3BB 50/10 VDSL Review / Speedtests

[muratremix]

You can not correctly configure wifi when there are 10-20 wifi signals occupying all available 13 channels in 2.4 ghz spectrum.

5ghz has no problems penetrating extremely thin (10 cm max) thai walls and unless you live in a very very big single home in here with 6 bedrooms, 5ghz would work perfectly.

[Pib]

Material and thickness of wall and floor construction will impact a 5Ghz signal more than a 2.4Ghz signal, as higher frequencies have less penetrating capability....lower signal strength usually results in slower speed. Pretty much like how KU band (12Ghz) satellite TV reception struggles when cloudy/raining, but C bank (4GHz) satellite TV reception is still fine when it's cloudy/raining cats and dogs. But as muratremex said a 5Ghz router should work fine regardless in a one story residence...maybe even in a two story residence depending on wall/floor thickness and construction material. And a lot will also depend on the specifications/qulaity of your router/access point and the Wifi circuit in your computer/tablet/smartphone/etc.

I live in a two story house with concrete/brick with rebar walls 20cm thick and the floors are concrete 10 to 20cm thick with rebar. Even 2.4Ghz struggles in my house and that's why I have downstairs and upstairs 2.4Ghz Wifi access points(one is a G access point and one is a N access point) which gives me a strong Wifi signal where ever I'm in the house, but that also means I must switch access points to get the strongest signal when moving between the first and second floors...I don't have to switch, it's just I get a stronger and faster connection.

Sometimes I might be using my tablet or laptop downstairs all day and connecting to the downstairs Wifi access point, but then take the table/laptop upstairs at night. Now the tablet/laptop will retain the connection to the downstairs access point but it's noticeable in how my browsing speed slows down due to the weaker Wifi signal strength which causes a lower speed connection...I finally realize this and then switch the connection to the upstairs access point and I'm back to full signal strength and full speed again.

[muratremix]

I am kind of disappointed with 3BB.

Everywhere else except Singapore is capped to 2Mbits. I'm updating nas (asustor) and it downloads firmware at 220kb/s.

I disabled openvpn (singapore) so I can access to my home network from outside. With True Online, I also get good speeds from USA before.

Without singapore proxy / vpn, 3BB upload speed also reduced. It works full speed to Google and probably Apple icloud (they have direct peering with those) but for others (like hubic from OVH) upload speed is low.

I was between chosing 3BB and AIS before I get 3BB and cancelled my True 30/3 subscription. 3BB was offering higher down/up speed and providing dynamic IP (not shared IP). However VDSL2 adds 10-20 ms higher ping due to DSL technology and I get 50 ms to singapore now, before it was 38-40 ms with True online. AIS speeds were lower, but it was fiber. Only downsite was shared IP. Although you can port forward up to 20 entries, I didn't wanted to deal with port forwarding.

I can still get around most issues by using Singapore proxy/vpn, but it is too much hassle.

TL;DR

3bb is not magical like I imagined. Ping times and VOIP is great though.

[Pib]

Well, that not so great report on some thorough 3BB testing will make me feel a little better if I upgrade my True Cable/DOCSIS 15Mb to 30Mb, even though I don't like the fact I will be paying approx the same price for 30Mb speed on True as folks on 3BB fiber or VDSL pay for a much higher domestic speed.

I contacted a 3BB service center yesterday about getting fiber or VDSL at my home here in a western Bangkok moobaan....they looked in their system and said no-can-do but they think they could do 18Mb ADSL (and they are probably wrong as TOT has the only ADSL rights in my moobaan I think). I said no thanks for the ADSL. Then I came home and emailed 3BB about getting fiber or VDSL. To my surprise I got an answer back within 30 minutes implying fiber 100Mb might be available to me...they need my address which I had already given them in my first email. Gave them my address again in my response. And about 30 minutes later I got a response that my email had been forwarded to Sales and they would contact me if fiber was available. Been over 24 hrs since that email...no contract...and there won't be.

And today when walking the dogs around the moobaan I took a closer look at the fiber optics strung over 6 months around the moobaan...the contractor installing said it was for AIS. I contacted AIS last week about do they have fiber optics internet in my area/moobaan...they checked...said no....but said always look for advertising signs and signup booths appearing in your moobaan if AIS internet ever becomes available in my area. It may still become available at some point in the near future because when True finished installing DOCSIS/cable TV & internet in my moobaan in late 2010 it was still mid 2011 before they started signing up/connecting people. Maybe it's just takes a long time (Thai time maybe) to get final approval to turn a system on in a new area/moobaan.

Thanks again for the thorough testing on 3BB.

[muratremix]

Another speedtest cheating by 3BB.

Test server: speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com

They also have 10Mb / 100Mb zip files for downloading.

http://speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test100.zip

http://speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test10.zip

So, ooakla (speedtest.net) test gives you 5mbit. But downloading that test file is capped to 300kb/sec which is 2.5 mbit/s. All locations outside Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia and Hong Kong is limited to 200-300 kbyte/sec for single connection.

root@MyCloud:~# wget -O /dev/null http://speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test10.zip
--2015-04-08 15:06:05-- http://speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test10.zip
Resolving speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com (speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com)... 50.23.64.58, 2607:f0d0:2101:a::2
Connecting to speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com (speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com)|50.23.64.58|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 11536384 (11M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[================================================================================================================================================>] 11,536,384 307K/s in 46s

2015-04-08 15:06:51 (246 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [11536384/11536384]

I remember True was cheating all speedtest servers via transparent proxy before. So you always get 30-40 ms faster-than-light ping and max speed. But they stopped doing that.

3BB cheat system is more shady.

Now I believe if somebody can't stream live tv from europe etc. 2-2.5Mbit/s is like a joke.

Edited June 22, 2016 by muratremix

[Pib]

You are making me happier by the second. I just ran the speedtest using the "speedtest.sjc01.softlayer.com" to San Jose CA as you did and got below results with my True cable/DOCSIS 15Mb down/1.5Mb up plan. First image/result is without VPN. Second image/result is with VPN Signapore connection.

Without VPN Connection

With VPN Connection

[muratremix]

Try downloading 100m.zip file via your browser (without vpn)

Btw, 3BB with Singapore vpn or Proxy works fast too. I have Asus router with openvpn client, but when I use it, I can't connect my home network from outside. So I disabled it.

I use singapore proxy in my browser instead.

I expected atleast 5-6 mbit without vpn to US/Eu locations with 3BB.

[Pib]

Try downloading 100m.zip file via your browser (without vpn)

Btw, 3BB with Singapore vpn or Proxy works fast too. I have Asus router with openvpn client, but when I use it, I can't connect my home network from outside. So I disabled it.

I use singapore proxy in my browser instead.

I expected atleast 5-6 mbit without vpn to US/Eu locations with 3BB.

Just tried a couple of times without VPN....looked like it was going to take around 5 minutes without VPN so I just cancelled.. With VPN via Singapore I got over 10Mb.

[muratremix]

Try downloading 100m.zip file via your browser (without vpn)

Btw, 3BB with Singapore vpn or Proxy works fast too. I have Asus router with openvpn client, but when I use it, I can't connect my home network from outside. So I disabled it.

I use singapore proxy in my browser instead.

I expected atleast 5-6 mbit without vpn to US/Eu locations with 3BB.

Just tried a couple of times without VPN....looked like it was going to take around 5 minutes without VPN so I just cancelled.. With VPN via Singapore I got over 10Mb.

Without VPN, how many kbyte/sec did you get? If it was like 200-250 kbyte/sec, then True is also cheating in Ooakla speedtest (by not throttling specific pattern or IP)

[Pib]

I can't say...as mentioned I cancelled the download as it was going to take too long.

[manarak]

OP - so what's your verdict on the 50/10 VDSL plan for international use?

it is good or bad?

how much time do you need to download a 1 GB file from your FTP server in France without using a proxy?

[muratremix]

Without proxy, speeds are low except Asia region. France is 300 kb/s which is 2.5 mbits!

[muratremix]

[muratremix]

Forget all the good things I've said in this review. 30 days later, they throttled my connection more and more. And now, it is even worse.

Before, I was getting max speed with Singapore vpn / proxy, now I am limited to 1Mbyte (8 mbit) against Singapore server.

I found out a loophole to get max speed without proxy / vpn, after one week, it also doesn't work anymore (that is = slow!)

Stay away from 3BB. Choose AIS Fibre or TOT Fiber2u.

[welo]

This is not worse than what I am experiencing with True/Docsis on a 30MBit package. 

 

I have run several download tests from testmy.net with 25MB file sizes (sometimes reduced to 6MB on very slow server destinations):

 

Singapore  6-16 Mbps

New York  1.8 Mbps

London  0.6-2.3 Mbps

US (multi-threaded)  4.6-5.6 Mbps

 

Note that the numbers are in Bit not Byte!

 

Around evening prime hours I get the lower end results, otherwise the results are fairly consistent per location / destination.

Local congestion is most likely not an issue since speedtest.net will give me more than good results for Bangkok servers (fully knowing that those are multi-threaded and ISPs may treat them favorable)

 

I am in the process of moving away from True after being with them for more than 5 years at different locations. Too many problems in the past view months, not only with speed but with their caching proxy (just a guess) as well.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2016 by welo

[Polanskiman]

On 6/20/2016 at 3:50 PM, muratremix said:

Here is a mini guide to enable bridging mode of 3bb VDSL modem and an example pppoe setup in AsusWRT (Asus AC-** models and Asus RT-N** models)

Login to 3BB modem. http://192.168.1.1

user: admin

pass: last 4 digit of MAC address in lowercase (not UPPERCASE)

validate code: click to get stupid Captcha IMAGE.

Click to Internet on top. Click Edit highlighted in Blue.

Edit as shown below.

Make sure you disable wifi radio on 3bb router. If not, your better-router will have signal conflict with 3bb device.

Final step: find similar WAN setup in your better-router. Mine is AsusWRT

 

I have the same 3bb router and a asus N55U_C1. I tried bridging the devices. The asus sees the connection and even provides a gateway IP however I am unable to connect to the internet. I have disabled wifi and configured the 3bb router accordingly but no matter what I try I still can't get an internet connection once bridged. Any ideas?

[Polanskiman]

16 hours ago, Polanskiman said:

 

I have the same 3bb router and a asus N55U_C1. I tried bridging the devices. The asus sees the connection and even provides a gateway IP however I am unable to connect to the internet. I have disabled wifi and configured the 3bb router accordingly but no matter what I try I still can't get an internet connection once bridged. Any ideas?

 

Found the problem. Typo in the username... No comment!