Internet speed in Koh Samui

[PoorSucker]

The problem to get high speeds to abroad comes from the fact that all traffic must pass government servers.
This is to protect you from harmful porn and other sites that might risk traditional values.

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

[CaptainS]

Hey,

one more question: A lot of properties in Samui have "ADSL" listed as the internet service. What kind of speed can I expect with that? I know that ADSL can provide up to 12MBit/s, but what speed is reasonable to expect? I'd be grateful to anyone sharing their experience.

Thanks!

Yoel

From my experience its quite unusual to receive more than 1Mbit/s in reality (except middle of the night). Even you book a 13 or 20 Mbit/s line. Faster speed is usually available inside Thailand only. Dont know about connections to the US, but to Europe I hardly enjoyed much more than around 1 Mbit/s in average. I have tried all the available providers in Samui and also expensive business plans, it didnt really make a big enough difference. The last years I was quite happy with 3BB but it seems they are getting worse in the last months.

If you want to work remote you also should consider the much longer ping times, beside the slower transfer speed. US is a bit better on that than to Europe, but probaly also not very enjoyable. I dont know what service you want to use, sometimes I fix my dads computer back home thru Windows Remote and its really slow, I would consider it impossible to use it for working in an efficent way.

[leola74]

From my experience its quite unusual to receive more than 1Mbit/s in reality (except middle of the night). Even you book a 13 or 20 Mbit/s line.

That's for ADSL?

Because for fibre cable, it seems that faster speeds are indeed possible -- see the postings with screenshots by Nyllie on the first page of this thread. Nyllie subscribes to 20MBit and showed a download speed of over 16MBit and ping time of 5ms to Frankfurt.

Currently I'm working from Europe, using my PC in New York. I often get speeds not above 5MBit, and ping times >200ms, and that's sufficient for working. If I could have the same or better in Samui, I'd be thrilled.

So: Any chances of getting that with ADSL?

[PoorSucker]

Nyllie subscribes to 20MBit and showed a download speed of over 16MBit and ping time of 5ms to Frankfurt.

As pointed out earlier that's result with ISP cache.

True result is 3,7 Mbit

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/646164-internet-speed-in-koh-samui/?p=6500869

I will be hard to get speeds over that from abroad as everything must pass government censor servers.

[leola74]

Nyllie subscribes to 20MBit and showed a download speed of over 16MBit and ping time of 5ms to Frankfurt.

As pointed out earlier that's result with ISP cache.

True result is 3,7 Mbit

Ah yes, sorry.

Well, 3.7 Mbit is actually about what I get from Germany to New York, so I guess that would work. But what are the chances of getting this with ADSL?

Another question: Someone pointed out to me the possibility of using a CAT USB-stick for internet. Does anyone have experience with this? What kind of downstream speeds (to NY) could I expect? What's the cost?

Help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Yoel

[samuijimmy]

Nyllie subscribes to 20MBit and showed a download speed of over 16MBit and ping time of 5ms to Frankfurt.

As pointed out earlier that's result with ISP cache.

True result is 3,7 Mbit

Ah yes, sorry.

Well, 3.7 Mbit is actually about what I get from Germany to New York, so I guess that would work. But what are the chances of getting this with ADSL?

Another question: Someone pointed out to me the possibility of using a CAT USB-stick for internet. Does anyone have experience with this? What kind of downstream speeds (to NY) could I expect? What's the cost?

Help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Yoel

CAT no longer provides the dongle service... it used to be very good.... Forget True's dongle in slows down to a snails pace depending on usage, I forget the limit, but they don't tell you there is one...when you buy!

I don't know about other providers, but I use 3BB which for what I use it for is excellent.....(Movies OK no buffering etc) Although I did do a speed test from one of the sites above, it told me I was getting about 50% of what it should be.... still seems good though!

However for the first year you have to pay 3 BB one year up front, to get the line wired in and the Modem.....(takes one or two days) .... providing there is a line near where you stay...... but you are only here for 3 months so probably do not want to pay a year...

I do not know if other providers have the same policy about initial set up.... (Can anyone verify?)

Just by the by.... One thing I did find out the other day from 3 BB, is after first year, one can make monthly payments and also move the line free to new house...

[ikbenhet]

Nyllie subscribes to 20MBit and showed a download speed of over 16MBit and ping time of 5ms to Frankfurt.

As pointed out earlier that's result with ISP cache.

True result is 3,7 Mbit

Ah yes, sorry.

Well, 3.7 Mbit is actually about what I get from Germany to New York, so I guess that would work. But what are the chances of getting this with ADSL?

Another question: Someone pointed out to me the possibility of using a CAT USB-stick for internet. Does anyone have experience with this? What kind of downstream speeds (to NY) could I expect? What's the cost?

Help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Yoel

CAT no longer provides the dongle service... it used to be very good.... Forget True's dongle in slows down to a snails pace depending on usage, I forget the limit, but they don't tell you there is one...when you buy!

I don't know about other providers, but I use 3BB which for what I use it for is excellent.....(Movies OK no buffering etc) Although I did do a speed test from one of the sites above, it told me I was getting about 50% of what it should be.... still seems good though!

However for the first year you have to pay 3 BB one year up front, to get the line wired in and the Modem.....(takes one or two days) .... providing there is a line near where you stay...... but you are only here for 3 months so probably do not want to pay a year...

I do not know if other providers have the same policy about initial set up.... (Can anyone verify?)

Just by the by.... One thing I did find out the other day from 3 BB, is after first year, one can make monthly payments and also move the line free to new house...

One year up front for 3BB is only for farang. Thai can pay per month.

btw .Fiber is also DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) or ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line)

[leola74]

Alright, thank you everyone, this has been quite helpful already. The best solution for me is obviously to find a house with fibre cable installed. However, these are hard to find, especially since we also have other considerations which narrow down the choice of houses considerably.

Just as a reminder: If I can have a real 4 Mbit/s downstream speed, I should be alright.

So here are a couple more questions:

1. Assuming I find a house with ADSL but no fibre cable. What kind of speed (to server in NY) could I expect?

2. Let's assume I rent a house, and when I get there I realize that the internet connection sucks. So what kind of backup options do I have?

• CAT CDMA: http://www.cattelecom.com/site/en/list_service.php?cat=588 This advertises up to 3 Mbps, so too slow for my purpose
• Pocket WiFi: http://www.thaismileconnect.com/ They tell me I could expect average speed ot 10 Mbps in Samui, faster than in BKK. However, it's 5,000 Baht per month for unlimited usage. Anyone have experience with this?
• Any other dongles which are fast enough for me?

Thanks once more,

Yoel

[CaptainS]

Nyllie subscribes to 20MBit and showed a download speed of over 16MBit and ping time of 5ms to Frankfurt.

As pointed out earlier that's result with ISP cache.

True result is 3,7 Mbit

Ah yes, sorry.

Well, 3.7 Mbit is actually about what I get from Germany to New York, so I guess that would work. But what are the chances of getting this with ADSL?

The problem is not the local connections, ADSL or fibre etc, usually the international backbone is not fast enough (maybe because of the cencorship or just because of limited bandwith) .

It could make a difference which one you use, but no guarantee. I just had the chance to use fibre a few weeks ago and also got only about 1.5Mbit to Germany.

I wouldnt expect much more than 1Mbit in average, as I stated before. Maybe more at night time. Anyone got another opinion here? Someone got a connection which has usually a much faster speed to abroad in reality?

[CaptainS]

Alright, thank you everyone, this has been quite helpful already. The best solution for me is obviously to find a house with fibre cable installed. However, these are hard to find, especially since we also have other considerations which narrow down the choice of houses considerably.

Just as a reminder: If I can have a real 4 Mbit/s downstream speed, I should be alright.

So here are a couple more questions:

1. Assuming I find a house with ADSL but no fibre cable. What kind of speed (to server in NY) could I expect?

2. Let's assume I rent a house, and when I get there I realize that the internet connection sucks. So what kind of backup options do I have?

• CAT CDMA: http://www.cattelecom.com/site/en/list_service.php?cat=588 This advertises up to 3 Mbps, so too slow for my purpose
• Pocket WiFi: http://www.thaismileconnect.com/ They tell me I could expect average speed ot 10 Mbps in Samui, faster than in BKK. However, it's 5,000 Baht per month for unlimited usage. Anyone have experience with this?
• Any other dongles which are fast enough for me?

Thanks once more,

Yoel

Cat CDMA is not available anymore as far as I know.

Forget about that expensive Pocket Wifi offer, you could just get an 3G Dongle for cheap together with a prepaid simcard. Should cost you less than 1000 Baht a month with a few GB included, but the speed wouldnt in reality would hardly be faster than a wired connection, probably slower.

[Tywais]

Anyone got another opinion here? Someone got a connection which has usually a much faster speed to abroad in reality?

This is not a 1:1 comparison with home connections but gives you an idea of the International bandwidth bottlenecks. This is from my Chiang Mai University connection with a 1Gbps fiber backbone and then onto uni-net to Bangkok on a minimum of 100Mbps link. Notice the Bangkok speeds from Chiang Mai then the International speeds on the same connection. You can see the odds of anyone getting actual faster International speeds on a home connection is pretty small. Obviously these speeds change from day to day and hour to hour but the percentage difference will not be great.

Another difference though is which International Gateway the uni-net takes. Some providers I believe have their own or co-shared gateways so may be possible to get higher International speeds on some of them. These are real, practical numbers as I did a multi-part download of a 1.5GB file in around 3+ minutes last Friday from the university (Thai site).

BKK

Download Speed: 68858 kbps (8607.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 17702 kbps (2212.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 35 ms

Saturday, June 15, 2013 11:39:17 PM

Los Angeles USA

Download Speed: 2537 kbps (317.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 1212 kbps (151.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 251 ms

Saturday, June 15, 2013 11:36:36 PM

UK

Download Speed: 4568 kbps (571 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 442 kbps (55.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Latency: 233 ms

Saturday, June 15, 2013 11:37:32 PM

[leola74]

OK, so it looks like getting 4 Mps to US will remain a dream.

So far I was hoping that I would be able to get the same speed to US as from home in Germany (i.e. 4Mps), then I could have been sure that it's sufficient for working. I guess I have to find out whether ~2Mps would be sufficient for working, since that's the best speed I can expect. Need to try to simulate that on my PC at home ...

So in case I can't find a house with fibre ... what about the MiFi solution (thaismileconnect, for example)?

* Anyone have experience with this in Samui? Speed?

* What about other providers? Anyone who offers a "true" flat? Most will throttle you after 5GB or so. But the "true" flat with thaismileconnect is 150 Baht per day, very expensive!

* As a farang who's only a tourist, can I even get a contract for 3 months with a MiFi provider? Or are these usually annual contracts? And you need to be a resident to sign up?

Thanks!

[Rooo]

Here is a bit of advise. Speak to Matt HERE.

[leola74]

Here is a bit of advise. Speak to Matt HERE.

Looks like they only cover some small areas of Samui, but I will take your advice and talk to them. Thanks!

[Rooo]

Here is a bit of advise. Speak to Matt HERE.

Looks like they only cover some small areas of Samui, but I will take your advice and talk to them. Thanks!

They might cover a defined area, but if they can give you the goods, it might dictate where you are going to look for accommodation & save you a lot of heartache..

Good Luck.

[angryfarang]

yoellax - Matt from Bluechip will reply to your e-mail tomorrow morning. 4Mbps to the USA is possible. The problem for your remote desktop will be latency.

Where in the USA are you wanting to connect? The connection from Thailand goes to the West Coast of the USA. So hope it's West Coast.

At a few of Bluechip's high-end sites, they combine multiple lines from multiple ISP's here on the island so you can be assured of having the best connection possible.

At Beach Republic they have combined a 25Mb Fiber from TOT and a 25Mb Fiber from CAT.

[notmyself]

My international gateway is a solid 15 down and 1 up 24/7 except for the odd glitch. I do video rendering for students in the US FOC. What they do would take their 'laptop' days to complete takes mine a matter of hours so works out better to send it away for processing. The only things which I really care about is the finest internet access and the finest food.

[leola74]

Where are you at? And how do I get this service?

[leola74]

Where in the USA are you wanting to connect? The connection from Thailand goes to the West Coast of the USA. So hope it's West Coast.

...

At Beach Republic they have combined a 25Mb Fiber from TOT and a 25Mb Fiber from CAT.

I need to connect to NY From Germany, I'm getting latency of 220ms to a NY server as per speedtest ...

Beach Republic? That's Lamai, isn't it? Not really where we'd like to stay, I must say. We'd prefer the North or West of Samui, something a little quieter ...

And Beach Republic is over 100,000 baht per month for a measly 55 sqm. Crazy!

Edited June 16, 2013 by yoellax

[notmyself]

Where are you at? And how do I get this service?

At the foot hills behind Lamai. I'm typing this live [sic] so not sure what to say about how to get this service so hold on a few minutes.

I use 3bb and paid quite a sum to get them to drag a line to where I live some 3-4 years ago. I am also a person who finds it rather difficult to accept something substandard in relation to what I have paid for. When the service I have paid for goes down I immediately call them (the service provider) to inform them that I will not pay for this period of lack of service. The funny thing is that they actually accept! When it comes to bitching about things in Thailand I could and would be first in the queue but when it comes to service provider 3bb I doft my cap.

[angryfarang]

Where are you at? And how do I get this service?

At the foot hills behind Lamai. I'm typing this live [sic] so not sure what to say about how to get this service so hold on a few minutes.

I use 3bb and paid quite a sum to get them to drag a line to where I live some 3-4 years ago. I am also a person who finds it rather difficult to accept something substandard in relation to what I have paid for. When the service I have paid for goes down I immediately call them (the service provider) to inform them that I will not pay for this period of lack of service. The funny thing is that they actually accept! When it comes to bitching about things in Thailand I could and would be first in the queue but when it comes to service provider 3bb I doft my cap.

I'm sorry but your speedresults are cached. Your International gateway speeds are not that at all.

[notmyself]

Where are you at? And how do I get this service?

At the foot hills behind Lamai. I'm typing this live [sic] so not sure what to say about how to get this service so hold on a few minutes.

I use 3bb and paid quite a sum to get them to drag a line to where I live some 3-4 years ago. I am also a person who finds it rather difficult to accept something substandard in relation to what I have paid for. When the service I have paid for goes down I immediately call them (the service provider) to inform them that I will not pay for this period of lack of service. The funny thing is that they actually accept! When it comes to bitching about things in Thailand I could and would be first in the queue but when it comes to service provider 3bb I doft my cap.

I'm sorry but your speedresults are cached. Your International gateway speeds are not that at all.

What speed results?

[angryfarang]

You said "My international gateway is a solid 15 down and 1"

Yes, maybe the speed to the gateway is that, but the speed going out to other countries certainly won't be that.

[notmyself]

You said "My international gateway is a solid 15 down and 1"

Yes, maybe the speed to the gateway is that, but the speed going out to other countries certainly won't be that.

I'm not sure what you mean. I receive files at around the 15 mark 24/7 and I know this because of the size of the file and the length of time it takes. I do this pretty much daily to the US, NL, Germany, Aus, NZ and the UK.

[notmyself]

Where are you at? And how do I get this service?

At the foot hills behind Lamai. I'm typing this live [sic] so not sure what to say about how to get this service so hold on a few minutes.

I use 3bb and paid quite a sum to get them to drag a line to where I live some 3-4 years ago. I am also a person who finds it rather difficult to accept something substandard in relation to what I have paid for. When the service I have paid for goes down I immediately call them (the service provider) to inform them that I will not pay for this period of lack of service. The funny thing is that they actually accept! When it comes to bitching about things in Thailand I could and would be first in the queue but when it comes to service provider 3bb I doft my cap.

I'm sorry but your speedresults are cached. Your International gateway speeds are not that at all.

What speed results?

I ask again.

[angryfarang]

I say again...

You said "My international gateway is a solid 15 down and 1"

It is not possible to have a 15Mb connection to the USA, NL, Germany or any other country outside of Thailand. Even to Singapore, the next closest hop.

Try some real speed tests here to different servers and post your results. http://testmy.net

[Rooo]

← Re-Test

Download :: 8 Mbps 1 MB/s Upload :: 404 Kbps 51 kB/s

[angryfarang]

Roo, was that with the speedtest I just posted?

[Rooo]

Roo, was that with the speedtest I just posted?

Yes.

[Rooo]

It varies so much from test to test .

Download :: 6 Mbps 748 kB/s Upload :: 334 Kbps 42 kB/s