Fiber optic internet

[tropo]

Hello all, I used in my home before 3BB with 16Mbps and paid THB 1'594.00 per month and had a lot of disconnection and was not very happy with 3BB. I had even to call them to discuss these disconnection in front of the Provinicial Court in Pattaya.

In my home country I was used to a connection by fibre obtic cable with more than 100Mbps. So I was looking for a company in Pattaya who was willing to install a fibre optic cable for internet in my house. I must admit, there where not a lot of companies willing to do it. TOT, 3BB, Jomtien Cable and Sophon refused all, saying that they were not interested to install it in a private resort of over 200 houses in Jomtien-Beach. Only two companies were willing to do it: CAT and SBN.

CAT was to expensive regarding yearly and subscription fees and for the installation fees and pulling the cable.

So I choose SBN Sophon Broatband Network Co. Ltd. in Pattaya-Thai. I am now the first person having a FTTH Fiber to the Home connection in our resort. I paid only a subscription fee and the modem of THB 7'500.00 and a yearly fee of THB 14'154.00 (tax of THB 154.00 included) for 10Mbps up to 100Mbps download and 1Mbps upload as per contract. Means that this FTTH connection is a shared connection with other peoples.If a few peoples are online, you have more Mbps at you disposal, if more people are online, you have less Mbps at your disposal. I made already several times the speedtest on 3BB, and I had always more than 22Mbps download and 25Mbps upload at my disposal. Pulling the fibre obtic cable to my home was free and without any charges for me. ,

It looks like you're getting exceptionally good value, as you're paying about 1,200 baht/month to have 10 - 100 Mbps... but I'm curious, the Sophon Broadband packages have set limits. All package perform up to a set max speed available. It's hard to believe you have a 100/25 package for that price. Is that what you have on paper? i.e. a 100/25 package? If so, you have the best value internet in Pattaya hands down. Nothing comes close.

Hello Tropo,

I do not have a 100/25 package, I mentioned clearly 10-100Mbps download and 1Mbps upload. This is what the advertisement of SBN Sophon Broadband Network Co. Ltd. in Pattaya-Thai and my written contract with them confirms. If you like to have more information on this subject, than you can contact me by PM. Prices are corrrect as per contract. Speedtest also is correct, if you do not belive it, I invite you to test the speed in my home

Your post is not easy to follow, but you basically said you have up to 100 Mbps download and 25 Mbps upload at your disposal. This would indicate a 100/25 Mbps package, as all package numbers with all ISP's are considered as UP TO, but not guaranteed.

I'm not at all interested in visiting your place for a personal test.

[tropo]

I have had cat for over 2 years and we have just finished the new house. So I asked cat how much to lay the cable to my house 2 .2 kilometers of new cable. Cost me 20000 bhat I said go for it. The cost is 4000 bhat a month all up and the speed is download 33.4 up load 12.14 ping is 4 ms.

They installed it today and we sleep in our brand new home tonight only took just under 6 months to build. We live in Chonbory

How are international download speeds on CAT ?

It's impossible to answer that. You'll never get two measurements the same to any international server. Bangkok measurements are the only set measurement that you can work on. The faster they are, the faster your international performance.

Bittorrents are different as you're connected to many servers at once, so on a good torrent you can max out your full Bangkok speed, whatever that is. My best performance is nearly 6 MB/s which is over 21GB per hour..

The reason I asked was because it has been several times mentioned in this and other threads regarding the CAT fiber, that they first need to fix their international gateway bottleneck.

So far I would think that is the same with every ISP in Thailand. 6 Mb looks fine to me , I would already be happy with half of that.

As a CAT subscriber to two services, both Fiber Optic and HiNet I'm not aware of any international bottle neck. If there is an international bottle neck with CAT, then it will bet the same with all other ISP. I figure that all people must go through bottlenecks to get to the US or Europe, so how is this every going to be resolved. There's a limited number of pipes in either direction.

For what it's worth, I'm quite happy to post numbers here to make comparisons with others who have 3BB, True or TOT services. Just give me the exact server name and location on Speedtest.net... or we could run more comprehensive tests on testmy.net and post numbers, however they only have a limited number of servers.

Edited July 18, 2014 by tropo

[KittenKong]

That's an interesting theory, but how on earth would anyone know what services are being throttled or not?

It's simple. If a connection to a fast Bangkok server consistently gives a sustained 12 or 14mbs, and if a connection to a fast server in (say) London or Singapore consistently gives a sustained 5mbs then one can be fairly sure that the international connection is being throttled to 5mbs. If the connection wanders around all over the place from 1 to 13 and back again then the connection is just rubbish, but probably not throttled.

The results I get indicate that my international bandwidth is indeed throttled, but I am not surprised. If it bothered me I could pay a lot more for a "premium" international connection that would be (less) throttled, but I dont need it so I dont.

[Kaoboi Bebobp]

Excellent thread. But I just imagine all the communication workies pulling cables all over town and filling in the last viewing gaps to the skies. LOL

[kaizoku]

I'm pretty much agree with Tropo.

At the coworking we are also using CAT (fiber optic) and we are happy with it.

I never seen an instalation fee of 40+K THB. As other members said before it cost around 6000THB, in our case they put something like 60m of fiber.

They came to install it the same day I subscribed (I was also surprised).

We have pretty good speed on overseas specialy on the US (west coast), HK not bad too, Europe & Russia it depends but still much better than without the fiber.

I would be curious to compare speed with 3BB or TOT fiber optic.

[JesseFrank]

I'm pretty much agree with Tropo.

At the coworking we are also using CAT (fiber optic) and we are happy with it.

I never seen an instalation fee of 40+K THB. As other members said before it cost around 6000THB, in our case they put something like 60m of fiber.

They came to install it the same day I subscribed (I was also surprised).

We have pretty good speed on overseas specialy on the US (west coast), HK not bad too, Europe & Russia it depends but still much better than without the fiber.

I would be curious to compare speed with 3BB or TOT fiber optic.

Actually they started at 72.000 Baht, and I'm not sure if that include the installation.

I went to CAT yesterday and told them about. They had a good laugh, but they can't do anything about since the tv company is licensed to do it in that area.

[kaizoku]

Could it be the offer type ? Private / Business ?

I'm talking about the business offer.

[tropo]

That's an interesting theory, but how on earth would anyone know what services are being throttled or not?

It's simple. If a connection to a fast Bangkok server consistently gives a sustained 12 or 14mbs, and if a connection to a fast server in (say) London or Singapore consistently gives a sustained 5mbs then one can be fairly sure that the international connection is being throttled to 5mbs. If the connection wanders around all over the place from 1 to 13 and back again then the connection is just rubbish, but probably not throttled.

The results I get indicate that my international bandwidth is indeed throttled, but I am not surprised. If it bothered me I could pay a lot more for a "premium" international connection that would be (less) throttled, but I dont need it so I dont.

It's simple? It is simple, but not in the way you describe it. It doesn't work like that. We have millions of people trying to get onto international pipes over the Pacific and West. It's a matter of congestion, not throttling. It's physical limitations within our geographical region. The only use of very fast connections here is either for P2P, or local (Asian) traffic. For example I always get high speeds to Hong Kong and Singapore - nearly the same as Bangkok.

If you have a high bandwidth to Bangkok, but your speed is low to international servers, it's like driving a Ferrari on a congested highway.

If you pay for a standard connection, you're sharing with a lot of people, so you're dealing with a limited shared bandwidth. I've never gone for a standard connection with any company, so don't have the (bad) experience there. I prefer to pay more to share with less.

For example, I pay 1650 a month for a 7/1 Mbps CAT HiNet connection,.Compared to most of the standard connections with 3BB, TOT and True it is a low speed for much more money, but I'll bet it's a hell of a lot more reliable.

Edited July 19, 2014 by tropo

[KittenKong]

Part of what you are describing is contention. I am talking about traffic shaping and throttling.

I suggest you look them up.

An example:

My (nominal) 13mbs ADSL connection (not a premium connection) gives me 13mbs to fast Bangkok servers at most times. It also gives me about 5mbs to fast servers situated outside Thailand most of the time, sometimes more. If I connect to multiple servers outside Thailand (for example via a file-sharing programme) then I also get a consistent 13mbs total from outside Thailand at most times. This simply means that each international connection is being throttled.

The effect of contention occurs at peak hours (generally early evening) and causes all connections to slow down, including the ones to fast servers in Bangkok, though the effect may be more noticeable on international connections if as well as local contention there is some traffic shaping going on to reduce the load on the international gateway at the same peak times (which there usually is in Thailand). And also connections out of Thailand to some parts of the world (mostly Europe) are simply a bit undersized, compared to the connections to the US for example.

On top of all that there may be extra effects introduced by capping, which Thai ISPs also tend to use as a way of penalising those who make the most demands on the available bandwidth.

So a mixture of various causes, but the most noticeable one when connecting to a single international server is throttling.

Thai ISPs aren't alone in using the above techniques: they are common in the US and the UK and in many other countries, though it varies according to the ISP. Where I used to be in Europe there was no capping or throttling at all, and contention was not a problem either. And I paid a little bit less for that than I pay here (EUR20), even including much higher VAT.

[tropo]

Part of what you are describing is contention. I am talking about traffic shaping and throttling.

I suggest you look them up.

An example:

My (nominal) 13mbs ADSL connection (not a premium connection) gives me 13mbs to fast Bangkok servers at most times. It also gives me about 5mbs to fast servers situated outside Thailand most of the time, sometimes more. If I connect to multiple servers outside Thailand (for example via a file-sharing programme) then I also get a consistent 13mbs total from outside Thailand at most times. This simply means that each international connection is being throttled.

The effect of contention occurs at peak hours (generally early evening) and causes all connections to slow down, including the ones to fast servers in Bangkok, though the effect may be more noticeable on international connections if as well as local contention there is some traffic shaping going on to reduce the load on the international gateway at the same peak times (which there usually is in Thailand). And also connections out of Thailand to some parts of the world (mostly Europe) are simply a bit undersized, compared to the connections to the US for example.

On top of all that there may be extra effects introduced by capping, which Thai ISPs also tend to use as a way of penalising those who make the most demands on the available bandwidth.

So a mixture of various causes, but the most noticeable one when connecting to a single international server is throttling.

Thai ISPs aren't alone in using the above techniques: they are common in the US and the UK and in many other countries, though it varies according to the ISP. Where I used to be in Europe there was no capping or throttling at all, and contention was not a problem either. And I paid a little bit less for that than I pay here (EUR20), even including much higher VAT.

"I suggest you look them up"... cute!

What is the point of this discussion? You expect 13 Mbps on a heavily shared connection to anywhere in the world?

The more you pay, the faster your international connections are likely to be. I do know one thing for sure, if you go into the CAT office and inquire about overseas connections and speed, they will tell you the truth. They will even understate the speeds you are likely to get. When you sign a contract with them, there's a whole page of "fine print" explaining exactly what you get and what not to expect... but it's not even fine print - it's large and bold.

You can come up with all the theories in the world, but at the end of the day there are limited physical connections to the rest of the world. The pipelines are shared by countless millions of users.

... and comparing the prices here to prices in Europe serves no purpose at all. The prices are the prices, take them or leave them. Considering I pay over 6000 baht per month for my connections, I'm a bit more proactive in trying to solve my speed problems than you are. Considering you're a multi (dollar) millionaire I'm surprised you're so tight. Why not get your own leased pipeline? If you decide to splash out, don't forget to come back and tell us what speeds you're getting to international servers.

In Australia and NZ they solve the congestion problem another way. They're in a similar situation to Thailand regarding geographical isolation from USA and Europe. They solve the problem by having data caps on all plans. Uncapped plans are very expensive. At the end of the day, if you pay for peanuts, you'll get peanuts.

Edited July 20, 2014 by tropo

[KittenKong]

"I suggest you look them up"... cute!

What is the point of this discussion?

Given that you seem to be unwilling to learn anything from it, very little.

Considering I pay over 6000 baht per month for my connections, I'm a bit more proactive in trying to solve my speed problems than you are. Considering you're a multi (dollar) millionaire I'm surprised you're so tight. Why not get your own leased pipeline?

Unlike you I dont have any speed problems. I am satisfied with what I get for my 900B and at no point have I suggested that I want or need more.

YMMV, and apparently it does.

[tropo]

"I suggest you look them up"... cute!

What is the point of this discussion?

Given that you seem to be unwilling to learn anything from it, very little.

Considering I pay over 6000 baht per month for my connections, I'm a bit more proactive in trying to solve my speed problems than you are. Considering you're a multi (dollar) millionaire I'm surprised you're so tight. Why not get your own leased pipeline?

Unlike you I dont have any speed problems. I am satisfied with what I get for my 900B and at no point have I suggested that I want or need more.

YMMV, and apparently it does.

(I certainly can't learn anything from you, and I know where to go if I need technical information)

.. but considering you have no problem with your low cost connection, you're probably just here to argue.

I however pay for speed, so speed is obviously a very important factor. If it wasn't I'd switch over to one of your budget services. Let's face it, if you were paying 7 times what you're currently paying you'd be a bit more concerned about speed too, wouldn't you.... especially if you weren't a millionaire.

The bottom line for me is upload speed, which tends to be very hard to get to international servers. The only way to get higher upload speeds is to subscribe to the more expensive fiber optic packages, no matter what ISP you choose. It just doesn't come cheap.

[KittenKong]

(I certainly can't learn anything from you, and I know where to go if I need technical information)

That's fine then.

.. but considering you have no problem with your low cost connection, you're probably just here to argue.

No, to inform.

[tropo]

I have had cat for over 2 years and we have just finished the new house. So I asked cat how much to lay the cable to my house 2 .2 kilometers of new cable. Cost me 20000 bhat I said go for it. The cost is 4000 bhat a month all up and the speed is download 33.4 up load 12.14 ping is 4 ms.

They installed it today and we sleep in our brand new home tonight only took just under 6 months to build. We live in Chonbory

How are international download speeds on CAT ?

I finally got around to do some testing to provide (hopefully) useful answers.

It would be great if some fiber optic customers from the other companies (True, 3BB) could provide some test results for comparative purposes.

These are tests on the CAT 30Mbps/7Mbps "Gold Plus" package (5842 baht/month including VAT).

My Bangkok test speeds to a CAT server are a steady 47/10

I chose "Auto-testing" at testmy.net to their San Jose (California) server. I set the download size at 50MB running 6 test per hour for 4 hours (25 total). As most people are only interested in download speeds, that's all I've included in the results.

These results are far more useful than speedtest.net results as you can test large downloads up to 200MB, giving you a more meaningful result, especially on faster connections.

Edited July 25, 2014 by tropo

[gazzabkk]

Interesting thread.

Has anyone any experience of getting fibre optic broadband internet installed into high rise condo buildings? 3BB keep telling us that it is not possible can't go high up; is this true? How could that be correct?

Any experience sharing that people have on this subject would be great; pros and cons would be helpful.

Thank you.

[JESSVANPELT]

I use Sophon and get 10Mb, and we share it amongst 4 of us. I get the dirt feed and my mates use my wifi signal. Its cost 9000 a year. brilliant service , no problems after 3 years

[Basil B]

...The technician says he guarantees 10M down at all time.

Here in the UK normally we can get at least 75Mbs FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet), that is roadside utility boxes (cabinet) are connected to fibre network, and nowadays copper coax cable is run to your house.

What Pattaya needs is a citywide shared fibre network to shared cabinets ever 100m, where ISP's and phone companies can tap into with TP, Coax and Fibre, and there would be an awful lot of scrap copper and using fibre would be a lot less strain on the utility poles as you only need 1/4 pound of glass to replace 33 tons of copper.

[Anthony5]

...The technician says he guarantees 10M down at all time.

Here in the UK normally we can get at least 75Mbs FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet), that is roadside utility boxes (cabinet) are connected to fibre network, and nowadays copper coax cable is run to your house.

What Pattaya needs is a citywide shared fibre network to shared cabinets ever 100m, where ISP's and phone companies can tap into with TP, Coax and Fibre, and there would be an awful lot of scrap copper and using fibre would be a lot less strain on the utility poles as you only need 1/4 pound of glass to replace 33 tons of copper.

But that is just the point, we are not HERE in the UK, we are HERE in Thailand.

[gazzabkk]

Thanks for the replies. So, is the following going to get me and my building heading in the right direction?

Some/all ISP's can offer fibre optic to the street/building. It is then for the building to take this feed and distribute it in the building; using fibre optic if we wish? I mean is there any reason why we can not cable our own building with our own fibre optic?

I understand the limitations about ISP and throttling and all that. I am an optimist.

[thailanddogerator]

Hello, AIS Fiber internet in Bangkok wanted to connect the fiber to an old telephone cable that I don't want to use, I told them that I will pay the fiber to come to my condo floor, do you know if a price of 60 thb/m is what I have to expect ?

[MickRobbo]

Hey, all I can do is laugh at this. CAT have it rigged well (sort of), they see 'us' farang coming a mile off (they quoted me 10,700B for 1 km). Fibre optic can carry massive amounts of data traffic duplex (why pay for the whole soi to get hooked up to their billing system); I was a telecommunications engineer in Australia for Telstra, Optus and Vodafone - Telstra for the residential fibre. Including field & exchange installation firstly then designing, the cost of fibre strand is very cheap, equipment costs maybe a little outlay. Fair go - these people are just taking the piss + it's all above ground, my e-mails have gone unanswered from CAT BKK which indicates one thing, poor service same as 3BB typically. These firms are meant to be expanding their Fibre service area and expect westerners to foot the bill? REALLY!!?? Thais wouldn't pay for it, the xenophobia here sh!ts me to death. Further corruption is expected from these people always or nothing gets achieved. Sad facts, ignorance is bliss as they know no different.

[Rimmer]

I had CAT fiber installed around six weeks ago.

The guys installing it tried to charge for the cable and sell us a modem, a phone call to the local office to find out if this was correct put a stop to all that and we were told there is no charge for cable, routers or modem. The cost of installing our cable which was probably around 600 meters was zero.

Three days a go there was an electrical fire 1500 mtrs down the line caused by an illegal electric meter installed on a pole also holding the CAT boxes and cables, CAT came within the hour and replaced their boxes and thousands of meters of burnt fiber cable, they worked all day and finished after dark so we could have internet that day. No charge to anyone.

The monthly charge is baht1600. I am currently logging download speeds up to 67Mbs

EDIT

I have just been told by my wife that we actually bought a better high speed modem than the one on offer from CAT also that she found out that they will charge for cable only when it goes over 1500 mtrs

[MagnumForce]

Hi Rimmer,

Interesting experience with CAT. I want to get Fiber Optic too. What's your upload speed and which part of Pattaya are you located in? Which CAT office did you go to?

Many thanks,

MF

[TheCruncher]

Hey, all I can do is laugh at this. CAT have it rigged well (sort of), they see 'us' farang coming a mile off (they quoted me 10,700B for 1 km). Fibre optic can carry massive amounts of data traffic duplex (why pay for the whole soi to get hooked up to their billing system); I was a telecommunications engineer in Australia for Telstra, Optus and Vodafone - Telstra for the residential fibre. Including field & exchange installation firstly then designing, the cost of fibre strand is very cheap, equipment costs maybe a little outlay. Fair go - these people are just taking the piss + it's all above ground, my e-mails have gone unanswered from CAT BKK which indicates one thing, poor service same as 3BB typically. These firms are meant to be expanding their Fibre service area and expect westerners to foot the bill? REALLY!!?? Thais wouldn't pay for it, the xenophobia here sh!ts me to death. Further corruption is expected from these people always or nothing gets achieved. Sad facts, ignorance is bliss as they know no different.

10.700 for a km of fiber is a bargain, compared to the 100 Baht per meter BTV quoted me.

[Rimmer]

Hi Rimmer,

Interesting experience with CAT. I want to get Fiber Optic too. What's your upload speed and which part of Pattaya are you located in? Which CAT office did you go to?

Many thanks,

MF

I am not inside Pattaya, Speed down a little just now maybe its peak time

[bangkokairportlink]

On 11/16/2015 at 11:56 PM, thailanddogerator said:

Hello, AIS Fiber internet in Bangkok wanted to connect the fiber to an old telephone cable that I don't want to use, I told them that I will pay the fiber to come to my condo floor, do you know if a price of 60 thb/m is what I have to expect ?

 

Do you have the reply ? How much costs fiber optic cable now ? Thanks.

 

[joepattaya1961]

Fiber optic......a joke!!

There's obviously 3BB FO in the building here (Jomtien). 

Goes on and off.......speed is far below the promised 30Mb down. 

The owner paid in May 2016 13,xxx for a one year contract (30Mb/10Mb)

At the moment the price is 11,xxx for a one year contract (100Mb/20Mb).

I just hope that the speed will actually increase and that the connection will be stabil.

[Sup Slick]

On 7/16/2014 at 7:57 PM, JesseFrank said:

Price would be 899 Bht/month for 10M down.

I pay 1,200 baht per month for 200/50 fiber from 3BB

 

two hundred down and fifty up

 

Best thing I ever did was upgrading. 

[Sup Slick]

1200 a month. Years ago I was paying about the same for a 10M line. 

 

 

 

[d2g]

I've had 3BB fiber for more than a year with very few problems.

I can stream HD video from the US and am satisfied with the service.

I live on the dark side.