3Bb 6Mb Premier Package

[anothertorres]

After 3 years of 3BB 2MB premier package (which magically jumped to 3MB with no notification about 1 year ago), I decided I was tired of the inconsistency. I need a solid connection 24/7 with international access at full speed. So, after being very leery about giving 3BB more money, I decided I would just do it.

Went down to 3BB and asked to be moved to the new 6MB premier package. I was given a new U/P for my modem and sent on my way with "wait one hour". By the time I got home, it had been 2 hours and I punched in my new U/P. Instant 6MB. You name it, from speedtest to YouTube to my own dev server back in NY. Full on 6MB.

Now... nothing internet comes without pain. Within 2 days, I was back down to barely 1MB. Then it was up and down, up and down. I called every day for 5 days. Finally after being told a tech would come I finally just got firm. I said, my line was fine the day I gave you money to upgrade me and I'm certain you have just cut my speed down. Regardless how absurd that sounds, I think it struck a chord and a tech was at my house at 8:30am the next day.

Talked to the tech manager on the phone and he said the tech on-site needs to come back around 2pm to fix whatever the problem was. So, I walked over to the tech on-site and said (in Thai), the dude on the phone said you will come back at 2pm today and fix the problem. He then smirked and walked over to his truck to then (what I felt like was his attempt to mock me and my thai) repeat my thai to his partner in crime. At this point, I'd had enough with their coy bullshit and their bullshit smiles. I turned back to them and exclaimed that I'm not fuc_king stupid and I'm not treating you like you are stupid. Come the fuc_k back at 2pm. 2 mother fuc_king PM and fix this or I will fuc_king kill you. Well, at least that's the tone I took

Anyway... it's been 3 weeks now and I'm almost confident enough to say that everyday, morning, noon and night, I get 636KB. Be wary, but I just wanted to let you know that if you're willing to pay the 2500baht/month, you might just be pleasantly surprised that you might actually get what you pay for.

[bartender100]

6MB is B699, in Pattaya anyway, where does the B2500 come into it?

[garyh]

6MB is B699, in Pattaya anyway, where does the B2500 come into it?

Premier Package

[anothertorres]

what Gary said.

[whybother]

6MB is B699, in Pattaya anyway, where does the B2500 come into it?

Premier Package

What's so special about the Premier Package? It certainly doesn't sound so "Premier".

[anothertorres]

6MB is B699, in Pattaya anyway, where does the B2500 come into it?

Premier Package

What's so special about the Premier Package? It certainly doesn't sound so "Premier".

it's very simple. it's a 6MB connection to anywhere in the world, 24/7. so, this is the type of internet connection you would expect to have standard in say the US or the UK. problem is, internet to the outside world from Thailand is heavily throttled (and congested at times). on top of that, DSL to the home is also heavily throttled and shared amongst a handful of neighbors.

6MB to the world. sharing is not part of the situation because you're getting 6MB no matter time of day.

so, it's 9pm, i'm sure this is still high time for internet use here in Thailand and here is a screenshot from speedtest to NYC (Optimum Online). the speedtest shows 5MB and you can see up above in my status bar, iStat is showing 638KB/sec.

[Supernova]

^ Not at all surprised by the results.

Run an FTP size test. Let's see how well you do on those.

[Supernova]

Also try this:

http://speedtest.microsoftonline.com/

[Phil Conners]

I just ran the same test and got 1.5MB more than you for 888 baht/month

3BB Standard 8M/1M

[Tywais]

And mine - 950/month package and pretty consistent any time, though located well outside of town in a moo bahn that may not have that many connections. The Microsoft Online Services performance test shows the same.

[Pib]

Another 25th century, faster-than-light ping time of 40ms with full speed half way around the world. You can do a search on ThaiVisa for plenty of other posts regarding false speed test results, bogus/faster than light ping times, etc., which appears to happen on many Thai ISP like True, 3BB, etc. A ping time to the US or Europe is going to be in the 200 to 300ms range with a good connection...unless you've figured out how to make electrons got many times the speed of light and eliminate delays caused by in-between relays/servers/amplifiers/fiber optic cable propagation delay/etc.

The above speed test result is false and is really from a "in-Thailand" 3BB cached/hidden server although it appears like a US server. Try the Microsoft Online Service speed test as you are more likely (no guarantee) to get an accurate result....it tests to a Microsoft server in the US and more likely to give a more accurate result....the web site follows: http://speedtest.microsoftonline.com/

[Tywais]

Another 25th century, faster-than-light ping time of 40ms with full speed half way around the world.

Distance Bangkok to New York > 13922.59 km - speed of light 300,000 km/s - time one way, 46ms. Mine shows 46 ms, which I agree can not be correct. Perhaps they are just running a calculation and coming up with fastest theoretical one-way.

[Pib]

Yea, some (many) of these speed test results appear to be using theoretical BS. And the sad thing about it is the great majority of folks believe the results. I guess that is fine if it makes them happy they are getting what they are paying for.

Here's one of my earlier posts on these faster-than-light, 25th century Thai ISP speed test results which uses some real world/current day electronics & physics laws compared to Thai ISP speed results/laws (a.k.a., hidden/cached/in-Thailand servers which many times cause false results on speed test programs): http://www.thaivisa....ost__p__4184085

[Phil Conners]

Ok so what about this screenshot of a utorrent session I have running in the background then?

Notice the 829 kB/s download speed

PS. Yes I know the ping value is way off, ignore it

[Tywais]

Yes, torrents will utilize bandwidth well as it is multi-pathed/multi-sourced and majority is download with small uploads for syncing pieces. Try and find a torrent with a single seed though and see what happens.

[Phil Conners]

Yes I know, even with my 3BB premier account before the maximum I could get down in one stream was about 50 kB/s. That hasn't changed since going to 3BB standard.

Things like Youtube generally plays fine, but if you find a video that isn't already cached in Thailand it'll be unwatchable due to pauses when the speed isn't fast enough. Only way around is to turn off the sound and throw it in the background, then once it has played fully you can replay it from the cache. This and being unable to video chat with friends in Europe is what bothers me most.

For browsing and other stuff even a 1M line would be fine.

[anothertorres]

here is the speed from ftp://ftp1.optonline.net/ (N. America)

microsoft test:

[Tywais]

For those technically interested, here is the real scoop on data travel - as you can see, it doesn't even travel at the speed of light in either fiber or copper. So, some trivia below.

The speed of light is of relevance to communications. For example, given the equatorial circumference of the Earth is about 40,075 km and c about 300,000 km/s, the theoretical shortest time for a piece of information to travel half the globe along the surface is about 67 milliseconds. When light is travelling around the globe in an optical fibre, the actual transit time is longer, in part because the speed of light is slower by about 35% in an optical fibre, depending on its refractive index n.[67] Furthermore, straight lines rarely occur in global communications situations, and delays are created when the signal passes through an electronic switch or signal regenerator

Wiki

Electricity flowing through

a gas, or having to work its way through electronic components such as

resistors or capacitors, can be slowed to speeds of 60 to 80 percent of

light speed. However, that's still fast enough that you can safely expect

the light to come on as soon as you flick the switch.

Madsci

BTW, electrons in a wire move at only 1 meter in about 2.8 hours.

[Pib]

here is the speed from ftp://ftp1.optonline.net/ (N. America)

microsoft test:

That's a good speed result on the Microsoft test. Using the Microsoft test I'm lucky to get around 1Mb on my TOT 6Mb plan. Usually when using other speed test programs like speedtest.net to international web sites I get in the 1 to 2Mb range, but for in-Thailand speed I get around 5.2Mb 24/7. When downloading files using a download manager I get in the 3 to 5Mb range. Pings results are always realistic also. I don't think TOT has figured out yet how to fake speed test results or they are too busy suing to stop 3G moving forward. But I will have to say the 6Mb plan has been very reliable.

Sometime over the next month (I hope) I will be switching to True "Cable" internet (10Mb to 100Mb....I'm going with the 20Mb/2Mb package @ 1299 baht/mo) when ever they finish installing the cable TV/internet trunk line in my moobaan. The installer is at a standstill now awaiting True to get more trunk line parts in (i.e., amplifiers, couplers, etc) to finish my approx 750 home moobaan. True had an in-moobaan signup a month ago and was promising everyone they would finish trunk line installation and begin individual home hookups in the third week of March...it ain't happened. Rumor has it they are only 80% complete, don't want to starts individual home hookups until the entire moobaan is complete, and as mentioned they are at a standstill awaiting more installation parts to come in. Poor planning on the parts required to complete the job.. Sure home the cable TV and cable internet service works good whenever they hook me up....I'm thinking and hoping it will be good service. And I already now from other people who have the True cable internet that it provides bogus ping and speed results, but is still definitely faster than ADSL and provides a higher quality of service for video streaming.

[joeed]

I have also had reliability and speed issues with 3BB in the past and that's when I was tempted to move to their premier package.

When I asked for some details, they told me that for standard packages the bandwidth is shared amongst 10 subscribers and for Premier package it is shared with 5 other subscribers. If it's not clear, for 10 subscribers of the 6 Mbps package, 3BB will allocate/provision 6 Mbps of bandwidth and it will be shared by everyone. That's why you get more or less the full speed when it's not heavily used and lower speeds during peak hours. That's a common practice from all ISPs all around the world and 1 for 10 or 1 for 20 is not out of line, again it's standard values used by ISPs.

Premier package also has a higher priority on international routers which give a better bandwidth and lower latency during peak hours.

In the end I thought it was not worth it as the premier package doesn't guarantee you any better reliability and to be honest I have the 8 Mbps package here and it's running at full speed most of the time.

Most of the issues encountered here with 3BB are due to problems with the lines/physical issues on the DSL equipment and for this the Premier package doesn't make any difference. From my experience, when 3BB is up, it's up and it's running fine.

For a fraction of the cost of the premier package I opted for a 2nd internet line using cable and both DSL/cable connected to a dual wan router load balancing the traffic between the 2 connections and that gives me the reliability I need.

[Phil Conners]

For a fraction of the cost of the premier package I opted for a 2nd internet line using cable and both DSL/cable connected to a dual wan router load balancing the traffic between the 2 connections and that gives me the reliability I need.

That's an excellent point!

[gmac]

Yes I know, even with my 3BB premier account before the maximum I could get down in one stream was about 50 kB/s. That hasn't changed since going to 3BB standard.

Things like Youtube generally plays fine, but if you find a video that isn't already cached in Thailand it'll be unwatchable due to pauses when the speed isn't fast enough. Only way around is to turn off the sound and throw it in the background, then once it has played fully you can replay it from the cache. This and being unable to video chat with friends in Europe is what bothers me most.

For browsing and other stuff even a 1M line would be fine.

Are you saying that video chat with friends in Europe worked fine on the 2MB (now 3MB) Premier package but doesn't on a 3BB standard package?

[Phil Conners]

Are you saying that video chat with friends in Europe worked fine on the 2MB (now 3MB) Premier package but doesn't on a 3BB standard package?

No, I'm saying there is absolutely no difference. It doesn't work very well with either package.

[gmac]

Are you saying that video chat with friends in Europe worked fine on the 2MB (now 3MB) Premier package but doesn't on a 3BB standard package?

No, I'm saying there is absolutely no difference. It doesn't work very well with either package.

Thanks very much.....I didn't want to downgrade from crap to supercrap but it sounds like I could save myself a couple of hundred Baht a month!

[Pib]

Are you saying that video chat with friends in Europe worked fine on the 2MB (now 3MB) Premier package but doesn't on a 3BB standard package?

No, I'm saying there is absolutely no difference. It doesn't work very well with either package.

A typical problem with Thai ISPs is video streaming...just too many hops/distance from Thailand to farang land, pausing, limited international bandwidth, etc. Each time I've upgraded with TOT as they upgraded their capability to my moobaan (ie.., 2Mb to 4Mb to the current 6Mb) the video streaming got a "little" better/smoother but still pauses way too much.

[nikster]

I am frustrated with my standard 3BB and TOT lines, going to give Premier a shot when I get back home.

What I found with my standard 3BB package is that it's pretty slow at times, and fast at other times. It's very unreliable.

Speedtest.net is useless as they're cheating on it - anything you see on it is a lie.

[Pib]

I am frustrated with my standard 3BB and TOT lines, going to give Premier a shot when I get back home.

What I found with my standard 3BB package is that it's pretty slow at times, and fast at other times. It's very unreliable.

Speedtest.net is useless as they're cheating on it - anything you see on it is a lie.

Since I've only been on TOT and JINET (JINET on a TOT line/DSLAM), Speedtest.net seems to have given me accurate speed results and ping times. In fact, I've never got a faster-than-light ping time on TOT and the speed results to international sites seems to be correct by reflecting a 0.6Mb to 2Mb speed on my 6Mb package. But that just me on my TOT package and at my location. However, based on speed results I've seen posted on Thaivisa by True and 3BB customers, faster-than-light ping times and full package speed to international web sites seems to be common....of course, all the faster-than-light ping times are false and many of the speed results are false...all caused by in-Thailand/cached/hidden servers. As long as a person knows this and uses a variety of other speed test programs and methods to try to determine what the factual download speeds are from farang land, a person will at least know what he's really getting for his monthly internet fee. I'm just waiting for the day when I can get smooth, non-pausing streaming video almost all the time....I use to get that all the time in the States even on a 2Mb DSL package...but not here in Thailand on my previous 2Mb & 4Mb packages, or the current 6Mb package...but I realize all the additional hops/distance to farang land is causing a lot of streaming video issues. As more video content is mirrored/cached on servers in southeast Asia, hopefully streaming video will improve for all Thai ISPs, be you on TOT, True, 3BB, etc, etc, etc. Hopefully, with me being able to switch to True cable internet in the near future will also help with my streaming video issue.

PS: I don't like the new Speedtest.net interface as it runs significantly slower on my computers...guess it's the additional graphics content which means more bits and bytes to download to display each webpage.

[nikster]

I meant to say 3BB cheats on their speed tests. I don't know about others - if they're not cheating now, they certainly could in the future. You're right on that it's still relatively easy to check your real life speed.

I have MenuMeters running - it displays incoming and outgoing data rate up on my screen at all times. So I would start a random download from some open source server in the US, and check the rate I am getting - bingo, a real single-connection speed test. For multi connection any well seeded torrent works equally well.

And yeah the new Speedtest.net user interface is total garbage. Bizarre. It used to work pretty well.

[tropo]

6MB to the world. sharing is not part of the situation because you're getting 6MB no matter time of day.

I think this is wrong. No ISP in Thailand can guarantee you a speed to anywhere internationally. The only difference between the standard and premier packages is how many people you are sharing your bandwidth with in your neighborhood. Perhaps you've been lucky in your area, but don't count on it lasting.

To really know how your service is going we would need to see a lot more testing than the odd random speedtest.net test.

I've been using the premier 3BB/Maxnet service for nearly 5 years.

There's no way I always get my 3Mb to international servers and I never get the full 1Mb upload.

You certainly were game to splash out 2,500 (+ tax) to try it, especially to a company with such apalling customer service. Did you have to sign a contract or are you still month-to-month? What would make me wary about making the jump (and it's over double the cost) is that they only offer one premier service now so you will not be able to go back to the cheaper 3Mb/1Mb premier service if things don't work out. They used to have a range of premier packages.

[livinthailandos]

I to have this premier package and I pay 2500 as well per month. My experience may be different than others I can say I'm at least satisfied with the internet speed although I do know this

a. international gateway connections from thailand outward are 1 thing to note. thailand isp's are not going to invest a lot of money in infrastructure for internet use when more than 90% of users are thai's and thai's are only doing internet browsing on servers most likely located in thailand

b. to get a actually 3mb download the actually speed you would see on a speed test would be 24mb. I've experienced 3mb downloads when i was in singapore I tell you it was very good downloading applications and videos at that speed.

c. please remember thailand can't even manage to get 3G going so don't seriously expect much from the internet speeds or latency getting better just be happy your not stuck on dial up, please remember there are places where you can't even get high speed internet

d. also remember all websites are becoming more and more bloated meaning websites have way to many things on the website examples ( photos, javascripts, ads, video's etc )

as for downloads i use a download manager especially for videos and applications