Internet Connection Speeds In Thailand?

[matty451]

Hi Guys wonder if you can help me out, thinking of buying a house in Nakhon Sawan does anybody know what is the best internet connection speeds for a home connection? is the set up like the UK i have tried to look online but all seems to be written in Thai.... if living near this area could you give me some info, would love to get BBC i player etc, thanks Matt.

[Langsuan Man]

Nakhon Sawan is a province, and as such is made up of 15 districts, you need to define exactly where you are thinking of buying to get an answer to this question. And even then there are major differences in speed for locations within a district

You also don't indicate whether or not you will have a phone line in the house, not automatic in this country

I would suggest that you either contact the person you are buying the house from or contact future neighbors for advice. Most likely you will only have one provider in the area but with the planned roll out of 3G in Thailand you might be lucky and have a choice

[weescotsguy66]

They are lots now in Thailand with BBL, True and others, with regards to playing iplayer you may require a VPN to get it but also look to download THAI TV an apps on your iphone which will give you a selection of English speaking TV BBC NEWS, BBC World News, CNN and a few others.

Look to getting cable in as a cheaper option to Satellite all the locals will know where to get it will give you a shit load of TV I use the Astro Chanel from Malaysia.

[jampola]

I am in Nakhon Sawan in the Krokphra district. We have a transport business here and even known they do not have business grade internet here, I have set up 3 residential grade 15mbit/1mbit connections through 3bb and all have no problem with all 3. They all have no problem obtaining their advertised speeds.

As for bbc iPlayer, you will need a VPN as iPlayer is region locked. There are plenty of VPN services available. I use one based in Australia so I can get ABC streamed to my XBMC setup.

Where in Nakhon Sawan are you moving to?

[Rorri]

I am in Nakhon Sawan in the Krokphra district. We have a transport business here and even known they do not have business grade internet here, I have set up 3 residential grade 15mbit/1mbit connections through 3bb and all have no problem with all 3. They all have no problem obtaining their advertised speeds.

As for bbc iPlayer, you will need a VPN as iPlayer is region locked. There are plenty of VPN services available. I use one based in Australia so I can get ABC streamed to my XBMC setup.

Where in Nakhon Sawan are you moving to?

You will ONLY get the advertised speeds if you test with the ISPs recommended sites, this is because there hard code the speed, they are lying. I suggest you try http://testmy.net/, you could be in for a shock.

[seancbk]

I am in Nakhon Sawan in the Krokphra district. We have a transport business here and even known they do not have business grade internet here, I have set up 3 residential grade 15mbit/1mbit connections through 3bb and all have no problem with all 3. They all have no problem obtaining their advertised speeds.

As for bbc iPlayer, you will need a VPN as iPlayer is region locked. There are plenty of VPN services available. I use one based in Australia so I can get ABC streamed to my XBMC setup.

Where in Nakhon Sawan are you moving to?

Are you using those 3 connections individually or have you tried using Connectify to combine them into one faster connection?

[DonaldBattles]

I would recommend you either rent a house or buy one with a 30 year lease. Internet could be the least of your problems. TOT can help you with the slowest service you can find.

[jampola]

I am in Nakhon Sawan in the Krokphra district. We have a transport business here and even known they do not have business grade internet here, I have set up 3 residential grade 15mbit/1mbit connections through 3bb and all have no problem with all 3. They all have no problem obtaining their advertised speeds.

As for bbc iPlayer, you will need a VPN as iPlayer is region locked. There are plenty of VPN services available. I use one based in Australia so I can get ABC streamed to my XBMC setup.

Where in Nakhon Sawan are you moving to?

Are you using those 3 connections individually or have you tried using Connectify to combine them into one faster connection?

You can do this to obtain a faster connection but only when multiple traffic is concerned. Example. You can't tie 3 ADSL connections together and expect 1 download to download faster as HTTP, FTP, Torrent traffic etc will only talk to the requesting IP address (1 ADSL Connection). However if you are flat out maxing out one ADSL connection but you have 3, you won't notice a slow down because you can set it to start using the second ADSL connection.

I run pfsense (www.pfsense.org) on a server with 4 network cards. 3 for WAN and 1 for LAN. 2 of the ADSL connections go into pfSense I have set up as a single gateway as far as the LAN is concerned for all of the work PC's and then there is load balancing and policy based routing on that group which gives priority to VoIP and some other services. The 3rd ADSL connection is a private use which is mainly used for Netflix and other streaming stuff (yes, this ADSL connection is also routed through a VPN).

Hopefully this all makes sense!

[Stjohnm]

I was in the UK in Feb I tested the Wi-Fi speeds with my iPhone at my mothers house in the sticks, it was 20x faster than our apartment in BKK. I hope you are living in a town, my wife's village in Sisaket has no landline (people kept robbing the payphone so TOT cut the line) & only DTAC provides a usable mobile connection so if you're in the same boat as me, you'll be reliant on a dodgy 2G connection (until they eventually upgrade us to 3G, hopefully sometime this year).

Edited May 7, 2013 by Stjohnm

[jampola]

I would recommend you either rent a house or buy one with a 30 year lease. Internet could be the least of your problems. TOT can help you with the slowest service you can find.

We have TOT ADSL in a few offices (Laemchebang, Bkk, Rayong and Saraburi) and all have been fine. Usually it's the crappy TP-Link routers they supply the customer that makes it so slow. Change the router into bridge mode and connect it to a real router running something like DD-WRT or OpenWRT and you'll notice a HUGE difference. I always see <insert Thai ISP here> bashing and to be honest, I think most ISP's here are quite alright.

My only gripe I have is with 3BB as the username they provide you for your ADSL doesn't reflect your phone number, so when you have 15 or so accounts, you have NFI which is for where and NEITHER DO THEY! *slaps forehead*

[Cloggie]

It's all about one word - L.O.C.A.T.I.O.N. Check with your neighbors what they use.

There is no best ISP, maybe there are NO telephone lines available anymore, maybe you want 3BB but ONLY TOT is available and a combination of all these 'problems'

Again nobody can tell you what to buy as it is all about L.O.C.A.T.I.O.N. (like many things in Thailand) and nothing else!

[whiteman]

I got cat was pissed off with the TOT it would drop off for 4 days minimum and slow speeds so got a special line put in by cat speed is now download 32.37 upload speed is 15.78 costs 6500 bhat a month is the parent company of TOT no problems now

Edited May 7, 2013 by whiteman

[mrfill]

You can get radio on iPlayer with no difficulty/restriction at all. To get TV you will indeed need a VPN. I use one from privateinternetaccess dot com which costs about 36 quid a year and has bases in a number of countries including UK. You will need a line providing at least 2Mb to get anything like a steady picture on SD, 4Mb for HD.

Be aware also that watching TV, especially if using the HD option, can hit the allowance quite heavily. An HD programme will use around 1Gb per hour, SD around 400Mb.

Because of the poor latency at times you may find it better to record TV from iPlayer and watch it later in which case you will need something called get_iplayer which can do just that. Using the VPN and get_iplayer I managed to get all the recent Top Gear series downloaded in HD while in BKK recently. Trying to watch them directly was ok at times but often the prog got interrupted with brief signal drops and that was on a line with 4Mb speed.

[recom273]

Give 3BB a try. You dont need a phone line, they wire directly from a local DP, if the service is available in your area.

I have an 9Mbps domestic line, and I'm really happy with it. I get 5 slots at over 200 Kbs/s from my FTP server at OVH, Paris which equates to a total of around 8Mbps down (24/7) but you need to do some work yourself to get decent speeds.

Internet routing isnt a priority for domestic customers so you need to explain what you are trying to do to tech services and they will help. Inform them of the IP address of your VPN in the UK, they will route your connection to gain maximum efficiency. It's called "best path" then they will fix that path between your VPN and your home IP.

Again, good advise from a previous post. Ditch the unbranded router, buy a decent router, flash with good software and make sure your settings are correct with the ISP's. Im unsure why you would bridge from your ISP's router to your own tho'. I just replaced it with my own decent router.

[Lost In Translation 555]

Hi, it is not longer necessary to have a phone line, certainly not with 3BB in Phuket, I don't have a phone line only internet. I think it very much depends on what exchange you are on and the quality of the wiring, you might have to pay extra for a line from the junction to your property. I am very far from the exchange on a hilltop but used to get 9mbs as per quoted speed, then 3BB upgraded me and then I upgraded to 13mbs/1mbs which I get nearly all the time. Works great for every normal things including VOIP, costing just under 1000Baht a month I think is excellent value. If you get slower speed ask then for another User Name and Password or at least a Password which seemed before to make a difference in another property I had. It is hit and miss a friend who lives about 100m away gets terrible service but is going to ask 3BB to inspect the line which is probably the cause.

[Pib]

Reliable & fast internet in Thailand can be like a crap shoot...it depends a lot on location, location, location. You might get reliable & fast internet at your location and a kilometer away (or much less...maybe a soi away) your friend on the exact same internet plan may get unreliable & slow internet. And at some locations you may have multiple choices in internet providers; in other locations you are a captive audience with only one provider serving an area. Yeap, a crap shoot.

[lockman]

I "used" to have ADSL, which was OK for what it was. Now that TOT has added a wireless internet availability, I generally have 9 down and 1 up constantly, with few problems, even way out in the sticks 40KM from Mukdahan.. And that's tested not only via TOT test, but using speedtest as well as others. OK, so sometimes I can only get 8.6 from LA, etc.....compared to the old stuff, its great And here I have a choice of TOT or TOT or TOT.

[Keesters]

Internet speed is a strange thing and really depends on what you are going to do rather then how quickly you expect to get it.

If all you are going to do is one thing like browse a website or use webmail then a 1MB connection could be as good as a 10MB or 100MB one. It is not so much a "how quickly can you receive it" it's more "how quickly they can send it" issue. If they can only send slowly you can only get it slowly.

IMO speed really only becomes an issue when downloading and then only when downloading from multiple places. I use a download meter that is always "on top". Mostly it is running at 200-500kbps. It may spurt to 1mbps on changing a page or downloading email into Outlook. If I turn on uTorrent or start downloading from places like RapidShare then it could jump to 9mbps which is close to my 10mbps limit. It might need a dozen or so things, all downloading simultaneously for it to get that high. Never have I seen any single task faster than about 2mbps except for those speed test sites. And then only the one recommended by your ISP that happens to be just down the road from you.

What I would like to see is more upload speed. Most ISPs here give 512kbps - to 1mbps. Getting something is sometimes only as fast as you can ask for it. A restaurant may have a thousand cooks but with only one waiter don't expect to get your food quickly.

[Pib]

I "used" to have ADSL, which was OK for what it was. Now that TOT has added a wireless internet availability, I generally have 9 down and 1 up constantly, with few problems, even way out in the sticks 40KM from Mukdahan.. And that's tested not only via TOT test, but using speedtest as well as others. OK, so sometimes I can only get 8.6 from LA, etc.....compared to the old stuff, its great And here I have a choice of TOT or TOT or TOT.

I seriously doubt you are really getting 8.6Mb download speed from LA, especially since you said you used speedtest, as in Speedtest.net, to do the test. Speedtest.net is a "flash-based" tester and easily fooled for download speed and/or ping time...and it wouldn't surprise me your ping time to LA was reported to be around the 50ms ballpark...as in faster than the speed of light. Use a "Java-based" tester like identified in Post #5 to see reality.

Heck on my True DOCSIS (cable) 14Mb plan I can pretty much get 14Mb download speed and 10ms ping times to most any server on Earth when testing with Speedtest.net. But go use a Java-based tester and reality sets in....no more faster than light ping times...no more 14Mb download speeds....but hey, Speedtest.net gives a person a good feeling...kinda like being on drugs I guess.

[jcnbkk]

"speeds....but hey, Speedtest.net gives a person a good feeling...kinda like being on drugs I guess." Ahh, that explains why I still feel like cr@p in the morning..