is fiber optic better than adsl?

[pomozki]

Hi, I've been using adsl for years but here in Khon Kaen the connection is appalling - it forever cuts out, which is annoying if you're watching the news or sport on a streaming website

I'm considering switching to a fiber optic account (not for the extra speed cos I know the speeds they quote are for Thailand only) but because I think fiber optic might be a more reliable connection

what confuses me is that I once read you get your own unique cable with fiber and don't share a cable with hundreds of others (as you do with 3BB in Piman 2 for instance) - but when I spoke to True about their fiber optic service they happily told me they'd be using the cable which is already hooked up down our soi

bottom line: is fiber usually a better connection and service?

cheers

[Swiss1960]

If you have a true "fiber to home", then of course you will enjoy the high-quality speed options available... but as you have been told, most providers today have fiber to the main hub in an area / an appartment block and then use traditional cables to the end-points, which of course is cheating you about what they sell.

BUT... the speed does not only depend on the cables, but also on the hubs and servers... if they do not deliver the throughput that the cables could give you, if the serves are laid out to small and overloaded with the amount of data requested, then your service back home will still suck and be appalling.

[Ace of Pop]

At one House i have CAT Fiber Optic 30 Meg. At another 3BB 10 Meg. The difference is well worth the extra cost imo.Thai Visa is dead in the water with 3BB,but on steroids with Cat. Same with You Tube.

[craigt3365]

Let's move this over to the techie forum.

Topic Moved.

[Crossy]

We have TOT FTTX (fibre right to the router on my desk).

We have never had copper to the house (previously on TOT WiNET).

The big advantage to me is that fibre won't pick up nasties from nearby lighting that can fry your router (OK it's a lot faster too).

[GinBoy2]

Need to be a little careful when talking about fiber in Thailand. In Bangkok there is real cable, DOCSIS etc, but in Back of Beyond land, adsl is often the only game in town. TOT will sell you it's Fiber 2U adsl product. Trouble is, it's fiber from the local DSLAM, probably on a pole near your house, but the link to the DSLAM is standard copper. So, unless the copper from the DSLAM to your home is really poor quality, paying for a fiber upgrade doesn't really buy you anything. There is no real FTTH as you might experience in the West. My experience with TOT adsl is that random re-sync's are common which I think is more likely to be a network routing issue to the gateway as opposed to anything of your 'last mile' connection.

Edited June 11, 2014 by GinBoy2

[Ace of Pop]

You can tell it real fibre when you see the fancy connecting machine.CAT dont Con You.Its given 28 to 32 consistently . Areas do matter but ive paid for the first run of cable,not in a Town and many have now signed up localy,and happy with 1600 Bht P.M.

[Jeffrey346]

I have 3BB Fibre Optic here in KK for a year now. Infact, I was one of the first FO users in KK. The do run a separate cable from the box to your house. Two of my neighbors installed it and separate cables were run as well.

I pay B1284/month for 30 down and 3 up. I get 36 down and 4.5 up. I only had the service go down for a couple of hours during a huge rain storm we had last month. Other than that it's been up and steady.

[marquis22]

I have 3BB Fibre Optic here in KK for a year now. Infact, I was one of the first FO users in KK. The do run a separate cable from the box to your house. Two of my neighbors installed it and separate cables were run as well.

I pay B1284/month for 30 down and 3 up. I get 36 down and 4.5 up. I only had the service go down for a couple of hours during a huge rain storm we had last month. Other than that it's been up and steady.

Is that 36 gig download and 4.5 gig up?

What is the use of having high speed fibre if only get those bandwidth allowances?

A blue ray movie is about 5 gig and streaming would soon use that up in a few days.

Sending your cam on skype or yahoo will eat into the 4 gig up too.

[crazykopite]

I have cat fibre optic can watch all UK stations via streaming no problem I use a vpn tunnel bear costs less than £2 per month

[rbkk]

CAT fibre optic for a while now. Original package 12/1 (down/up) upgraded to 20/3, but have always had 24/3. I think it's called On-net Silver. Price 1500+vat. Works great. No degredation during bad weather. Free install; TOT wanted 12000baht for the same install. Oh, and the ping on speedtest.net is 12/15ms.

[Pib]

CAT fibre optic for a while now. Original package 12/1 (down/up) upgraded to 20/3, but have always had 24/3. I think it's called On-net Silver. Price 1500+vat. Works great. No degredation during bad weather. Free install; TOT wanted 12000baht for the same install. Oh, and the ping on speedtest.net is 12/15ms.

But that ping time is to a nearby server and would be the norm in many causes whether on a ADSL, Cable, or Fiber connection.. Heck, I get a 10-12ms ping time when using Speedtest.net to test to Bangkok speedtest servers...I'm in western Bangkok and use a True DOCSIS/cable plan.

[rwdrwdrwd]

I have 3BB Fibre Optic here in KK for a year now. Infact, I was one of the first FO users in KK. The do run a separate cable from the box to your house. Two of my neighbors installed it and separate cables were run as well.

I pay B1284/month for 30 down and 3 up. I get 36 down and 4.5 up. I only had the service go down for a couple of hours during a huge rain storm we had last month. Other than that it's been up and steady.

Is that 36 gig download and 4.5 gig up?

What is the use of having high speed fibre if only get those bandwidth allowances?

A blue ray movie is about 5 gig and streaming would soon use that up in a few days.

Sending your cam on skype or yahoo will eat into the 4 gig up too.

More likely refers to the speed in Mb/s rather than a bandwidth cap.

I have TOT Fibre business package, 50 Mb/s down, 10 Mb/s up - unlimited bandwidth. It's OK.. you don't get those speeds for international traffic but it can handle two simultaneous TV streams. It is certainly better than ADSL for sure (in terms of speed but also importantly reliability) but is not a patch on my Fibre connection back in Britain for the sites I generally want to access - Thai traffic, torrents etc are very quick though.

Edited June 11, 2014 by rwdrwdrwd

[rbkk]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

CAT fibre optic for a while now. Original package 12/1 (down/up) upgraded to 20/3, but have always had 24/3. I think it's called On-net Silver. Price 1500+vat. Works great. No degredation during bad weather. Free install; TOT wanted 12000baht for the same install. Oh, and the ping on speedtest.net is 12/15ms.

But that ping time is to a nearby server and would be the norm in many causes whether on a ADSL, Cable, or Fiber connection.. Heck, I get a 10-12ms ping time when using Speedtest.net to test to Bangkok speedtest servers...I'm in western Bangkok and use a True DOCSIS/cable plan.

Perhaps I should have said in comparison to my old TOT adsl line which had a ping of 70/230ms dependent on the weather.

[KhunBENQ]

We have TOT FTTX (fibre right to the router on my desk).

So have we.

And I paid a reasonable amount for about 600 m of fibre optic cable to our house.

For streaming servers from Bangkok (IPTV) I have 20 MBit/s steadily.

Upload is 2 Mbit/s with servers within Thailand.

Servers from Europe give mixed results depending on time of day.

But overall a significant improvement from ADSL,

-----------------

That measuring performance is a complex task I learned just two days ago.

I download OpenOffice (150 MByte) from a (link at a) German website.

Lightning fast! (close to 20 MBit/s).

Wow!

But then I analyzed and found that the download is managed by Akamai and the server IP for the download points to Bangkok

Similiar effects for popular websites like Google/youtube, Microsoft Update etc.

They either come from Bangkok or Singapore.

[pj123]

At one House i have CAT Fiber Optic 30 Meg. At another 3BB 10 Meg. The difference is well worth the extra cost imo.Thai Visa is dead in the water with 3BB,but on steroids with Cat. Same with You Tube.

I had a look at the CAT website, http://www.catinternet.in.th/index1.htm, and can find no reference to fiber optic services.

[rbkk]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

At one House i have CAT Fiber Optic 30 Meg. At another 3BB 10 Meg. The difference is well worth the extra cost imo.Thai Visa is dead in the water with 3BB,but on steroids with Cat. Same with You Tube. alt=thumbsup.gif>

I had a look at the CAT website, http://www.catinternet.in.th/index1.htm, and can find no reference to fiber optic services.

It's there, 3rd column/On-Net. Or try this CAT Contact Center โทร. 1322 / 0 2104 1100

[pj123]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

At one House i have CAT Fiber Optic 30 Meg. At another 3BB 10 Meg. The difference is well worth the extra cost imo.Thai Visa is dead in the water with 3BB,but on steroids with Cat. Same with You Tube. alt=thumbsup.gif>

I had a look at the CAT website, http://www.catinternet.in.th/index1.htm, and can find no reference to fiber optic services.

It's there, 3rd column/On-Net. Or try this CAT Contact Center โทร. 1322 / 0 2104 1100

Thank you. I will give them a call tomorrow.

[pj123]

I came across this price list for CAT On Net (attached)

The Silver 30/5 package is 2,500, the Gold 30/5 package is 4,200.

What are the benefits of Gold over Silver if they have the same speeds?

CAT On Net promotion_onnet.pdf

[mrfaroukh]

Yes

[kaydee412]

The short answer to your question is "probably". However, you need to differentiate between reliability and performance. In terms of the physical connection it's pretty much a toss up unless you have very unusual circumstances, e.g. bad wiring, interference, etc. As you might know the "inter" in "Internet" means "interconnected". This means that the connection from your residence to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) may be perfectly fine (e.g. you're actually getting the bandwidth/speed you're paying for), but the connection from that point on may be suboptimal or maybe even poor. It all depends on the route that your packets take to reach their destination *and* get back to you. If you live close to a telcom point of presence, you can have excellent performance on DSL, but then we're talking less than a 1000 meter, maybe even half that for 50+ Mbps speeds. Fiber is excellent, but your experience is only going to be as good as the weakest link in the chain called the Internet.

[khunron13]

I have 3BB Fibre Optic here in KK for a year now. Infact, I was one of the first FO users in KK. The do run a separate cable from the box to your house. Two of my neighbors installed it and separate cables were run as well.

I pay B1284/month for 30 down and 3 up. I get 36 down and 4.5 up. I only had the service go down for a couple of hours during a huge rain storm we had last month. Other than that it's been up and steady.

Is that 36 gig download and 4.5 gig up?

What is the use of having high speed fibre if only get those bandwidth allowances?

A blue ray movie is about 5 gig and streaming would soon use that up in a few days.

Sending your cam on skype or yahoo will eat into the 4 gig up too.

That's speed, not bandwidth allowance. Jeez!

[marquis22]

I have 3BB Fibre Optic here in KK for a year now. Infact, I was one of the first FO users in KK. The do run a separate cable from the box to your house. Two of my neighbors installed it and separate cables were run as well.

I pay B1284/month for 30 down and 3 up. I get 36 down and 4.5 up. I only had the service go down for a couple of hours during a huge rain storm we had last month. Other than that it's been up and steady.

Is that 36 gig download and 4.5 gig up?

What is the use of having high speed fibre if only get those bandwidth allowances?

A blue ray movie is about 5 gig and streaming would soon use that up in a few days.

Sending your cam on skype or yahoo will eat into the 4 gig up too.

That's speed, not bandwidth allowance. Jeez!

Thanks to enlighten me jeezsus

[khunron13]

I have 3BB Fibre Optic here in KK for a year now. Infact, I was one of the first FO users in KK. The do run a separate cable from the box to your house. Two of my neighbors installed it and separate cables were run as well.

I pay B1284/month for 30 down and 3 up. I get 36 down and 4.5 up. I only had the service go down for a couple of hours during a huge rain storm we had last month. Other than that it's been up and steady.

Is that 36 gig download and 4.5 gig up?

What is the use of having high speed fibre if only get those bandwidth allowances?

A blue ray movie is about 5 gig and streaming would soon use that up in a few days.

Sending your cam on skype or yahoo will eat into the 4 gig up too.

That's speed, not bandwidth allowance. Jeez!

Thanks to enlighten me jeezsus

You're welcome. I enjoy enlightening the ignorant.

[pomozki]

thanks for all the replies. Since I've been in Thailand and swapped Internet accounts, I've become wiser as to how they regularly regurgitate 2 lies over here!

1) ISPs here invariably quote extremely high Internet connection speeds, which are actually BS - and many farang will proudly repeat them in these forums. These speeds are actually for Thai websites only, and the truth is your connection to foreign sites (which is usually what we all want) is a fraction of that - 1-2mbps, nothing like 15 or 20 or 30 mpbs! I had this confirmed to me when I chatted to the customer service lady at 3BB, which is the only company in Khon Kaen to offer a special "premier international" package, costing 2,599 baht/month as opposed to the far cheaper other options. Even then she told me the international speeds are only 5 mbps on that service, roughly 3 times the speed everyone else is getting for foreign sites.

2) I'm no expert at this but a friend told me that true fiber optic means getting your own (thick white) cable from the original connection point ... in fact that doesn't seem to happen here. When I visited True (the only one of the 3 Internet companies now offering fiber in Khon Kaen - the other 2 say they are at capacity), the assistant told me installation was free, unless I was further than 70 meters from the nearest connection point. Then she brought up a map of my soi and happily told me I'd be fine because there was already a cable running up our tiny soi servicing some neighbors. So it seems to me we are all sharing the same cable. Is this a real fiber account? If not, the only advantage of this "fiber" connection is that the white cable might be more capable of resisting storms etc...

Edited June 22, 2014 by pomozki

[kaydee412]

1) Pretty much all ISPs sell you a higher speed than what they can deliver. However, keep in mind that an ISP cannot control the performance beyond their network. So if you're in Thailand and trying to access a site in say Canada, there's a number of networks in between that will affect your throughput. It's like blaming the local postal service for slow transit and delivery in another country.

2) The max throughput of fiber is much greater than the throughput typically sold so if you're sharing a fiber connection with your neighbors I wouldn't worry about it -- it's most definitely not the problem. You can determine why your connection to a particular site is slow by using tools like traceroute, latency monitoring, etc.

[gorgemuld]

roughly 3 times the speed everyone else is getting for foreign sites.

Thats because the connection Thailand have to the global cable are weak. It's a bottleneck everyone i Thailand have to share, and the ISP's also have limits, they have to share..

Until that bottleneck is fixed, the issue just get worse, not better

[casualbiker]

CAT fibre optic for a while now. Original package 12/1 (down/up) upgraded to 20/3, but have always had 24/3. I think it's called On-net Silver. Price 1500+vat. Works great. No degredation during bad weather. Free install; TOT wanted 12000baht for the same install. Oh, and the ping on speedtest.net is 12/15ms.

But that ping time is to a nearby server and would be the norm in many causes whether on a ADSL, Cable, or Fiber connection.. Heck, I get a 10-12ms ping time when using Speedtest.net to test to Bangkok speedtest servers...I'm in western Bangkok and use a True DOCSIS/cable plan.

I get that ping rate with 3bb 15/1.5 standard.. When we went over to True Docsis it was about the same day time but suffered a bit in the evening. The international to a Hong Kong speedtest was terrible at night compared to a slight reduction for 3bb. In 5 days will have 3bb Fiber, yay!

[RichCor]

I get that ping rate with 3bb 15/1.5 standard

Newbie gorgemuld decided to resurrect a 18-month-old topic for no reason.

Wish I had a water gun handy for such occasions.

[casualbiker]

I get that ping rate with 3bb 15/1.5 standard

Newbie gorgemuld decided to resurrect a 18-month-old topic for no reason.

Wish I had a water gun handy for such occasions.

LOL. Never noticed that!