3Bb Plans Upgraded

[Tywais]

It is unlikely that a fiber is actually on the 'last kilometer' run. A fiber media converter or a fiber modem would be required on each premise and those are quite expensive items and the cost for the subscriber would be prohibitive. I suspect that the fiber goes to the DSLAM and from there copper to the subscriber point.

This is for the general user and I'm sure direct fiber to subscriber can be done, such as Naam's, but at a high install price. But that would be the exception and not the rule. IMHO.

Can we confirm that Naam had a fiber line brought into his house or could it have just been the HFC that is commonly being used around the dark side already.

Based on this comment by Naam, I would say he got direct fiber.

"last week Sophon (in collaboration with 3BB) installed fibre optic to my home. 800m x 60 Baht = 48,000 Baht, some sort of distribution box, a "media converter" and a special router. total cost 63,500 Baht, contract 20/2mb."

[Jayman]

It is unlikely that a fiber is actually on the 'last kilometer' run. A fiber media converter or a fiber modem would be required on each premise and those are quite expensive items and the cost for the subscriber would be prohibitive. I suspect that the fiber goes to the DSLAM and from there copper to the subscriber point.

This is for the general user and I'm sure direct fiber to subscriber can be done, such as Naam's, but at a high install price. But that would be the exception and not the rule. IMHO.

Can we confirm that Naam had a fiber line brought into his house or could it have just been the HFC that is commonly being used around the dark side already.

Based on this comment by Naam, I would say he got direct fiber.

"last week Sophon (in collaboration with 3BB) installed fibre optic to my home. 800m x 60 Baht = 48,000 Baht, some sort of distribution box, a "media converter" and a special router. total cost 63,500 Baht, contract 20/2mb."

Yeah that could very well be. I wonder why HFC is not available to him being only 1.5Km from sukumvit. Like I have said, I just recently had it installed at no cost and I get proper speeds for 900thb a month. I'm on the DS as well and as the bird flys I'm 1.7 Km from sukumvit.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Jayman

[Tywais]

Yeah that could very well be. I wonder why HFC is not available to him being only 1.5Km from sukumvit. Like I have said, I just recently had it installed at no cost and I get proper speeds for 900thb a month. I'm on the DS as well and as the bird flys I'm 1.7 Km from sukumvit.

I suspect, since he can afford it what with 25 air conditioners and a multi-lingual gardener, he wanted the best possible line.

[TommoPhysicist]

I can't believe how fast my basic 590bht 3BB package is now!

[jbrain]

It is unlikely that a fiber is actually on the 'last kilometer' run. A fiber media converter or a fiber modem would be required on each premise and those are quite expensive items and the cost for the subscriber would be prohibitive. I suspect that the fiber goes to the DSLAM and from there copper to the subscriber point.

This is for the general user and I'm sure direct fiber to subscriber can be done, such as Naam's, but at a high install price. But that would be the exception and not the rule. IMHO.

Can we confirm that Naam had a fiber line brought into his house or could it have just been the HFC that is commonly being used around the dark side already.

Based on this comment by Naam, I would say he got direct fiber.

"last week Sophon (in collaboration with 3BB) installed fibre optic to my home. 800m x 60 Baht = 48,000 Baht, some sort of distribution box, a "media converter" and a special router. total cost 63,500 Baht, contract 20/2mb."

Yeah that could very well be. I wonder why HFC is not available to him being only 1.5Km from sukumvit. Like I have said, I just recently had it installed at no cost and I get proper speeds for 900thb a month. I'm on the DS as well and as the bird flys I'm 1.7 Km from sukumvit.

I think Naam's house is closer to 15 Km from Sukhumvith rather than 1.5 Km.

[jbrain]

It is unlikely that a fiber is actually on the 'last kilometer' run. A fiber media converter or a fiber modem would be required on each premise and those are quite expensive items and the cost for the subscriber would be prohibitive. I suspect that the fiber goes to the DSLAM and from there copper to the subscriber point.

This is for the general user and I'm sure direct fiber to subscriber can be done, such as Naam's, but at a high install price. But that would be the exception and not the rule. IMHO.

Can we confirm that Naam had a fiber line brought into his house or could it have just been the HFC that is commonly being used around the dark side already.

Based on this comment by Naam, I would say he got direct fiber.

"last week Sophon (in collaboration with 3BB) installed fibre optic to my home. 800m x 60 Baht = 48,000 Baht, some sort of distribution box, a "media converter" and a special router. total cost 63,500 Baht, contract 20/2mb."

Would 60 Bt/meter be the cost of fiber optic cable?

[Jayman]

we are not in a remote area but 1.5km east of Sukhumvit. installing my line was rather easy because the village i live in has storm drains left and right of the streets in which all connections are laid.

I think Naam's house is closer to 15 Km from Sukhumvith rather than 1.5 Km.

Not according to Naam.

[Tywais]

Would 60 Bt/meter be the cost of fiber optic cable?

A few years ago our university upgraded their backbone to 1Gbps fiber optic. We had an option to stay with our copper connection to the backbone or upgrade to fiber. The department offered to pay for the fiber to our facility. Cost - 125,000 Baht and 3-4 hundred meters. High quality, outdoor multi-fiber cable is expensive. That was some years ago and fiber is probably somewhat cheaper now but still high.

[Pib]

I had TRUE fiber installed to my house on the darkside just last week and paid nothing for the install.900thb a month gets me 15/1.5 (is actually 16/1.6) and that comes with 72 channels of true tv for the missus.

Actually, its coaxial cable that also carries TrueVisions TV frequencies; not fiber optics.

Edit...add image: the coaxial cable trunk line used to run the signal around the area/soi's looks like the cable pictured on the far right. And from that trunk line to a residence cable modem/router they run common coaxial RG6/11 just like screwed onto a TV or settop box.

Yes.. the line to the house is coax.. but it's their fiber connection at the hub.. Or so they advertise it as such. They are calling it a fiber connection.

Oh, I have no doubt that True's DOCSIS has some fiber involved possibly to main nodes. But when they start running the line to moobaans/soi's the signal goes via coaxial cable. My western Bangkok moobaan is rather large with approx 750 single family homes, many soi's, etc. The trunk line that run up and down around 5-10 miles of soi's is coaxial cable like I mentioned in my earlier post...and that same trunk line leaves the moobaan up a main soi and just kinda disappears into the distance...it's probably hooks to a node somewhere that is quite possibly fed by fiber optics.

Personally, I haven't seen True advertise Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) as fiber but that sure don't mean salespersons and technicians don't refer to it that way sometimes because it's easier to say and understand by most...and sounds more whiz-bang. Saying coaxial cable just usually leaves a layman with a blank stare, but saying fiber usually avoids the stare. Kinda like how Thai's refer to a CT Scan or MRI (and sometimes a Mammogram and Ultrasound) as an X-Ray.

Now companies like TOT are converting to fiber-copper line hybrid for their phone and ADSL lines. In my moobaan and right after the 2011 flood when submerged most of the TOT nearly ground-level junction boxes TOT began stringing fiber optics into my moobaan. The trunk cable look similar to the DOCSIS coaxial cable but inside he cable was completely different....inside that trunk cable was 8 fiber optics lines. I thought to myself that TOT was installing Fiber To The Home (FTTH) in my moobaan since True pretty much stole most of their internet customers in my moobaan when the DOCSIS went operational in Jun 11. But as it turns out the fiber optic trunk line was just fed to new fiber optic/electronic junction boxes mounted high on the pole versus ground level. Then all the copper phone/ADSL lines running around the moobaan were hooked into these new junction boxes. Since I'm happy with my True DOCSIS internet, I never did follow-up with TOT to see if they now offered higher speed ADSL after install of the fiber optics trunk line and junction boxes because before the max ADSL speed to the moobaan was 6Mb. I read that some of TOT's FTTH installations are really just fiber to junction boxes and then some type of copper cable to the residence which could still be a good distance away.

But hey, whether the internet signal runs on coaxial cable, fiber optics, or phone line, as long as it gives the speed advertised and reliability then all is good.

[Stefanix]

I was wondering why Dr. Jayman got only 1.5 Mbps uplink, but HFC is of course the explanation. The good thing with true FTTH is that uplink is no problem and can be even a few 10s Mbps. I think the fiber itself is not that expensive. But all the termination (ONTs), optical splitters, IPTV boxes and what else makes it a bit more expensive. Especially the distribution of the TV signal is probably cheaper with HFC.

I hope to get a more reasonable Internet connection here in East BKK soon, preferable real FTTH.

If there is some resistance to cable certain areas, or they ask an unreasonable price, I thought already it might make sense to get a 100M/50M from 3BB (7000THB) and share it with some neighbours. Should be good for about 10 households. Only drawback: Just 1 IP. Some people might want certain ports open and forwarded.

[Pib]

Really incorrect to refer to True DOCSIS as FTTH home as fiber optics is not involved, especially anywhere near the home. It's primarily an RF coaial cable which also has TrueVisions TV channels running on the cable. See this post of mine where I took some picture of the DOCSIS trunk line and line equipment installed throughout my moobaan. Post

And the one picture which shows a trunk line "tap" that is where a plain-old RG6/11 coaxial cable like you screw into the back of your TV or TV settop box is screwed into the tap and then run to your residence. Right after the RG6/11 enters your residence its connected to a lightning surge protector/isolator (looks kinda like an inline amp), and either onto a common two-way RF splitter with one output to the TV settop box(es) and the other to your cable modem.....or if no TrueVisions TV service is involved, direct from the lightning surge protector to your cable modem which that RG6/11 screws on just like the cable on your TV/settop box.

For the True DOCSIS system there is no fiber involved anywhere close to your residence....maybe at a main node miles aways where the coaxial trunk line links up to but no fiber close to your residence. And just because True uses a DOCSIS cable system don't mean it can't be durn fast as they are now offering 200Mb speed to residences and I guess they also offer a businesses an even faster version of DOCSIS where 400Mb is available if you are in the right area.

Now I can't speak to other "cable/fiber" systems from other companies that are referred to in other threads/posts...no doubt they could be very different...maybe fiber all the way to the home....maybe not.

[jbrain]

Would 60 Bt/meter be the cost of fiber optic cable?

A few years ago our university upgraded their backbone to 1Gbps fiber optic. We had an option to stay with our copper connection to the backbone or upgrade to fiber. The department offered to pay for the fiber to our facility. Cost - 125,000 Baht and 3-4 hundred meters. High quality, outdoor multi-fiber cable is expensive. That was some years ago and fiber is probably somewhat cheaper now but still high.

That was actually my point. I would be surprised if one could by fiber optic cable at 60 Bt/meter.

[noob7]

I thought, cause true has 'interesting offers, that this is the reason, that I have

Data Rate 17917 1276 kbps for 900 baht for some weeks

[Stefanix]

That was actually my point. I would be surprised if one could by fiber optic cable at 60 Bt/meter.

Well, look here: http://www.discount-low-voltage.com/Cable/Multimode-625-Fiber-Cable/AF-KR0066531001

It seems that 60 THB would cover the cable, the installation, and one beer every 10 meters.

[Pib]

I expect the B60/meter includes the material, labor, and other misc costs. In so many cases it's the labor cost within the total price that is the main cost driver.

[Stefanix]

I expect the B60/meter includes the material, labor, and other misc costs. In so many cases it's the labor cost within the total price that is the main cost driver.

Right, Pib, but how far are the masts apart? Is it 25 meter? If the cable is, let's say 20 Baht/m, this leaves 40 Baht for installation. This means 1000 Baht per mast. Should be more than enough. I mean the fiber cable is not that expensive and 60 Baht per meter can easily cover the costs. On the other hand handling and termination is more expensive than coax or 2-wire.

[Jayman]

I was wondering why Dr. Jayman got only 1.5 Mbps uplink, but HFC is of course the explanation. The good thing with true FTTH is that uplink is no problem and can be even a few 10s Mbps. I think the fiber itself is not that expensive. But all the termination (ONTs), optical splitters, IPTV boxes and what else makes it a bit more expensive. Especially the distribution of the TV signal is probably cheaper with HFC.

I hope to get a more reasonable Internet connection here in East BKK soon, preferable real FTTH.

If there is some resistance to cable certain areas, or they ask an unreasonable price, I thought already it might make sense to get a 100M/50M from 3BB (7000THB) and share it with some neighbours. Should be good for about 10 households. Only drawback: Just 1 IP. Some people might want certain ports open and forwarded.

I get 1.5M up cause that is what I pay for. Here is the TRUE promo and the different packages. You can get up to 100M/15M if you want to pay 10,000 a month for it. They even through in the platinum package for free.

[Stefanix]

You can get up to 100M/15M

Interesting. I was pretty sure that this is not possible with HFC, especially the uplink. Actually it's even 200/15 with the Gold package.

What I found on Wikipedia about DOCSIS 2.0:

Channel configuration Downstream throughput Upstream throughput Number of downstream channels Number of upstream channels DOCSIS EuroDOCSIS 4 4 171.52 (152) Mbit/s 222.48 (200) Mbit/s 122.88 (108) Mbit/s 8 4 343.04 (304) Mbit/s 444.96 (400) Mbit/s 122.88 (108) Mbit/s

Edit: I tried to paste a table here, which obviously failed. See yourself, if you want:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS

But this is the total throughput on the coax cable system, shared by all subscribers, probably under ideal conditions and with a high number of channels reserved for data. 2 or 3 Gold packages might bring this system to it's limit. Anyway, it's not as bad as I thought. And I would order it straight away, if available in my area. Anything is better than my TOT line.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Stefanix

[Pib]

I get 1.5M up cause that is what I pay for. Here is the TRUE promo and the different packages. You can get up to 100M/15M if you want to pay 10,000 a month for it. They even through in the platinum package for free.

Haven't eseen to many folks post results on the 100Mb plan, but I think I do remember one person posting some results which appeared valid vs being some bogus faster-than-the-speed-of-light results....and to international servers for single threaded operations like browsing, live video streaming, etc., he wasn't getting much better international download speed than other DOCSIS/ADSL packages; however, for multi-threaded operations like used by torrents/download manager programs he did get some high international download speeds.

[Jayman]

You can get up to 100M/15M

Interesting. I was pretty sure that this is not possible with HFC, especially the uplink. Actually it's even 200/15 with the Gold package.

What I found on Wikipedia about DOCSIS 2.0:

Channel configuration Downstream throughput Upstream throughput Number of downstream channels Number of upstream channels DOCSIS EuroDOCSIS 4 4 171.52 (152) Mbit/s 222.48 (200) Mbit/s 122.88 (108) Mbit/s 8 4 343.04 (304) Mbit/s 444.96 (400) Mbit/s 122.88 (108) Mbit/s

Edit: I tried to paste a table here, which obviously failed. See yourself, if you want:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS

But this is the total throughput on the coax cable system, shared by all subscribers, probably under ideal conditions and with a high number of channels reserved for data. 2 or 3 Gold packages might bring this system to it's limit. Anyway, it's not as bad as I thought. And I would order it straight away, if available in my area. Anything is better than my TOT line.

To go over 15Mb (or maybe 20Mb) they switch your to ver 3.0 V2.0 only works on the bottom couple packages. But I was told if I wanted to move to faster channel they would come swap out the model with a 3.0 as needed for no cost.

[Pib]

I'm on the 20Mb/2Mb plan and the first True-provided router I had, a Cisco model, and my current True-provided router, a Thomson model, are both DOCSIS 2.0. I think starting at the 30Mb plan is when they provide a DOCSIS 3.0 model.

[muratremix]

I'm on the 20Mb/2Mb plan and the first True-provided router I had, a Cisco model, and my current True-provided router, a Thomson model, are both DOCSIS 2.0. I think starting at the 30Mb plan is when they provide a DOCSIS 3.0 model.

They gave me Thomson 770WH model 2 months ago when I get my 20/2 connection. It is docsis 3.0, but no bridge mode. Anyways I'm happy with static ip method.

[NormanW]

Here are my speeds after going to Carrefour sorry Big C today to confirm. In reality, I don't trust the speed test for the same reasons as people have already mentioned. And of course speed varies with the time of day/night. Happy surfing.

[Tywais]

This site has been the most consistent at reasonably accurate speed tests without showing interference from ISP caches. This is due to the testing algorithm where data is always randomized and sent in increasingly larger blocks. It is US based so fair test of International speeds. You'll noticed proper ping results from it.

http://www.dslreport...eedtest?flash=1

On my upgraded 13Mbps 3BB line. These are of course single threaded tests as my torrents (multi threaded) sometimes do reach 10-12 Mbps

[Pib]

I'm on the 20Mb/2Mb plan and the first True-provided router I had, a Cisco model, and my current True-provided router, a Thomson model, are both DOCSIS 2.0. I think starting at the 30Mb plan is when they provide a DOCSIS 3.0 model.

They gave me Thomson 770WH model 2 months ago when I get my 20/2 connection. It is docsis 3.0, but no bridge mode. Anyways I'm happy with static ip method.

My Thomson is a TCW750-4TH which True gave me around 6 months ago when the CISCO model developed an upload problem. When you go into my Thomson's setup menu it says Standard Specification Compliant: DOCSIS 2.0.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Pib

[bartender100]

I cancelled 3BB after 2 years, very poor customer service in Pattaya in my opinion, problem for me to get an engineer, for 10 days I was getting cut off 6+ times in an hour, I called everyday sometimes 3 /4 times, was promised and engineer each time, one came after about 5 days and told me I needed a new rutour , so I spent B2000 on one, but still had the problem , emailed the company, and a director who's address I found, never got a reply.

I was polite and calm in all my contact, they did eventually fix it, the box outside needed changing but I had already subscribed to Sophon, less money but not so fast, 10MB . Ironically 3BB increased all the speeds after I cancelled.

No regrets they don't deserve the business when they can't look after a long term subscriber.

If you live in Pattaya and can get Sophon TV, I recommend you also use their broadband

[Phil Conners]

Holy crap Batman, it's bad today ....

[jbrain]

Holy crap Batman, it's bad today ....

As usual, no action is necessary, the plan is automatically upgraded by 3BB.

[Jayman]

Holy crap Batman, it's bad today ....

Mine is crappy as well right now

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Really incorrect to refer to True DOCSIS as FTTH home as fiber optics is not involved, especially anywhere near the home. It's primarily an RF coaxial cable which also has TrueVisions TV channels running on the cable. See this post of mine where I took some picture of the DOCSIS trunk line and line equipment installed throughout my moobaan. Post

....

Re the discussion above about FTTH (Fiber to the Home), there were some other threads here that discussed TOT's FTTH rollout plans. As I recall, they already are offering it in a few areas outlying or outside Bangkok. I remember when I called TOT a few months back, their CSR staff were clueless and had no idea what I was talking about. But I finally got thru to a TOT field engineer, and he said their FTTH would be available in BKK in another year or so (that was maybe six months back).

Curiously, along Sukhumvit Road near where I live lately, there's been some large coils of what look to me to be fiber cable laid out on the sidewalk...It's been sitting there for the past week or two, with no sign anyone's doing anything particular with it. But the TOT engineer I spoke with back before did promise that the Suk corridor was on their list for areas to be served with fiber.

As Pib may recall, there was one member here who posted in the other thread about getting some really terrific speeds via TOT's fiber service. But then he had a friend sign up, and the friend got nothing special speeds, despite paying for the fiber service. So hard to know just what's going on with that, and what kind of potential promise it holds.

One of the problems with all this stuff is.... in terms of international bandwidth speeds, it's hard to always know just where the problematic chokepoints are. A customer could have FTTH locally, but what's that going to mean if the international content he or she's accessing is going through the same country to country undersea connections that are used now, and presumably getting throttled somewhere along the way.

That certainly seems to be the indication, since, as mentioned above, people here can subscribe to lower or higher speed ISP plans... But no matter how high speed a plan they get and how much extra they pay, it doesn't seem to translate into any meaningfully higher single-stream speed rates for international connections (although it does indeed translate into higher overall bandwidth capacity for multi-threaded downloading).