True Or 3Bb

[SweRob]

Hey all.

Im trying to decide wich company to deliver my Internet at home, ive previously used the shared internet that is available in my condo, the shared internet is delivered by True and im pretty happy with the dload speeds i get with it. But not at all happy about my Ping/Latency rates.

My criteria is not primarily download speeds, i rather sacrifice high download speeds for a better Ping rate.

If anyone out there can give me feedback on good/bad experiances regarding both Companies mentionend regarding latency towards Europe and the States then i would be greatfull.

Im gonna start playing a new MMORPG game around September/Oktober and im gonna need a steady Ping around 300ms, preferably lower. Currently with the Shared True internet line i get ping rates from 600-1000ms.

Edited June 20, 2011 by SweRob

[Supernova]

Your ping rates are not going to improve unless you move physically closer to the (game) server. 250ms-350ms is about as good as it gets.

[SweRob]

<br />Your ping rates are not going to improve unless you move physically closer to the (game) server. 250ms-350ms is about as good as it gets.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Im aware that i wont get better latancy then 250-350ms, alltough that will be a great improvement on what i have today.

But im looking for as stable latancy as possible, i actually dont care about the download speed at all. With these criterias do you think 3BB or True would be the better choice?

[colinthailand20005]

From my own personal experience, I consider True to be a very unprofessional provider of all services, they do not have any structured complaints procedure, and if they can't figure out how to fix something which could easily be fixed, say sorry cannot & they are very short staffed on English speaking customer services operators, it took me 4 days to speak to someone.

Avoid Truemove like the plague!

I am now a TOT customer and am very happy, I have not had any need to complain and cannot foresee any.

[colinthailand20005]

I play online gaming through TOT3G and I have not had any problems, my ping speed to the USA is about between 100-150ms, sometimes less but never over 200.

[negreanu]

I play online gaming through TOT3G and I have not had any problems, my ping speed to the USA is about between 100-150ms, sometimes less but never over 200.

Really? Which device and package do you use with TOT3G?

Whats the speedtests like?

[Phil Conners]

I play online gaming through TOT3G and I have not had any problems, my ping speed to the USA is about between 100-150ms, sometimes less but never over 200.

I find it hard to believe you can get a ping under ~250ms from Thailand alone due to the distance - and that' using a fixed line. AFAIK a 3G connection is going to be even slower. Are you sure the server you ping is actually in the US? Would you mind disclosing which server it is?

My own ping to the US East coast is pretty stable ~285ms. ~50ms of that is routing within Thailand, so I would think even if you lived next to the international gateway you'd be hard pressed to get under ~220ms.

If the choice was between 3BB and True I would take 3BB. Having said that my standard disclaimer apply: It seems to be pot luck which ISP is good in Thailand. Regardless of ISP you will find people who love it and others who hate it.

[bubba]

I play online gaming through TOT3G and I have not had any problems, my ping speed to the USA is about between 100-150ms, sometimes less but never over 200.

I find it hard to believe you can get a ping under ~250ms from Thailand alone due to the distance - and that' using a fixed line. AFAIK a 3G connection is going to be even slower. Are you sure the server you ping is actually in the US? Would you mind disclosing which server it is?

My own ping to the US East coast is pretty stable ~285ms. ~50ms of that is routing within Thailand, so I would think even if you lived next to the international gateway you'd be hard pressed to get under ~220ms.

If the choice was between 3BB and True I would take 3BB. Having said that my standard disclaimer apply: It seems to be pot luck which ISP is good in Thailand. Regardless of ISP you will find people who love it and others who hate it.

I'm not debating that distance affects ping time, but if electrons travel at the speed of light, wouldn't distance have a negligible effect, so long as data are travelling though fibre optics and cable (not satellite)? From what I can gather, some sort of cable connection is used for the Thailand internet gateway. Also, I have also noticed that ping times to the USA run around 200-300ms from every connection I have checked in Thailand. But I was in Dubai recently and saw ping times running around 75ms there, and Dubai is also a long way from the USA.

Just a thought.....

[Phil Conners]

Interesting question. According to this website the shortest theoretic ping time between Thailand and USA would be around 70ms. The reason why you never see these speeds are:

1. The actual distance traveled will be longer, more like zig zag than a straight line.
   
2. Repeaters, switches and routers will slow down transfer speeds. The more equipment the signal has to pass through (for example routers), the longer it will take to reach its target.
   
3. The actual speed of the signal will never quite match the speed of light. Even with fiber optics (glass) the speed of light is about 30% slower than through vacuum or air, and most of the distance covered will be through fiber.
   
4. A beam of light bounces around like a pinball when it travels along the thin (admittedly extremely thin) fiber, and that will of course make the distance traveled even longer.
   

With all this in mind, you should probably double the “ideal” response times shown above for a more realistic target to aim at. It’s useful to know when there is room to push for better network performance, and when the actual physical limits set in.

Still, this is the theory. I still stand by my statement which is made out of many years of experience in the real world.

[negreanu]

ping times running around 75ms there

That is the ping time to the ISP's Caching server / Invisible proxy. You can see the same result in ping times here in Thailand on some ISP's such as TRUE - it depends on your allocated dynamic IP when you run the test. Some dynamic IP's route through their caching server and you get stupid unrealistic ping times such as that. But on other occasions some dynamic IP ranges bypass that caching server and you get 250-350ms which is correct.

You cannot achieve 75ms from Middle East to US or of course Thailand to the USA. Remember this is the roundtrip distance there and back again and stated above not a straight line distance either. Faster than electron speeds can travel.

Edited June 22, 2011 by negreanu

[Pib]

ping times running around 75ms there

That is the ping time to the ISP's Caching server / Invisible proxy. You can see the same result in ping times here in Thailand on some ISP's such as TRUE - it depends on your allocated dynamic IP when you run the test. Some dynamic IP's route through their caching server and you get stupid unrealistic ping times such as that. But on other occasions some dynamic IP ranges bypass that caching server and you get 250-350ms which is correct.

Yeap, would agree. I've been on True Cable internet for three days now. On Day 1 I got realistic ping times, on Day 2 I got bogus faster than light ping times, and on Day 3/today I'm back to realistic ping times.

Since Thai ISPs reset/issue out a new dynamic IP address to a person's connection every 24 hours, it sure appears my Day 1 and Day 3 IP addresses probably were not routed through a hidden cache server here in Bangkok, but on Day 2 my IP address was making my internet electrons appear to be going much faster than the speed of light...I was interneting at Warp 5.

[Lorin]

I had True connection few times in BKK, mostly crap. With 3BB only good experiences so far in 2 different locations( HH and Phuket).

[woodyleonhard]

ping times running around 75ms there

That is the ping time to the ISP's Caching server / Invisible proxy. You can see the same result in ping times here in Thailand on some ISP's such as TRUE - it depends on your allocated dynamic IP when you run the test. Some dynamic IP's route through their caching server and you get stupid unrealistic ping times such as that. But on other occasions some dynamic IP ranges bypass that caching server and you get 250-350ms which is correct.

You nailed it. I ran a series of articles in the Phuket Gazette on this topic, earlier this month. We changed over to DSLReports on phuketinternetspeed.com because we were getting artificially high measured download speeds (and ping speeds), due to ISP caching.

Phuket Gazette articles here and here.

Note that caching is GOOD! It just messes up speed and ping testing.

Edited June 26, 2011 by woodyleonhard

[SweRob]

Looks like im going to go with 3BB then. Since the fibre cable out of Thailand seem to be in the south thru Singapore, would you get better latency if you lived in the south, like Phuket rather then Bangkok (latency towards Europe). Or is it same same?

[Pib]

Looks like im going to go with 3BB then. Since the fibre cable out of Thailand seem to be in the south thru Singapore, would you get better latency if you lived in the south, like Phuket rather then Bangkok (latency towards Europe). Or is it same same?

I doubt you would get better latency if living in Phuket compared to Bangkok since Bangkok seems to be the hub for incoming/outgoing internet for Thailand. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to generally see a Phuket connection (or most any Thailand location) to be routed through Bangkok first and then on to Singapore (or wherever first outside Thailand hop), which would make the latency probably 25ms or so longer.