AIS FTTH: modem yes or no?

[robertmueller]

Our son won from Central one of these Android Boxes. He installed Kodi etc.

As we have ADSL at home (10/1) the speed is not enough.

In our Moo Baan there is already the installtion for FTTH from AIS.

We went to AIS in Central Festival and wanted to subscribe the new FTTH contract.

My wife asked the sales staff if we need to have a modem and the staff said yes. AIS will provide a router for free.

I was pretty sure that with FTTH you only need to have the latest router but no modem. (Sorry, I am no technic guru.)

Except they use a co-ax cable on the last few meters into the house.

I asked then which Modem AIS recommends to use together with their router. But she couldn't tell so.

a) Could someone please let me know if with AIS FTTH you really need to have a modem, in addition to the router provided for free. Which AIS office in CM does have the most competent staff for FTTH questions?

b, is the package 50down/20up enough for using Kodi with live stream, gaming, normal internet use (Facebook) etc.?

c) I read that the AIS router is nothing to talk about and people recommend another Router, e.g. Asus RT-AC68u. Will this router be good enough for our needs?

d) Where in Chiang Mai is the best choice to find a router?

Thank you very much.

Rob

[MadMac]

They usually supply a modem (which is a basic LAN router, no Wifi) and a separate Wifi box. Both Chinese crap, we got one ZTE modem and they wanted to sell a TP-link router from TOT, probably the same with AIS. Modem you can't avoid, but I connected a Fritzbox to it. Works after all, service quality is so-so. Was funny to have 2 TOT guys sitting here, trying to measure with Speedtest on their iPhones after they tried to mess up the router settings and before I got completely pissed off from the clowns.

[grin]

Our free AIS fibre install included the ZTE modem, the Edimax dual band WiFi router, and the AIS set top box. In our case we have fibre all the way to the interior of my office, no coax cable was used.

Grin

Edit: Even though this is cheap equipment we have had no problems with it and there are occasions where video is being watched in 4 different locations in the house.

Edited June 19, 2016 by grin

[robertmueller]

Great.

Thanks very much for all your clarifications.

I will try my luck tomorrow at AIS office in Central Airport.

Regards,

Rob

[KhonKaenKowboy]

Sinet gives you 15/5 for what 3bb charges for 10/1....streaming/tv are fine. BTW, there is a very helpful, ENglish speaking Thai man at the AIS office at Maya. WHen you get your cue number, you specify Eng or Thai..so you will likely get him...worth the wait, if it happens. DOn't know where that leaves the overabundance of Koreans and Chinese, but I'll let them worry about it.

Edited June 19, 2016 by KhonKaenKowboy

[Greenside]

ZTE F660 Modem/Router and an Edimax Router along with the Playbox were provided with the AIS Power 3 package we installed earlier in the year. 30/10 is absolutely good enough for the kind of applications you have in mind. FYI, FTTH means Fibre To The Home so you shouldn't be getting a coax line at any point.

The F660 is not great on friendliness but it does work despite the irritating flaw that you can't install it as a bridge and use your existing regular router. The Edimax and Playbox (actually a CTH android box) are both fine. I understand that in Muang the hardware is different - my friend got a tiny modem which just supplied ethernet to his ASUS router so almost no network settings had to be changed which is what I would have preferred as the F660 is very short on features.

AIS speed seems very consistent and I almost always get 30/10 or 30/11 when testing on speedtest.net. Outages are rare but I'd say more than my old ADSL 3BB connection but the value and speed of the AIS package is such that I wouldn't consider switching back.

I have asked around in CM but no-one has a fibre router to sell at the moment. If anyone knows better I'd be pleased to hear the details.

[KhonKaenKowboy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_x differences in FTTH and FTTD, explained better.