Internet Provider with the best performance

[avander]

We live on a main road in the Darkside of Pattaya A year or so ago we installed a 20mb Fibre optic connection from TOT. We were satisfied with the internet performance we got for a number of months.

However, over the past 3-4 months the performance has dropped to an inadequate level causing regular serious buffering issues with many multimedia video streams from Youtube and many other services. NB: streaming on our internal network around the house is fine.

Various tests (from different providers such as Ookla etc) report that our performance (upload, download and ping times) is no different to when we first installed but it really seems downgraded. We don't have any hitchhikers on our WiFi, no new hardware and are using the original routers and extenders installed. Hardware diagnostics reports are OK and we don't appear to have virus problems although I did become suspicious recently. Nothing serious but I have changed our virus software ust in case. (That will be the subject of another post I will make.)

W do get occasional brief periods equivalent to the original performance but these are rare now.

I am seriously thinking of dropping our TOT 20mb Fibre connection (no pun intended) and seeing if True or another provider can offer a better service here on the dark side? Does anyone have any other recommendations or are they all going to be as bad as each other due to Thai Comms infrastructure (maybe there have been backbone or other changes over the last few months?).

[stag4]

What speeds does Ookla show?

[Langsuan Man]

Sorry but your story is typical of Internet here in Thailand

At first it works fine and then slowly denigrates to be almost unusable

Sounds to me like your TOT line has been oversold since fiber is just like a LAN and TOT has too many customers on "your" network

You are correct to suspect the Thai Comms infrastructure but your symptoms sound like over subscription, especially when you say that occasionally it will work like it did when first installed

[oneday]

It's not performance you need concern yourself with; it's consistency of service and service when calling them for help.

I would not recommend 3BB if you are in a Moo Baan. They will not touch any lines inside a Moo Baan. Their responsibility ends at the street before entering the Moo Baan. If your problem is inside the Moo Baan you are left on your own to fend for yourself. If you get a recommendation from the 3BB technician the people they find charge outrageous prices because they know they have you over a barrow.

We have a problem right now that can't be found and we were taken for 2000 baht by repair people recommended by the lead technician that did nothing to repair the problem. Our service now is up and down, fast and slow randomly. We can have good service for up to a week then bad service for 2 or 3 days or good and bad throughout the day. It's wonderful living in Thailand.

Cabling infrastructure in this country is sloppy, random, pathetic and never maintained. Whenever another vendor, say Cable TV or telephone or even another internet provider comes into our Moo Baan I cringe because invariably they screw up our line. Even 3BB has come in for another customer and screwed our line up. I have to watch them like a hawk every time I see one of their trucks in our Moo Baan.

[Just1Voice]

"I WANT MY COMCAST!!"

NOTE: More than likely, only American's will understand this.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Just1Voice

[Langsuan Man]

"I WANT MY COMCAST!!"

NOTE: More than likely, only American's will understand this.

Yes, and anyone that wants Comcast is clearly delusional

[ammagic]

Please don't do True..switched to True last August from TOT. Truly (sorry!)awful service. Can't wait to switch to Triple B when I year is up. Tot was SO much better. Internet slow often cannot connect at night....I could go on...terrible ! Engineer has come twice & can't work out what the problem is! Oh for some real competition!

[Just1Voice]

"I WANT MY COMCAST!!"

NOTE: More than likely, only American's will understand this.

Yes, and anyone that wants Comcast is clearly delusional

Oh, Really???? Well, from my point of view, it beats the hell out of anything else I've used or seen. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, whether it's right or wrong. And I stand by my statement - I want my Comcast!

[whiteman]

Pay the money and get Cat I have had it for 5 years and I have not had many problems with them, if there is the CAT man is right around and there 24/7 telephone service is good too. You pay peanuts you get that sort of service from the other suppliers. I have also moved house in this time and the service never drops off.

Better to pay more and keep ones blood pressure down. When living in Thailand you have to work the game. Some things you can get cheap but other things that are really inportant to you it is better to pay for it. Example getting a very good water filter in ones home and having it reg serviced means we can drink from the tap after it has been filted. Have been doing that for the last 5 years in two different homes and areas and the water has not given our family members any probs.

Now I wait for all the people to jump in with comments such as my TOT line is great, and I drink water direct from the tap and the hose and never had a problem. Bring it on.

[Langsuan Man]

"I WANT MY COMCAST!!"

NOTE: More than likely, only American's will understand this.

Yes, and anyone that wants Comcast is clearly delusional

Oh, Really???? Well, from my point of view, it beats the hell out of anything else I've used or seen. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, whether it's right or wrong. And I stand by my statement - I want my Comcast!

Yes, you have the right to feel anyway that you want. Fortunately very few Comcast customers in the US feel the same:

The only consumer survey that matters has found that among all businesses across every industry, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are the two most hated companies in America. The American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is put out quarterly by the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and is considered the most comprehensive customer satisfaction survey in the United States, has just come out with a new survey showing once again that Comcast and TWC have the lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any ISPs in the United States. And that’s not even the worst news for the two companies in the latest survey.

source: http://bgr.com/2014/05/20/comcast-twc-customer-satisfaction-survey-study/

[Carlosm]

TOT will start off well then as time goes by will fall off. I've now got CAT and had it some time now and its the same now as when i got it.... a total breath of fresh air compared to TOT.

[yankee99]

It's not performance you need concern yourself with; it's consistency of service and service when calling them for help.

I would not recommend 3BB if you are in a Moo Baan. They will not touch any lines inside a Moo Baan. Their responsibility ends at the street before entering the Moo Baan. If your problem is inside the Moo Baan you are left on your own to fend for yourself. If you get a recommendation from the 3BB technician the people they find charge outrageous prices because they know they have you over a barrow.

We have a problem right now that can't be found and we were taken for 2000 baht by repair people recommended by the lead technician that did nothing to repair the problem. Our service now is up and down, fast and slow randomly. We can have good service for up to a week then bad service for 2 or 3 days or good and bad throughout the day. It's wonderful living in Thailand.

Cabling infrastructure in this country is sloppy, random, pathetic and never maintained. Whenever another vendor, say Cable TV or telephone or even another internet provider comes into our Moo Baan I cringe because invariably they screw up our line. Even 3BB has come in for another customer and screwed our line up. I have to watch them like a hawk every time I see one of their trucks in our Moo Baan.

This may be your experience but they {3bb} come in my Moo baan and service everything.

I had to dump true cable because it doesn't work well with xbmc and YouTube hd was impossible.

[Minnehaha]

In Bangkok it is also a crapshoot.

True service has been fine at first.

Every few month it slows to a crawl or wont load anything.

Ookla tests are crap in my opinion. They have shown high speeds but even when the technician was here to witness the crap speed in reality.

It is noise. That is what they call it. Sometimes they can fix it at one of the switching boxes (is that their name?) on the road - there are 2 apparantly on they way into our street here off Sukumvit.

4 times in 3 years they have come inside the condo and switched the little metal switcher that connects the cable from the wall to the connection (male) for the router. They say the little piece is the problem.

Things get better. They must be right.

But switching this piece of hardware that has no moving parts is a mystery to me. But I witness the miracle every so often.

Last couple weeks the connection speeds have been very erratic and some days have been terrible. I was doing some searching over weekend to see if an international cable was down.

I have no hope for good internet speeds in Thailand. I am forced to focus on my meditation and practice loving kindness.

[avander]

What speeds does Ookla show?

Ookla consistently shows up/download speeds the same or very similar to what we subscibe to. Ping speeds are around 15ms at present and have been as low as 11ms at times previously.

I have a mate who lives some distance from us on Soi Siam CC and loves True which he's had for about 18 months now.

[abrahamzvi]

It's not performance you need concern yourself with; it's consistency of service and service when calling them for help.

I would not recommend 3BB if you are in a Moo Baan. They will not touch any lines inside a Moo Baan. Their responsibility ends at the street before entering the Moo Baan. If your problem is inside the Moo Baan you are left on your own to fend for yourself. If you get a recommendation from the 3BB technician the people they find charge outrageous prices because they know they have you over a barrow.

We have a problem right now that can't be found and we were taken for 2000 baht by repair people recommended by the lead technician that did nothing to repair the problem. Our service now is up and down, fast and slow randomly. We can have good service for up to a week then bad service for 2 or 3 days or good and bad throughout the day. It's wonderful living in Thailand.

Cabling infrastructure in this country is sloppy, random, pathetic and never maintained. Whenever another vendor, say Cable TV or telephone or even another internet provider comes into our Moo Baan I cringe because invariably they screw up our line. Even 3BB has come in for another customer and screwed our line up. I have to watch them like a hawk every time I see one of their trucks in our Moo Baan.

I entirely and utterly disagree with your description of the service by 3 BB. We live in a small Moo Baan in a suburb of Chiang Mai (Mae Rim) and whenever anything goes wrong with our internet connection the 3 BB technicians are there usually within 24 hours of the notification. We have just had as disturbance caused by a torn cable outside our house and it was repaired within 12 hours. I have lived in quite a few countries and can't remember a better and more efficient service. THANK YOU 3BB!!!!!!!

[avander]

We have street frontage so no porblem with any provider having to come into Moo Baan,

Do we have any other CAT or 3BB on the Darkside users who can attest to the service levels?

I am also interested to know what service speeds you subscribe to and how much you are paying?

We are paying 990/mth for the fibre optic internet connection.

[bartender100]

Sophon have a new service not advertised yet, 6MB for international routes , I switched from the regular 10MB to it for a trial and its much faster for what I want

[johnh869]

I've had all three...TOT,3BB, and True in that order. True is the winner for me! Cable Internet 35M/3.5M...I get 59 megs down and 3.8 megs up on an Ookla speed test. I have a Docsis 3 Cisco modem. Get 4.5 megs per second file transfers on YouTube MP4 files. 1,925 Baht per month inclusive of VAT. Customer service is good. Come to the house when I call them. Stay away from ADSL systems if you can! That's my two cents...

Edited April 7, 2015 by johnh869

[KhunBENQ]

The topic title is an all time favorite

And the answers so far sound very familiar.

About every company gets some good and some bad ratings.

Much depends on your location and Pattaya is obviously problematic.

Growing of demand exceeds development of bandwith.

They sell more than they have using strong advertisement (30 MB, 100 (!) MB and so on).

It all ends up in some quite limited seacables and most going through a landline bottleneck to Singapore.

I don't have the exact numbers, but please multiple 30 MB by lets say 1 mio users online.

Thats 30 TB (terrabit), 10 times the flow at the biggest internet hub (IX) in Europe (de-cix).

https://www.de-cix.net/about/statistics/

Far beyond international bandwidth to Thailand that I can imagine.

Ookla speedtest? To Bangkok server?

Useless, says nothing about international bandwidth.

And most of the tests to international locations are manipulated, easily recognizable by ping times of lets say 50 ms or below which ridicules Einstein

The topic is endless and tyring

I don't drink tap water, but my ToT fibre connection here in the sticks works very satisfying

For a no nonsense test of your internet connection go here:

http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

The ICSI Netalyzr from Berkeley edu,

Bandwith test is just a minor part of the tests.

Edited April 7, 2015 by KhunBENQ

[edwardflory]

"I WANT MY COMCAST!!"

NOTE: More than likely, only American's will understand this.

Yes, and anyone that wants Comcast is clearly delusional

COMCAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!........someone has got to be doing dr%%s!!

[GinBoy2]

Well my take on the Thai internet is this. I have both 3BB DSL & TOT Fiber and TOT DSL previously. Both work, and both don't at times. Over the years I've long since stopped expecting any of them to work 100%, 100% of the time. They all experience the same appalling international connectivity, especially in the evenings, so if you are doing a speed test to Bangkok that may well be great, but anything thats routing outside the Kingdom may well be dire.

On the question of stability (and this relates to re-sync's) 3BB is a lot more stable than TOT DSL, which seemed to re-sync several times a day, which is an annoyance if you are using any geo mask service and requires you to renew the IP address. TOT Fiber does so far seem to much much more solid.

Now on overall speed stability, 3BB used to be substantially more stable than TOT DSL, however recently it seems to have been a bit of a mixed bag with speeds all over the place. TOT Fiber seems pretty rock solid on speed tests to Bangkok 24 hours a day, but as I stated before if you speed test to a US or EU server you will watch it tank in the late afternoon early evening. So in other words, it's always going to be, to paraphrase Forrest Gump.."like a box of chocolates, won't know until you give it a bite".

I've never had True since it's not available, but I'd suggest reading some of the many threads, it seems that even their flagship DOCSIS 3.0 seems flakey at best.

On the Comcastic issue. I never really had an issue with their cable service, apart from the fact that it was horribly overpriced. But it worked as advertised, and so long as you didn't have to speak to customer 'service' all was good. I'd gradually reduced TV services until got rid of it completely at which point they jacked up my internet bill bill 20%. After an hour with the 'retention' dept telling them that AT&T Uverse was 20% cheaper than I was originally paying before their 20% increase, I finally told them to stick it were the sun didn't shine, and moved to Uverse. Wasn't that happy with Uverse, but dammit it was the principle LOL

Edited April 7, 2015 by GinBoy2

[johnnynmonic]

In my experience, CAT is the only provider that works consistently. They only cost a bit more. The other guys (True, 3BB, et al) all buy their bandwidth from CAT anyway. Just skip the middleman.

[Janner1]

Hello Avander,

Before you change your IP unplug your router overnight and plug it in again in the morning or if you don't use it during the day do it then.

Make sure you unplug it.

Routers are working all the time they are switched on and tend to get choked up with a lot of rubbish,unplugging it gives it a chance to clean up and refresh itself.

Also take a look at the anti virus software you uninstalled, have a search through your computer to make sure that ALL of it has been removed.

Quite a lot of them get into every aspect of the system and then undermine it, slowing everything down because it fights with the new software you installed.

You need to remove every tiny aspect of it including any cookies and if you can do it that identification in your firewall that lets the updates through.

Give it a try, it has got to be worth the effort

Good luck

[ToS2014]

Live off Khao Noi. Changed over from TOT to 3BB in Dec. Paid a year (yikes) up front for 15MB. Only once, for apps 3 hrs, did I lose service. I called the support number and they told me that there was service being accomplished in the area and that it would be 3-5 hours. While out and about I got a call from 3BB; they asked if my internet was working since maintenance was finished...amazing customer support/service in my perspective!

I regularly do a speed test and seldom pull less than 14MB. Never have a problem streaming vids, or for that matter streaming vids on my pc while the wife is busy with her cell phone. There is an office just off Khao Noi on SKMvit. Might be worth a visit.

Edited April 8, 2015 by ToS2014