3BB fiber: If it Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix it?

[Somnambulist]

I moved a week ago into a rental house with 3BB’s 1,200 baht fiber Internet (1,284 with VAT). It’s fast and stable, period. It never slows down. Even the wifi is fast enough to stream whatever I want, whenever I want to. It’s wonderful. I”ve never had such good service. So what’s the problem? No problem, but my neighbor two houses down says he gets nearly as good service paying the standard 590 baht. He says it slows down a bit on Friday afternoons but other than that is great. I downloaded a movie the other day that averaged 1.7 Mbps and reached a high of 3.2 Mbps. My neighbor’s high is about 1.7. But so what, that’s probably only a five or ten-minute difference for a movie download, right? I’ve done a few speed tests and always get a download speed of over 34 Mbps and upload of at least 3.3 Mbps

But I’m wary of switching to the 590 baht option because there is no guarantee that my connection will be as good as his. In my old neighborhood I had the 590 baht option and it was great, but I decided to upgrade to the next level (but still non-fiber) and my connection was actually worse. The wife was totally useless in helping get that straightened out and I couldn’t do it because my Thai is so poor so I just had to live with it. As a side note, she is now my ex and I am studying Thai every day.

As I type this it seems miserly to give up the Internet connection of my dreams for something almost as good or usually as good just to save 600 baht a month, but since I’ve gone to the trouble of writing this I’m going to post it. What is your experience with 3BB?

[krey]

A good connection with any company in Thailand for Internet really is just luck of the draw. Almost every company in Thailand there will be people that love it and people that hate it,

You can have great 3bb internet in your house and two houses down the guy has the worst 3bb Internet really is a cross your fingers kind of thing in Thailand

I still remember the best Internet I ever had was a TOT connection of 5mb on ADSL it was amazing compared to what I have had since then, i have had up to 30mb connections... I do miss my Western Internet, but hey that is just how it is here, one of the things you got to deal with in the Land of Smiles..

[Somnambulist]

Thank you for your response, krey. I'm leaning toward not messing with a good thing. The reason I 'upgraded' before was because I had just discovered downloading and felt it was the right thing to do to pay more since I was getting more. I hope I didn't make you spit out your beer laughing. Hahaha, yes, that was naive, thinking I should pay more to a Thai Internet company.

[krey]

Thank you for your response, krey. I'm leaning toward not messing with a good thing. The reason I 'upgraded' before was because I had just discovered downloading and felt it was the right thing to do to pay more since I was getting more. I hope I didn't make you spit out your beer laughing. Hahaha, yes, that was naive, thinking I should pay more to a Thai Internet company.

I am not saying not to upgrade, sometimes it does help, just saying in the Internet World in Thailand it really is just luck if you get a good connection. they could upgrade you and you might see a big difference, but then again you might see a terrible difference.... who know? haha

[shunter]

Leave well enough alone,As they say if it isn't broken don't fix it.

[masuk]

same as your neighbour's. Excellent signal sufficient to stream TV from overseas on wi-fi.

[LivinLOS]

Why would you even think about it..

I used to pay 15,000 a month, for IPstar to get a measely 256 kbps when it wasnt cloudy !!

And your going to get rid of a superb connection (I think sinet and 3bb fiber are the best currently), one I am offering them 10s of 1000s to run the fiber to my new place (but dont think they will) to save 600b a month ?? Thats just nuts..

Good stable connections are like hens teeth.. It makes or breaks a house location.

[LivinLOS]

same as your neighbour's. Excellent signal sufficient to stream TV from overseas on wi-fi.

I struggle to get iPlayer in HD even with a solid 3Mbit of actual tested line to the uk.

Netflix in 4k ?? Forget it..

[Somnambulist]

Thank you for sharing, everybody. It's abundantly clear to me now that they will have to pry my fiber contract from my cold, dead hands. Turns out, my neighbor doesn't even have 3BB; they have ToT and I had them once and it was abysmal.

[jacko45k]

Despite the saving, I too am tempted to say, if it works, don't fix it!

[patyh]

590 don't seem like Fibre to me.. UNless it's AIS Fibre in condo which is served up via VDSL..

[Caspersfriend]

Much of the variation in service [like with like] is down to the installer. We had same 3BB FO 30Gig installed and it was a sub-contractor who installed it. It worked but not to the 30 Gig level we were paying for. After several calls a 3BB technician came who knew what he was doing and when he left we had 30Gig+. You need to be very careful when installing fibre optic as any kink or bad handling can fracture the glass; degrading the signal. Contention ratio [number of users on the same line] can also make a big difference; especially at peak usage times. They have a tendency here to keep sticking more and more users on the same line until they feel a new line is justified; reactive as against proactive

Agree therefore to stay where you are. Which will mean you are also future-proofed; as all future improvements/upgrades will be focused on fibre optic.

[Autonuaq]

I have nad 3bb in several areas, and some areas they are good anfd fast inorhter there are problems.

Have had Ture and TOT

same problems

have has Ture ASDL many problem and with the true move H used as internet connection not problems'

where I live have not many choices infact no

so it was True asdl.

mony problem and bought my own DSL modem.

problems gone for 95%

Ture Adsl network is complete different form the Fibre net work I have had before of them and has much more porblem due to overbooking of the line and other material issues.

this year finally there came a new provider. 3BB fiber came.

now have dual wan with True and 3BB

tue is adsl and 3bb is fibre

speed is now reasonable and times are ok.

but still encounter the firewall problem of Thailand

some news sites are seen as porn site or illegal site and then you get the government page.

one or two call to the costumer service and the problem is solved. the websites are beeing able to access.till the next update of the firewall.

vpn connection are problems since a few months. sometimes are cut down for the thai site.

not sure why and how but this is recent since the bombing n Bangkok at the temple 2 week later this problem starts.

general the main problem is the overbooking of the line. can be solve to pay the business fee and you have 1:1 connection

but not solve the problem for non thai websites and access to them

that can be very fast to very very slow.

also the DNS has some time problem and report time out,

it depend on where you download form what speed you have.

the speed test are around the corner test and not reflect the line and way you use internet.

internet is the same as traffic on the road. the more lanes the more cars are able to travel.

but what is a 10 lane high way end in to a 1 lane street.

congestion and traffic jam.

because the maximum cars that can traver is 1 at a time.

so if the server had a speed to you of 1 Mbps and you have 30 Mbps. download, you will have about the same speed as one who has a 10 Mbps download line.

.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Autonuaq

[MadMac]

It's not a question of the last mile access (that's what you pay for), rather a question of the amount of users and possible congestion in the network and through the international gateway. So if it works fine now, it should work the same for half the price, if you don't change providers.

[Acharn]

You don't indicate what kind of income you have, so I don't know if ฿600 a month is important to you. I use the 3BB ฿590/mo (฿631 w/ VAT) in Nakhon Sawan. I'm satisfied with it. Occasionally I'll have a hiccough when streaming, but most of what I view on the internet is text anyway, so it's not a big deal. I'm retired and living on my Army pension and Social Security, more than the minimum needed to renew my visa, but not much more. I decided the extra benefit of a little more speed wasn't worth paying an extra ฿600.

[lomm]

I hope that I have this problem.

Now at my APT I can't got more than 13 mega' it's not enouth if my wife and me want to watch

a different movies.

Somtimes it's not enouth to watch single FHD movie.

I think that if this 600B not very critical for you, stay at the current program.

[bino]

A good friend of mine moved into a house and the internet was terrible. Sporadic preformance, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes nothing. He was on the phone to the technical support and having the technicians out every 3 or 4 days.

Ultimately it was discovered that the telephone cable from the street leading into the house had been cut and joined about four times between the street connection box and the jack in his bedroom where his computer / modem was. One of the connections was just twisted wires together- not even a bit of black tape.

He ran a new wire, and problem solved.

[MadMac]

I had 3BB coming that cut the TOT cable for the phone, then TOT came to fix the phone and cut the 3BB cable. All idiots. Now we have fiber from TOT. Don't let anyone of these clowns touch anything unless you know yourself what is going on!