TOT adsl or CAT Fiber?

[touch]

I've had TOT ADSL for a couple of years and it has been decent. However, it isn't really stable or reliable.

Recently CAT have offered to install a fiber optic connection with 20 Mbps download. My TOT Adsl is 13/1 throttled to 12/1 because the lines can't support more.

I pay roughly 850 B per month for TOT and Cat would be roughly 1.600B.

I had the opportunity to play with the CAT at their office in Pakchong today and I can't wrap my head around the speedtest results.

With www.testmy.net to San Jose I got varying speeds, between 1 mbps and 6 mbps down and the graph generated was really ugly.

At home on my ADSL connection, again using testmy.net, I get 7 mbps down to San Jose.

Are TOT in some way fiddling with the test results or are CAT really that poor despite it being a faster package and FTTH as well?

Can someone shed any light?

Should I stay with TOT or go for CAT?

[bearpolar]

They seem to limit international traffic a lot of the time on fiber but its still much faster. Especially the upload.

[touch]

Thing is, according to testmy.net, TOT ADSL is faster..

On international connections that is

Edited September 22, 2015 by touch

[bearpolar]

That's what i just said. On fiber you can multithread and get much faster speeds though unless you get throtled

[innerspace]

Many providers fake speed tests.

I have always found cat the best provider though higher priced. Fast, stable and reliable both with fibre and adsl.

Tot has been good but varies by year and location.

3bb been great for me for years at a lower price point than cat.

Grab a popular torrent with plenty of seeds and try it on both to test speed.

Then make a few Skype calls (not yesterday!) to test quality.

[touch]

Many providers fake speed tests.

I have always found cat the best provider though higher priced. Fast, stable and reliable both with fibre and adsl.

Tot has been good but varies by year and location.

3bb been great for me for years at a lower price point than cat.

Grab a popular torrent with plenty of seeds and try it on both to test speed.

Then make a few Skype calls (not yesterday!) to test quality.

I did think that I would try a torrent download, but they wouldn't allow me to install a torrent client on their notebook. (I'm using a PC and don't have a notebook to bring to their office)

would it be possible to do a big download on Android?

I just downloaded uTorrent to my phone. Downloading a Linux distro should show how fast it really is?

Then continue the same download on my TOT ADSL at home.

When I was doing the speedtests om testmy.net the graph and speedometer was rather shaky, it actually seemed like my TOT connection was more stable.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm surprised the difference between 12/1 ADSL and 20/3 FTTH isn't obvious.

[crazykopite]

I have Cat now for two years the service is excellent even though at 1,605 baht it's a bit expensive have just done speed test 25mbps it is good enough to watch Internet TV , movies and so on . I pay my bill in arrears each month , if I have had a problem I contact either my local office or the call centre and it is fixed without them having to come to my home normally within an hour, my neighbour has fibre with 3BB and moans like hell but paid up for a year to get discount so cannot do anything about it !!!!!

[touch]

Hi Thanks for that Crazykopite . Which package do you have with CAT?

Would you mind testing your speed on http://west.testmy.net/SmarTest/combinedAuto

I just did a test and got 9.8Mbps down and 0.2 Mbps up on my TOT ADSL

[rbmcn]

Been using TOT adsl for a cupla years. Live 25 kliks east of Promenada, Chiang Mai, in the Boonies. Pay for 10 Mbps, get 10.40 Mbps wifi on iPad Air and 10.94/99 Mbps on mbp most days. No complaints. Responsive when I do complain.

[bearpolar]

Been using TOT adsl for a cupla years. Live 25 kliks east of Promenada, Chiang Mai, in the Boonies. Pay for 10 Mbps, get 10.40 Mbps wifi on iPad Air and 10.94/99 Mbps on mbp most days. No complaints. Responsive when I do complain.

Download :: 4.2 Mbps 526 kB/s Upload :: 2.1 Mbps

3bb 50/10

9:30 am..

downgrading to 30/3 today.. hate that this company has 1 year forced contracts.. really want to sign up for AIS.

[touch]

Would it be correct to think that there won't be any improvement speedwise, if I switch to CAT?

[muratremix]

Cat would be faster than TOT.

But can you justify paying twice more for faster internet?

Perhaps you can talk to TOT and they can also deploy fiber. 20/10 fiber2u is 700 baht only in TOT (promotion)

[touch]

I guess you're right. TOT are saying that their fiber connection to where I live is "in the works", meanwhile ais have their cable on the main road 800m from my house. They are claiming that that is too far away for a reliable connection.

[muratremix]

I guess you're right. TOT are saying that their fiber connection to where I live is "in the works", meanwhile ais have their cable on the main road 800m from my house. They are claiming that that is too far away for a reliable connection.

AIS fibernet also a good choice. Perhaps make your wife/gf talk to them again.

[peergin]

3bb hate that this company has 1 year forced contracts.. really want to sign up for AIS.

They also tried to trick me into signing a 1-year contract. Luckily I did not fall for it.

[peergin]

Thing is, according to testmy.net, TOT ADSL is faster..

On international connections that is

Until a staff member starts closing the tap slowly until the connection becomes unusable. Next, he will visit you in a private capacity, accompanied by an anonymous, young man who will pretend that he is a private contractor. However, he does not even have a calling card.

-

The TOT fellow will tell you that you need an 18-metre (59 feet) antenna tower and, surprise (!), that "contractor" can arrange it for you. However, no receipt and no warranty. If, one day, the tower falls onto your head or onto your roof, YOU are responsible. Not TOT and not the contractor whoever he is.

-

The price of the project depends on the size of your house. The larger the house, the higher the price. In my case the price quoted was B 35,000. When I refused the price quickly came down to B 15,000. However, I did not fall for it because I had been using TOT ADSL for about 2 years with very few problems, until...... they created a problem. Meaning, I did not need this antenna tower. So, I cancelled my contract with TOT and am now using another provider.

Edited September 24, 2015 by peergin

[innerspace]

Cat would be faster than TOT.

But can you justify paying twice more for faster internet?

Perhaps you can talk to TOT and they can also deploy fiber. 20/10 fiber2u is 700 baht only in TOT (promotion)

For faster and more reliable certainly, but that's me.

As for the op asking about testing download speeds, a single file is a bad test.

Torrents use multiple connections which maximise speeds that are often limited per thread.

While single thread helps real life expectations it rarely hits quoted speeds.

My 3bb can hit quota on Torrents but never on a single web page(not that you would notice)

[muratremix]

If ISP is limiting single connections, they can also limit multiple connections, especially at prime time.

Of course there are workarounds.

True slows my line to 700-800 kbyte/sec at nights. I use True proxy + Singapore server to download my seedbox contents (tv shows etc) and I get max. speed even at primetime.