Faster Internet In Phuket Please!

[Flying Clog]

Hello all,

Just moved to Phuket, and the house we're renting in Laguna has a diabolically slow internet connection! I'm getting 2.2 mbps on speedtest.net

Does anyone have any tips, or know of an internet provider that can do better than that?

For info, it's a Wireless-N ADSL router, looks like it's manufactured by Billion, and the service provider might be TOT judging by the stickers on the box.

Appreciate you're help...

[Pomthai]

Pick up the phone and dial 1100. TOT call center, the should be able to confuse the issue driving you to despair help somewhat. There are packages reasonably priced of 8-10 megs. My home service is TOT 8 or 10 megs and I get relatively consistent 7meg download speeds.

Otherwise if 1100 are useless - try the Thalang office just before the Thalang lights on the left as you approach the main north south road.

Good luck, you'll need some of that too.

[LivinginKata]

Suspect you have the cheapest TOT package. Try upgrading it, but to be honest best change to 3BB and sign up for the 13 Meg deal. All sort of options available.

[NamKangMan]

Suspect you have the cheapest TOT package. Try upgrading it, but to be honest best change to 3BB and sign up for the 13 Meg deal. All sort of options available.

I'll second that. I'm with 3bb, and have been for a while. Not blistering speed, but probably the most reliable internet out of the companies I have tried.

[Sandman77]

Every where same in Thailand the lines old and not good here on country side in Isaan I have instable 1.4 to 2,4 go up and down quickly technician says in my homecountry says this happen when somewhere is a oxidation at end of cables in the main telephone box where cable come to your house

But maybe in Phuket I could imagine that true cable Internet is avalible?

Sent from my iPhone using ThaiVisa app

[pagallim]

But maybe in Phuket I could imagine that true cable Internet is avalible?

Sent from my iPhone using ThaiVisa app

Over the last 5 years I've had TOT for most of it, then tried 3BBB for a while. Currently have had True cable internet for the last 6 months, and it's proved to be the most consistent performer. I have the 10 Mb package, and this is what I've just recorded:

[Shot]

I've had 3BB twice. Shame on me. ..twice. TOT has much better service in Kamala.

Didn’t Woody do an overall best service in Phuket article a year or so ago?

Edited February 2, 2013 by Shot

[Jimi007]

You can take a look at Woody's speed reporting website and look up reports for your area.

http://www.khunwoody.com/phuket-internet-speed/

I have two ISPs. 3BB, which always works and CAT-KPP which is faster for bit torrents, but it seems to go out fairly often.

[NamKangMan]

I believe the closer you are to the exchange, the faster the internet. Does anyone know where the exchange is on Phuket? Maybe there is more than one. I'm not asking out of necessity, just curiosity.

[JetsetBkk]

When living in Phuket town, I had few problems with TOT and their Billion router/modem. Now in the south of the island, 3BB seem to be everywhere and I've had few problems with them and their Huawei router/modem.

You'll never get more than 1 or 2 mbps downloads internationally - they throttle the lines. If you really want to know what's going on have a look at http://www.khunwoody...internet-speed/ [Edit: I see Jimi007 beat me to it!]

If you use torrents, you'll get better speeds down because you have multiple connections to the torrent file.

If you use Youtube, you may get better speeds because a lot of the files are cached locally and/or there is a Youtube (Google) server near by. Ditto Adobe, Microsoft, etc.

If you go to some obscure international site, you may get only a few hundred kbps down.

It's funny talking about speed on Thaivisa, because this website is one of the slowest around. It just took over a minute after clicking on "Add Reply" for the page to appear. I think that this is because TV is so popular. When are you getting a new server, George?

Edited February 2, 2013 by JetsetBkk

[JetsetBkk]

But maybe in Phuket I could imagine that true cable Internet is avalible?

Sent from my iPhone using ThaiVisa app

Over the last 5 years I've had TOT for most of it, then tried 3BBB for a while. Currently have had True cable internet for the last 6 months, and it's proved to be the most consistent performer. I have the 10 Mb package, and this is what I've just recorded:

That is the speed within Thailand - in fact, within Phuket . It doesn't reflect the international speed.

This is my intra-Phuket speed:

And here is my speed to San Francisco, the other side of the planet! See any similarities! (And the Ping is even faster!!)

This result is total BS - do not trust any "Ookla" speed test.

Go here for a "more likely" genuine result: DSLreports and test against the Parsippany server (3BB fiddle the results to some other servers).

Don't be too disappointed with the numbers presented in the report.

Edited February 2, 2013 by JetsetBkk

[pagallim]

Agreed, just recorded this:

and this from Manchester, UK:

Edited February 2, 2013 by pagallim

[JetsetBkk]

Agreed, just recorded this:

and this from Manchester, UK:

That's a cracker!!

Perhaps we should start a competition - see who can get the most ridiculous speed test result from Ookla!

I'm pretty sure a 21ms Ping to Manchester breaks the laws of physics.

Edited February 2, 2013 by JetsetBkk

[Jimi007]

Agreed, just recorded this:

and this from Manchester, UK:

Now that's REALLY funny! I have to agree with JetsetBkk, Ookla is a joke...

[stevehaigh]

i think 3bb is great. i had the 12mb and got 12mb all the time. i switched to the cheaper 6mb last year and that's fine too.

[bubblegum]

Now a day's I send my email by Thai post, it's quicker

[Flying Clog]

Thanks for all the tips everyone, I'll have a look at upgrading the TOT account or going for 3BB.

To confuse matters further, my main reason for seeking higher speeds is to facilitate streaming of UK television via a VPN (I use witopia). Anyone had any experience along those lines in Phuket.

Typically with 10-15 Mbps, it gets throttled down to around 3 Mbps on a VPN, which is about the minimum for stress free streaming in my experience....

But my current 2mbps is being throttled down to 0.2mbps which is completely useless for streaming via a VPN.

Any pointers?

Thanks, the clog

[bearpolar]

When living in Phuket town, I had few problems with TOT and their Billion router/modem. Now in the south of the island, 3BB seem to be everywhere and I've had few problems with them and their Huawei router/modem.

You'll never get more than 1 or 2 mbps downloads internationally - they throttle the lines. If you really want to know what's going on have a look at http://www.khunwoody...internet-speed/ [Edit: I see Jimi007 beat me to it!]

If you use torrents, you'll get better speeds down because you have multiple connections to the torrent file.

If you use Youtube, you may get better speeds because a lot of the files are cached locally and/or there is a Youtube (Google) server near by. Ditto Adobe, Microsoft, etc.

If you go to some obscure international site, you may get only a few hundred kbps down.

It's funny talking about speed on Thaivisa, because this website is one of the slowest around. It just took over a minute after clicking on "Add Reply" for the page to appear. I think that this is because TV is so popular. When are you getting a new server, George?

Thats not true if you have the 3bb premium connection or TRUE regular though.

on premium i never get disconnections and always get good international speeds yet my neighbor a couple doors down gets disconnected every couple hours and gets bad speeds

Edited February 2, 2013 by bearpolar

[Shot]

Easier to download torrents of your favorite TV. In my opinion, streaming sucks

Edited February 2, 2013 by Shot

[Jimi007]

Easier to download torrents of your favorite TV. In my opinion, streaming sucks

Indeed! Torrents rock! Better quality, you can play and pause anytime, what's there not to like!

[pagallim]

Easier to download torrents of your favorite TV. In my opinion, streaming sucks

Indeed! Torrents rock! Better quality, you can play and pause anytime, what's there not to like!

Especially when you get to watch what you want, when you want.

[JetsetBkk]

Easier to download torrents of your favorite TV. In my opinion, streaming sucks

Indeed! Torrents rock! Better quality, you can play and pause anytime, what's there not to like!

Especially when you get to watch what you want, when you want.

Agree with both of you guys. I don't think we're allowed to suggest torrent sites on here , but it's been 'my' website in my profile since day one.

[JetsetBkk]

When living in Phuket town, I had few problems with TOT and their Billion router/modem. Now in the south of the island, 3BB seem to be everywhere and I've had few problems with them and their Huawei router/modem.

You'll never get more than 1 or 2 mbps downloads internationally - they throttle the lines. If you really want to know what's going on have a look at http://www.khunwoody...internet-speed/ [Edit: I see Jimi007 beat me to it!]

If you use torrents, you'll get better speeds down because you have multiple connections to the torrent file.

If you use Youtube, you may get better speeds because a lot of the files are cached locally and/or there is a Youtube (Google) server near by. Ditto Adobe, Microsoft, etc.

If you go to some obscure international site, you may get only a few hundred kbps down.

It's funny talking about speed on Thaivisa, because this website is one of the slowest around. It just took over a minute after clicking on "Add Reply" for the page to appear. I think that this is because TV is so popular. When are you getting a new server, George?

Thats not true if you have the 3bb premium connection or TRUE regular though.

on premium i never get disconnections and always get good international speeds yet my neighbor a couple doors down gets disconnected every couple hours and gets bad speeds

That's interesting. I don't know anyone with the "premium" service. So maybe 3BB don't throttle it.

But what do you call 'good' international speeds? Can you do a speed test to the USA using the DSLreports speed test - here: http://www.dslreport...eedtest?flash=1

Just click on the Parsippany test at the top and write back what it says.

My results are usually about 600 - 700 kbps on 3BB's "9/1 mbps" service. (It is actually now more like 15/1 mbps.) I often get a faster up speed - about 70% of what I should get - than what I get down!

But with torrents it's completely different - nearly 2 MBps down, i.e. 16 mbps, on a well seeded torrent.

Edit:

I just did a DSLreports test: 593 down / 766 up (kbps).

So not even 1 megabit per second down on my 16 megabit link (about 4% of 16 mbps), but 76.6% of the up speed! Crazy.

Edited February 2, 2013 by JetsetBkk

[bearpolar]

Im not in thai for the moment but on the 3mb premium i had a full 3mbps any time of the day to american/euro servers. (http & ftp). The premiumm connection is exactly that. A premium connection to the international uplink. Right now they only offer 5mbps for 2500 though. the 3mbps is grandfathered at 1200

right now im on an amazing 15/10 connection (using torrents right now my upload is at 400k/s so the test sucked)

Cant wait to be back in thailand uploading at 60k/s to youtube instead of 800k/s

Edited February 2, 2013 by bearpolar

[schlog]

When living in Phuket town, I had few problems with TOT and their Billion router/modem. Now in the south of the island, 3BB seem to be everywhere and I've had few problems with them and their Huawei router/modem.

You'll never get more than 1 or 2 mbps downloads internationally - they throttle the lines. If you really want to know what's going on have a look at http://www.khunwoody...internet-speed/ [Edit: I see Jimi007 beat me to it!]

If you use torrents, you'll get better speeds down because you have multiple connections to the torrent file.

If you use Youtube, you may get better speeds because a lot of the files are cached locally and/or there is a Youtube (Google) server near by. Ditto Adobe, Microsoft, etc.

If you go to some obscure international site, you may get only a few hundred kbps down.

It's funny talking about speed on Thaivisa, because this website is one of the slowest around. It just took over a minute after clicking on "Add Reply" for the page to appear. I think that this is because TV is so popular. When are you getting a new server, George?

Thats not true if you have the 3bb premium connection or TRUE regular though.

on premium i never get disconnections and always get good international speeds yet my neighbor a couple doors down gets disconnected every couple hours and gets bad speeds

That's interesting. I don't know anyone with the "premium" service. So maybe 3BB don't throttle it.

But what do you call 'good' international speeds? Can you do a speed test to the USA using the DSLreports speed test - here: http://www.dslreport...eedtest?flash=1

Just click on the Parsippany test at the top and write back what it says.

My results are usually about 600 - 700 kbps on 3BB's "9/1 mbps" service. (It is actually now more like 15/1 mbps.) I often get a faster up speed - about 70% of what I should get - than what I get down!

But with torrents it's completely different - nearly 2 MBps down, i.e. 16 mbps, on a well seeded torrent.

Edit:

I just did a DSLreports test: 593 down / 766 up (kbps).

So not even 1 megabit per second down on my 16 megabit link (about 4% of 16 mbps), but 76.6% of the up speed! Crazy.

3BB Premier Line(3MB/1MB): Just did your test: 2852 down/ 625 up (kbps)

I get results like this 24/7 since more then 4 years with 3BB.

In my opinion good international speeds for Phuket.

With premier line streaming is easy. 3BB don't throttle it.

[Valentine]

My observation is that until the 6th Oct 2011, give or take a day or two, international speeds from TOT were quite good. On a regular ADSL packages downloads recorded at 4 - 5Mbps & the 10Mb fibre optic package showed exactly that, 10Mbps download. But on that fateful day everything dropped down to 1Mbps or less. It was like they were ordered to throw the switch. Of course since then the providers have been doing their best to fool us by cheating on the speed tests. When you see the ping to Manchester or elsewhere virtually faster than the speed of light then you something is amiss.

Apart from all this a TOT rep recently admitted to me that they only give 10% of the advertised download speeds for international but "hey no problem within Thailand". Yeah sure, as long as all the sites we want to visit have a server located in Thailand but generally this is not the case. I have since switched from TOT after many years & now quite happy with True cable.

[Flying Clog]

Thanks for all the posts.

I think I'll look at 3BB and True - what's the best way to get in touch with them? Does anyone have a phone number? (sorry I'm a newbie!)

Hopefully one of those will have a good speed and even more importantly a streamable speed once connected to the UK via a VPN.... wish me luck!

[pagallim]

They both have service counters on the 1st floor of Central Festival. I would recommend visiting them there rather than phoning, as they will also be able to locate the nearest distribution boxes to your property and hence whether they could do an installation or not. If you are renting your property, you may have to make any changes through your landlord.

[bearpolar]

Ye. Tesco or any other shopping areas has a counter of each company. Just visit both and ask figure out which one has the closest DSLAM.

[Notstupid30]

i use always 3BB but right now i'm away on a short break and stuck in a hotel still not bad for free Wi-Fi in Uthai Thani

Edited February 3, 2013 by Notstupid30