TOT vs 3BB My Experiences

[GinBoy2]

Living up in Backoybeyond land I find myself very fortunate to have access to two fixed line ISP's. For many years I had only TOT using a True 3G dongle as a backup, for those inexplicable TOT outages, slowdowns..

For the past couple of months I've had 3BB running in parallel with my TOT connection. Both are of comparable speed packages, 16/1 & 15/1. Lets start off by saying neither are perfect, nothing close to what you would expect from a Western ISP, but when they work, they both work OK.

In general I find that both give absolutely the intra Thai speeds, when it comes to International connections, 3BB generally has the edge. Routing seems to be better with lower ping times.

3BB as with TOT still does suffer the mystical outages, but thankfully not at the same time so I can maintain a reasonable connection at all times.

Price; the current price I pay for 3BB is a little less, about 100฿, but all in the same ballpark

As the disclaimer goes; past performance does not guarantee future results, but so far the kids have access to the TOT network, and I'm hogging all the 3BB bandwidth for myself!

[ChaangNoi]

I have had both TOT and 3BB fiber. Both are very good. 40down/5up.

A few years ago I had DSL and TOT was just so bad. 3BB was okay.

[whiteman]

I use cat and it is great

[Nuddy]

I have two internets set up.

I have the TOT ADSL via telephone line. I have had it for years and gradually it has improved. It is supposed to be currently Auto Upped 2555 package which says it is up to 10Mb/512Kb and costs 550 baht per month. It is hopeless on the weekend and when I ask about it the staff or Tecs say many people use it. As well after every big storm I have to go to the TOT office to get it turned back on as it stops working. The tech vehicles are always parked outside the office and to get one to come and sort it out seems to require either stamping one's foot or offering incentives.

A couple of years ago I saw this sign in nailed to a lamppost in town ...I'll put the picture there below.

It is a not wired system. It has an arial on the front of the house wired into the house to the modem router. It is more reliable but costs a bit more. It is 10Mb and costs 590 plus tax making it 631.30 per month. It works even when TOT is down. It does not seem to suffer from the "many people use it deal". It was run by AIS but is now run by a company called SBN. It is extremely difficult to contact them but the Telewiz shop seems to be able to do so. I highly recommend this one.

[Nuddy]

[ThaiSanookGuy]

3bb suxx here and TOT is really the best.

[wrassell]

A few years back I had TOT, pure crap! my line went down and it took three months to get it back. Every day I would call they would say someone come tomorrow and they never show. Finally I spotted a TOT tech and asked him to look into it an hour later it was working. They still charged me for the time it wasn't working only a 100B a month but they shouldn't have charged me anything for service that didn't work. Have free WIFI in the building I live TOT is the ISP, have to admit it is better now than before but still crap. I pay extra to have True internet it is ten times better and way more dependable. Sometimes in my building the TOT can go out for days or sometimes weeks at a time. Some people seem to have good luck with TOT luck of the draw I think. I have heard 3bb is pretty good I know a few people that have it they say it is good. I think a lot depends on where you are located. I avoid TOT, just my thoughts

Edited November 20, 2014 by wrassell

[glegolo]

By NOT saying where you live it is quite useless information, at least for me.

I live in Chaiyaphum (Isaan). I had TOT for a couple of years, and that was for me almost lost years. But by 2010 I finally was lucky to be able to contact 3BB and I am paying what NUDDY is saying above (631 baht a month for 10 Mb) And after that NEVER had any problem whatsoever since 2010.....

All that time lost with that freaking shit called TOT, never cared,,,, had break for 1 week at most, but MANY times up to 3-4 days of breaks. We called nobody showed up, or even cared.....A#holes...

All good now however..

Glegolo

[muratremix]

Everybody with sane mind should avoid TOT if there are other alternatives.

TOT should bankrupt as it is very poorly managed. Too bad, it belongs to the Government!

[mikebell]

I second the anti-TOT brigade. Recently purchased their fibre-optic package 15mb. It seems SLOWER than my previous, less expensive TOT package. My wi-fi does not reach my notebook eight metres away. I had two 'technicians' come and scratch their heads for 2 hours with no result.

[Equalizer]

I have TOT wait somethings flickering beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp

[ChaangNoi]

As I use the TOT fiber more I am having issues connecting with much speed to anywhere outside of Thailand. The 40/5 is only in Thailand. To anywhere in the USA top speed is like 3/.5

I never had this issue with 3BB fiber. I am a bit further from the city but still :/

[jaywalker]

This was back in early 2010 & I moved back to Thailand (Pattaya) & they had 3BB signs up every 10 feet it seemed like with a 4 digit number to call.

I called and called and called. No answer.

Finally got TOT & had to bribe them 200 baht so I wouldn't have to wait 2 weeks to get connected. Sheesh!

Edited November 20, 2014 by jaywalker

[Shaunduhpostman]

It depends on where you are and even on who is running things in your local TOT office. Prior to the last coup it was very good service in our area. After the coup when our service was cut, our service man told us new people were sent in to run things and the quality of the connection completely collapsed. Our whole village was stressed out, people could not do anything for months on internet. Nearly non-existent mobile phone service in our area we have learned to cope with, at least you know it will almost never work, but internet comes and goes in such an extreme manner, perfect for weeks then agonizing, impossible for 6 weeks, great for a week, then back to unusabale for another month. We begged them to come out for weeks, many of us in this area, nothing doing. They would make appointments to come out and blow them off and nothing was fixed. One morning I was talking to the operator and she says, "We know about the problem." I said, "I know that you know. But do you undertstand. There are 5-6 households around here who are paying you 600 baht a month and we have been getting almost nothing for 4 months. Do you expect that we are just going to keep paying 500-600 baht a month for no service?" She hadn't really put two and two together, "OOOh....You aren't getting internet?!For a long time, right?!" "No, thats what everyone is saying calling you people everyday, and we are going to stop paying we are going quit!" "Oh....You should talk to our manager." Finally he told us, we cannot fix the problems in your area. Then an amazing 1 month spell of perfect connections. Then TOT does what they have never ever done they actually phone us to check if everything is OK, "We got a message that your internet isn't working. We are coming out to fix things tomorrow." "Thanks but there haven't been any problems for weeks..." Sigh.

I called 3BB in desperation at one point and they said they would email me to say whether there was service in our area. They never got back to me. You cannot phone us out here, so I suppose typig an email is asking too much. The person I dealt with on the phone was difficult, would not address question after question, so I just figured they were probably even worse than TOT, or at least up here in our area of Isaan.

[muratremix]

When I filled 3bb service signup / inquiry form, I got response after 3 weeks.

When wifey told them to call a few hours later for confirmation, they never called back.

Maybe thats why they have less and less customers and more international bandwidth for the rest of the users?

[superal]

I have posted here before with regards to the appalling TOT service / customer support . Prasat near Surin Issan . After many months of problems and broken appointments I decided to cancel the contract . I was on a dongle costing 950 baht a month with speeds at best 3 / 2 but normally 2 / 1 or less . They were surprised when I went to their office and cancelled . The office staff were always polite and friendly and they asked me what will I do now . I told them that I will use my phone and tether to the laptop . I have been doing this for 2 months and getting up to 6 / 3 .

TOT then said why not have fibre optic ? I said I have been asking you for months , they said they will send a technician on Mon or Tue , guess what ? he never showed and when I went to their office , all they said was we were too busy . This is a very concise report , I could write a book , worse customer service I have ever had , Thai or anywhere

[marcusd]

It depends on so many factord. Your experience can be different to someone else in another area. Too many factors to use this as a case in point