Have been in Pattaya now for few days, using shared WiFi internet access from VN2 residence in Pratamnak.

Seems the access speed locally is around 4-5M based on speedtest - however when accessing sites in Europe,

speeds seem to drop dramatically.

Wonder if there are speed differences between providers for overseas access? Seems the current IP is provided

by CAT Telecom. Understood I could also get 3BB access at about same price as dedicated connection. Any

advice if 3BB would have better connection speeds to Europe than what CAT provide in Pratamnak?

Or all are OK locally but overseas access slow?

Would be using for TV program watching/downloading from Europe so important to have decent speed not

only locally but all the way to europe

Most ISPs here cap international bandwidth quite heavily even if they reckon to give you a much higher bandwidth within Thailand. You can pay more and get packages with more international bandwidth (usually called "premium" or similar) but they tend to be quite costly.

Connections to Europe can be particularly bad but connections to the US seem to be generally better.

A shared building connection is likely to be much worse than having your own dedicated connection, unless of course no one else in the building is using it.

To get a true ping test result, you could do the following, In start menu search for cmd.exe and run it

.In command line type 'ping -n 1000 (insert the IP Address)' and press enter to run the command.

However, this is if you are on Windows and you know the server you will be contacting.

I use the following to watch particular programmes: Project Free TV, and have no issues with internet speed. You could also use, Expat Shield, again I have not had any issues with the internet speed either unless you want to watch in HD.

I'm no expert here, but from what I understand, there is only one "pipe" out of Thailand that all ISPs share. That's the bottleneck. Speeds are very fast inside Thailand, not so if going outside.

In our village, people were tired of ToT (and for good reason) so they switched to 3BB. Well, ToT has upgraded their network around here and 3BB has gone downhill. Those who switched are now switching back.

If you want to move this over to the internet forum, let me know. We've got some experts that peruse that sub forum and might be able to help out a bit.

I'm no expert here, but from what I understand, there is only one "pipe" out of Thailand that all ISPs share. That's the bottleneck. Speeds are very fast inside Thailand, not so if going outside.

In our village, people were tired of ToT (and for good reason) so they switched to 3BB. Well, ToT has upgraded their network around here and 3BB has gone downhill. Those who switched are now switching back.

If you want to move this over to the internet forum, let me know. We've got some experts that peruse that sub forum and might be able to help out a bit.

yes please if you could change to forum with proper expertise, would be nice

I'm no expert here, but from what I understand, there is only one "pipe" out of Thailand that all ISPs share. That's the bottleneck. Speeds are very fast inside Thailand, not so if going outside.

In our village, people were tired of ToT (and for good reason) so they switched to 3BB. Well, ToT has upgraded their network around here and 3BB has gone downhill. Those who switched are now switching back.

If you want to move this over to the internet forum, let me know. We've got some experts that peruse that sub forum and might be able to help out a bit.

Im afraid it's wrong most major ISPs have their own pipes to be exact gateways: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Thailand#International_Gateways

here is the Thailand International Internet Gateway Update on 03/2013

One of the biggest concern is the Great Firewall of Thailand that can't handle the load of traffic.

Even if 3BB is not a major player the speed is decent, and less sites blocked than True!

But don't these gateways still have to go via this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Thailand#Submarine_cables

That's what I was referring to as the "pipe". One reason speeds are so good inside Thailand, and not so good once you go outside the country???

you won't like the answer but : it depends!

For eg if you connect to Facebook. It doesn't mean you will have to connect to california major sites will use mirror or reflector to get local connection by akamai for e.g.

You have to understand that routing is very complex and in general operators provide several routes for 1 direction. To make it simple: shortest route is not always the fastest.

"One reason speeds are so good inside Thailand, and not so good once you go outside the country???" see the great firewall of Thailand, same as the Chinese have but less able to deal with the load. It was created in 2008 (http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/22761) initially to protect monarchy from insults. Today it filters porn, gambling, politics sites, even wikilieaks!

Volume of traffic is massive and tools unadapted.

you won't like the answer but : it depends!

For eg if you connect to Facebook. It doesn't mean you will have to connect to california major sites will use mirror or reflector to get local connection by akamai for e.g.

You have to understand that routing is very complex and in general operators provide several routes for 1 direction. To make it simple: shortest route is not always the fastest.

"One reason speeds are so good inside Thailand, and not so good once you go outside the country???" see the great firewall of Thailand, same as the Chinese have but less able to deal with the load. It was created in 2008 (http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/22761) initially to protect monarchy from insults. Today it filters porn, gambling, politics sites, even wikilieaks!

Volume of traffic is massive and tools unadapted.

Wow...very complex! Like I said, I'm no expert. Just relaying what I've read in the past.

Great info!!