Phuket Live Wire: International internet speeds are up

PHUKET: International internet speeds in Phuket this week were generally excellent for 3BB, CAT and True, but bad-to-abysmal for TOT.

3BB customers are being upgraded, free, frequently without any notification before or after the upgrade.

TOT Fiber Optic was performing horribly – often half as fast as standard ADSL lines, at five times the price – but the speed has picked up in the past two days.

True’s “3G” (HSPA) in Kata was blazing fast, then slowed down a bit, but 3G is still not available in most of Phuket.

Lots of news about 3G in Bangkok: TOT expansion has stalled; CAT expansion is under scrutiny from many quarters.

For the latest internet connection speeds in Phuket, as tested by real Phuket users, see phuketinternetspeed.com.

For news updates about computers in Phuket, see Twitter: @PhuketPC

Live Wire is IT guru and Phuket Gazette columnist Woody Leonhard's weekly snapshot of all things internet in Phuket.

-- Phuket Gazette 2011.02.13

Moved to the Internet Forum.

I can attest to TOT being abysmal. Unlike 3BB I am always connected, but usually with a very slow connection. When 3BB was working (I had a 5mb premier line) it was fast. Complaining gets me nowhere.

TOT has been moving forward somewhat, at least in my western Bangkok moobaan. TOT rules the lines in my moobaan and has us as a captive audience (at least for another month or so until True finishes installing its cable TV/internet). TOT's max internet speed to my moobaan was only 2Mb 2-3 years ago (this Goldcyber package sucked), then they upgraded a little and the max speed went to 4Mb, and about 6 months ago they went 6Mb.

But when True finishes installing their internet in mid March they will offer 10Mb thru 100Mb speeds via cable. At least in my western Bangkok moobaan True is about to pass TOT at a max speed of 100Mb while TOT chugs along at 6Mb max. I expect TOT will lose most of its internet customers in my moobaan comprised of middle class to rich folks...TOT is definitely loosing me. But I will have to say my TOT internet while on the 4Mb and 6Mb package was rock steady/very reliable, gave pretty close to full in-Thailand speed, and around 25% of max speed to international sites. For me, the only real lacking of my TOT service is international bandwidth/speed.