimited downloads. We eventually won the battle and got TPG ADSL2+ which for the sum of around $60 a month, we were capped at 4GB of downloads.

Now I have the 14MB unlimited connection from True and I cannot complain, I'm really happy with it. Despite all the 'experts' telling me there was no point in having anything more than 8mb due to the overseas links etc when I download a movie or TV show I actually do get the advertised download speed most of the time.

Thailand 1 - Australia 0

Now lets talk cable TV - Thailand 0 - Australia 1

[Mosha]

Well I'm in the sticks and all I can say is "You ain't all from round here is ya?" My internet goes from bearable to sucks big time.

[jubby]

one of the main internet players here, has just this week pulled the plug on many of its customers, without any explanation, or notice. even took money upfront. I hope that wouldn't happen in Asutralia.

[Pib]

Well I'm in the sticks and all I can say is "You ain't all from round here is ya?" My internet goes from bearable to sucks big time.

Ain't that the truth...get out of the city just a little bit here in Thailand and internet access, speed, and reliability usually takes a fall off the cliff. But in the cities, like in Bangkok, Pattaya, etc., much greater internet choice and high speeds exist. Me for example, although I'm on a TOT 6Mb ADSL hardline right now which has been OK, within a month I will be able to switch to True 100Mb on cable. True is stringing the cable TV/internet in my moobaan right now. I"ll be able to get cable internet 10Mb/1Mb for 699 baht/mo...all the way up to 100Mb/10Mb for 4,499 baht/mo. But I be in the city and not the sticks.

[monty]

Price wise, Thailand is very competitive compared to the two countries I know the situation, namely Australia and Belgium.

Mainly because of all packages being unlimited in download quantity.

Australia still seems to have very low quota at high prices.

In Belgium it depends a bit on which provider, but Telenet (one of the bigger ones) charges about 1200 Baht/month for 15 Mbps connection , but limited at 50 GB/month, which really is not much at all, considering that this connection gets you 6 GB per hour at full speed.

Two uncompressed full HD movie (blue ray quality) eat that quota entirely up, and speeds that fast do allow you to download such content pretty fast.

They do have blistering fast connections over fiber (100 Mbps), but not cheap either (over 4000 Baht/month), and the unlimited is tricky, since the small print tells you that if you download more then double the amount of what all the other customers average, your speed gets reduced to 0.5 Mbps till the next billing cycle!

And yes, they do have decent 3G, but 800 Baht/month with 1 GB included (or 1200 Baht for 2 GB), and a whopping 4000 Baht per extra GB (4 Baht per MB)!!! OK for use on your smart-phone. but I wouldn't want to hook my PC up to that connection!

[endure]

In the UK I pay 1500bt a month for 10Mb/s (which works at that speed), 100 cable TV channels and a phone line with free calls all weekend.

[Wallaby]

Yes have to agree the internet sucks big time here in oz. My parents live at Tweed Heads, hardly an outpost. Telstra, no coverage. Optus, have limited coverage but has no more capacity so can't give connection. Those are the major players. Vodafone does it for a high price and they too only have limited coverage.

I'm in Bris, internet is slow and sometimes cuts out. Costs are way high. I have found Thailand to be much better for internet.

As for cable tv. I have foxtel, we pay $100 a month and still don't get all the channels and we still have to put up with ads. If I want ads I'll watch the free to air.

Drives me bananas.

[ELCata]

If you moved to the UK (returned to the scene of the crime) then you could enjoy phone + 8mbps t'internet + basic cable for about £30 a month. Are you from Queensland? It's all the Queen's land squire. You know why she's your queen? Because she has two birthdays therefore is better than you.

Sorry for the 'ism' & I can't take the credit. Jokes are courtesy of Al 'the pub landlord' Murray, a post modernist UK comedian. Where would we be if we couldn't have a little harmless laugh at other countries? Germany (yes, he went there!)

Australia suffers from a serious lack of competition, which is where the ridiculous prices and crap service come from. The price of mobile phone calls is horrendous, and the mobile data plans are just laughable. It's a real shame.

When British Telecom was privatised, we were the laughing stock of the whole internet world. £30 a month + 1p a minute (20 years ago) & 20 minutes to download an out of focus naked Sheila. Only when the national fibre optic network was built did BT come to their senses; it took them a while as well.

[nigelnigel]

in the U.S my mobile 3G/4G data service is almost double what i have in my room in bkk from True....6mps.....I feel bad for you in Australia if the service in Thailand seems fast. I think in ranking order USA is not even in the top 20 as far as internet speeds but the recent surge in competition with phone wireless service is excellent for the consumer. It will be soon where we will use our cellular data for all our internet needs. My HTC N1 can be used as a local wifi hotspot and a lot of other android phones can do this as well.

[WilliaminBKK]

The worst you complain about would be the best in the Philippines. There having access without daily hicups is like winning the lottery.