Faster Internet

[Atley]

I have just been to CAT to check out options.

They have said I can get 10mps Fibre to home for 1070 connection and 1500/month.

Almost looks too good to be true, anyone tried this yet?

[Atley]

Thought I would try it out, huge improvement over ToT ADSL.

Test against: Bangkok Last Result:

Download Speed: 15383 kbps (1922.9 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 2124 kbps (265.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 135 ms

Thursday, 22 September 2011 8:34:30 PM

[Darrel]

The speed within Thailand doesnt really matter much, to most non-Thai people anyway.

[Pib]

There is some discussion and speed test results on the CAT Fibre plans starting at Post #364 in the Topic titled True Ultra HiSpeed Internet. The poster shariq607 has posted quite a few results/crossfeed on his CAT Fibre 25Mb/3Mb plan...you will notice he is getting some absolute awesome international speeds, but his friend on the same plan is getting no better international speed that folks on True Cable 10/20Mb plans but with the CAT Fibre plan costing a heck of a lot more.

You would probably be safe enough in going with CAT's Fibre's 10Mb plan in you would get 10Mb "in-Thailand" speed and probably around 3-5Mb international speed, with 3-5Mb international speed to the US/Europe being about the norm (based on real world speed results versus bogus download speeds/ping times caused by in-Thailand cache servers which can skew speed test results). You also may get faster international speeds than the 3-5Mb US/Europe speeds to nearby regional servers like Singapore since that seems to be more of a direct connection from Thailand.

Always remember that just because the main trunk line is fibre or cable does not mean your international speed will be any better than on an ADSL (copper line) type plan...international speed is primarily determined by the ISP's International Gateway bandwidth capacity and how the ISP may throttle/limit international speed. Just review the posts talking the CAT Fibre plan in above mentioned Topic. Good luck.

[brain150]

Just tried their 25/3 MB Fiber plan. [8,600 THB/month !!!]

Turned out to be a total hoax.

Domestic:

Speed from Samui to BKK:

Full 25 MB down and full 3 MB up.

International:

Samui to Frankfurt [Germany]

1.7 MB down and 1.4 MB up.

Multiple speed tests showed the same results.

A call to CAT telecom came with a surprising result:

I was told as follows:

The 25/3 speed is EXCLUSIVELY for connections in Thailand !!!

On international connections the line is shared with 20 (!!!) users so the average speed to expect would be about 1-2 MB download speeds.

... TIT

Tested the connection on a 3BB connection for 590.00 THB/month with following results:

Domestic:

Speed from Samui to BKK:

6 MB down and 3 MB up.

International:

Samui to Frankfurt [Germany]

6 MB down and 3 MB up.

Cancelled the CAT Fiber, told them to pick up the equipment and leave it for good.

Went to 3BB and ordered a 5/1 premium plan for 2,900 THB/month.

Got the line the next day:

So far:

On ALL speedtests [multiple tests over the last 6 hours] the result is allways the same:

FULL speed up and down domestically AND international: 5 MB down and 1 MB up !!![stabil and reliable]

As a result:

CAT Fiber is WAY too expensive and not even close to what they promise !!!

[Pib]

So far:

On ALL speedtests [multiple tests over the last 6 hours] the result is allways the same:

FULL speed up and down domestically AND international: 5 MB down and 1 MB up !!![stabil and reliable]

If you are getting basically 5Mb to most international servers "and" unrealistic ping times (say ping times around 25 to 75ms to US/Europe sites) you are getting bogus speed test results due to in-Thailand cache servers fooling the speed test program. Be sure that is not happening to you in your testing. But at 2900 baht/month for a 5Mb/1Mb plan hopefully it's a true 5Mb to most international sites.

Also, good recap on your experience with the CAT Fiber plan...it just reiterates that person should not think just because a type of transport line such as fiber or cable internet line usually brings visions and hopes of high speed internet to anywhere in the world, a person needs to remember that the fiber/cable running from your residence to a central connection point (just like how an ADSL copper/phone line runs from a residence to a central connection point) does not mean that "after" the central connection point the speed to the rest of the world is any faster. It's the "whole" network from your residence to the ISP's national/international gateways, bandwidth policies implemented by your ISP, and the amount of bandwidth that portion of the network is able to carry that primarily determines you speed. Bandwidht chokepoints anywhere along the line can turn potentially very fast lines into a slow lines...and of course how much bandwidth the server you are connecting to somewhere on Earth can pump out.

[muratremix]

So where they provide this fibre to home? Anybody in mooban using fiber internet by any chance?

[Darrel]

Just tried their 25/3 MB Fiber plan. [8,600 THB/month !!!]

8.6K? <deleted>?

You can rent a nice condo for that.

[nikster]

Just tried their 25/3 MB Fiber plan. [8,600 THB/month !!!]

Turned out to be a total hoax.

Domestic:

Speed from Samui to BKK:

Full 25 MB down and full 3 MB up.

International:

Samui to Frankfurt [Germany]

1.7 MB down and 1.4 MB up.

Multiple speed tests showed the same results.

A call to CAT telecom came with a surprising result:

I was told as follows:

The 25/3 speed is EXCLUSIVELY for connections in Thailand !!!

On international connections the line is shared with 20 (!!!) users so the average speed to expect would be about 1-2 MB download speeds.

... TIT

Tested the connection on a 3BB connection for 590.00 THB/month with following results:

Domestic:

Speed from Samui to BKK:

6 MB down and 3 MB up.

International:

Samui to Frankfurt [Germany]

6 MB down and 3 MB up.

Cancelled the CAT Fiber, told them to pick up the equipment and leave it for good.

Went to 3BB and ordered a 5/1 premium plan for 2,900 THB/month.

Got the line the next day:

So far:

On ALL speedtests [multiple tests over the last 6 hours] the result is allways the same:

FULL speed up and down domestically AND international: 5 MB down and 1 MB up !!![stabil and reliable]

As a result:

CAT Fiber is WAY too expensive and not even close to what they promise !!!

For your information: 3BB cheats on speed tests, so forget about that for testing your connection speed. You'll always get full line speed to Bangkok. No need to test.

Apparently CAT doesn't cheat, which is surprising - all the other providers do it at this point.

That said, I am also using 3BB premier 5/1 and I am really happy with it. It does have true 5/1 international speeds, as evidenced by my real world use. That is if I upload data to a random server, MenuMeters shows me uploading at 100KB/s (1Mbit). Ditto for download. 3BB premier is the way to go for worry free internet in Thailand.

A 10Mbit or 16Mbit normal connection will be cheaper and better for torrents and a few other things - software update, and other stuff that's cached locally or has a virtual cache in Thailand, because those things go at the full line speed within Thailand. But if you need internet that just works, no matter what, it's 3BB premier.

[hml367]

For your information: 3BB cheats on speed tests, so forget about that for testing your connection speed. You'll always get full line speed to Bangkok. No need to test.

Apparently CAT doesn't cheat, which is surprising - all the other providers do it at this point.

That said, I am also using 3BB premier 5/1 and I am really happy with it. It does have true 5/1 international speeds, as evidenced by my real world use. That is if I upload data to a random server, MenuMeters shows me uploading at 100KB/s (1Mbit). Ditto for download. 3BB premier is the way to go for worry free internet in Thailand.

A 10Mbit or 16Mbit normal connection will be cheaper and better for torrents and a few other things - software update, and other stuff that's cached locally or has a virtual cache in Thailand, because those things go at the full line speed within Thailand. But if you need internet that just works, no matter what, it's 3BB premier.

Is 3bb "cheating" on speed tests or is it just that the speed test is "cached" as you talk about in the last paragraph?

I have 3bb Premier for a while now and I have never gotten 5 mb download from outside Thailand. So far, it has been acceptable to me at about 1mb download.

I have had a few different isp and the one the was good the longest was iPSTAR. That was before adsl was working good and up until it was sold. Since then, about 1 year is the maximum any isp has been good for me. I hope it is different with 3bb.

MSPain

[muratremix]

Don't you think 3BB premier is just too expensive for 5/1 Mbit?

Am I the only one happy person with plain TOT 9Mbit?

[jonnyscot]

Hi, I'm using cat fibre cable net into the house, had it for a few months now, package costing 650 per month, Incl free router if paying 6 months up front,,not too much sure about download speeds although i did a test but those figures mean nothing to me but I'm having no prob's streaming movies and sporting events at decent quality without having pauses all through the program waiting for it to load..

[shariq607]

Don't you think 3BB premier is just too expensive for 5/1 Mbit?

Am I the only one happy person with plain TOT 9Mbit?

The 3bb 5/1 Plan is a far more stable plan then the Tot 9 Mb

It has far less users assigned with you

People in thailand are willing to pay a premium price If they can get a stable Internet

[muratremix]

Don't you think 3BB premier is just too expensive for 5/1 Mbit?

Am I the only one happy person with plain TOT 9Mbit?

The 3bb 5/1 Plan is a far more stable plan then the Tot 9 Mb

It has far less users assigned with you

People in thailand are willing to pay a premium price If they can get a stable Internet

Three times more expensive for half the speed, that is your definition of stable?

You can always backup your internet with another 3G provider in mission critical times if your ADSL fails. Sometimes TOT international connections are oversaturated due to technical problems but they automatically fix it when this happens.

[shariq607]

Don't you think 3BB premier is just too expensive for 5/1 Mbit?

Am I the only one happy person with plain TOT 9Mbit?

The 3bb 5/1 Plan is a far more stable plan then the Tot 9 Mb

It has far less users assigned with you

People in thailand are willing to pay a premium price If they can get a stable Internet

Three times more expensive for half the speed, that is your definition of stable?

You can always backup your internet with another 3G provider in mission critical times if your ADSL fails. Sometimes TOT international connections are oversaturated due to technical problems but they automatically fix it when this happens.

The 3bb premier has far less contention ratio i think 5:1 where as Tot has 50:1 or even more

[muratremix]

TOT has over 45Gbit international peering themselves. Tot also popular among Thai population which is more interested in Thai sites so it works better than expected.

3bb Premier must be 10:1 contention or 20:1, it is impossible 5:1. I get 1-1.5-2 Mbit speeds with tot by single connection but if I increase connections I get full 9 Mbits easily.

[Pib]

TOT has over 45Gbit international peering themselves. Tot also popular among Thai population which is more interested in Thai sites so it works better than expected.

3bb Premier must be 10:1 contention or 20:1, it is impossible 5:1. I get 1-1.5-2 Mbit speeds with tot by single connection but if I increase connections I get full 9 Mbits easily.

Yea, I've never heard of a 5:1 contention ratio. Generally a 10:1 ratio is given for premium business plans, 20:1 for general business plans, and around 40 to 50:1 for standard consumer plans.

Generally, a lower contention ratio is a good thing if the main trunk line feeding the individual lines has adequate bandwidth to fully feed the individual lines. Let's say a main trunk line has a 25Mb capacity and there are 10 individual lines tapping into it/feeding off it....kinda like a 10:1 contention ratio...well, with all 10 people using their lines they would get 2.5Mb bandwidth each. But say another main trunk line has a 100Mb capacity and there are 40 individual lines tapping into it/feeding off it...kinda like a 40:1 contention ratio...well, with all 40 people using their lines they would get 2.5Mb bandwidth each. So, each individual on the low and high contention ratio plans are getting the same bandwidth but I expect the 5:1 plan will be significantly more expensive.

Now contention ratio and possible bandwidth provided is more complicated that the simple example above but just a low contention ratio doesn't automatically mean higher bandwidth unless the ISPs whole network has the bandwidth capacity to provide high national and international bandwidth to it's customers.