3bb vs ais fiber vs true online ( fttx)

[shariq607]

4 minutes ago, Pib said:

. Or it will only apply to Playboxes installed 20 Nov and after.  Time will tell.  

 

if that was the case then i do not think they would bother old customers and let them know that change is coming on 20th Nov if it only applies to playbox installed after 20 Nov.

[dr_lucas]

There are some quite talented Android developers in Thailand.

Maybe they will come up with some hacking methods to keep this box as flexible as it is.

Worst case scenario - you can always add an additional cheap android streamer or something a bit more expensive like Wetek Play-2 or even other non-Android platforms, based on your needs.

[dr_lucas]

2 minutes ago, shariq607 said:

if that was the case then i do not think they would bother old customers and let them know that change is coming on 20th Nov if it only applies to playbox installed after 20 Nov.

A simple phone call to their call center can clear this up. 

Edited November 2, 2017 by dr_lucas

[Pib]

A short but good article on AIS IPv6 deployment....see full article at link below...also a partial quote from article included below.

 

https://blog.apnic.net/2016/06/20/ipv6-fixed-broadband-thai-success-story/

Quote

 

A Thai ISP that started as a computer rental business in 1986 has become the country’s first to transition to dual-stack for fixed broadband, with IPv6 traffic directly globally routed from the customer to the external network, and IPv4 customers behind CGN. And thanks to a great deal of planning, it has done so without any business interruption.

 

AIS (Advanced Info Service) now provides all its AIS Fibre subscribers with IPv6. Public v6 became the default service for all new AIS Fibre customer packages from 1 April this year. As of June 16, existing customers had their public IPv4 recalled and have been provided with private v4 and public v6. AIS Fibre has a target of 6.5 million ‘homepasses’ by end of this year.

 

 

[Pib]

To check if your Thai ISP/Network is IPv6 capable and what percentage of their customers have IPv6 activated, go to below website.  Then click the "ASN" tab...then click on "IPv6 Capable column" to sort in descending order....find your ISP/network.   

 

https://www.apnic.net/community/ipv6/ipv6-in-your-region/?cc=TH

 

[RedCardinal]

The AIS package pricing is really put of whack now:

 

Fiber Power 4 100/40 is 1799 (platinum free for 6 months) = 1799 first 6 months, 2398 second 6 months = 25,182

HomePlus 100/40 is 899 (serenade) with 599 for Platinum =1498 p.m. = 17,976 

 

Only difference is SIM and AISwifi included in Power4, but added cost THB ~8.8K.  Really not worth it at all now.

[Pib]

41 minutes ago, RedCardinal said:

The AIS package pricing is really put of whack now:

 

Fiber Power 4 100/40 is 1799 (platinum free for 6 months) = 1799 first 6 months, 2398 second 6 months = 25,182

HomePlus 100/40 is 899 (serenade) with 599 for Platinum =1498 p.m. = 17,976 

 

Only difference is SIM and AISwifi included in Power4, but added cost THB ~8.8K.  Really not worth it at all now.

It's not out of whack....it's just inline with similar True package pricing.   

 

Wait, let me think. If AIS package pricing is now inline with True package pricing then that confirms AIS package pricing is indeed out of whack since True package pricing with Gold/Platinum TV has been out of whack for a long time.

 

Maybe Thai ISP & TV companies have an association like the Thai Bankers Association that seems to keep everyones pricing inline with each other.  Competition?  What's that?

 

[Pib]

I see AIS Fibre has yet another new plan called "PowerBoost" where you get much higher domestic download/upload speeds (around 3 times higher) during the daytime 6am to 6pm hours. Then around one third the day speed during the night from 6pm to 6am.   Of course this kind of plan sounds like what happens to your international speeds from most any Thai ISPs for many years.   Details of the new PowerBoost package at the AIS Fibre website.

 

Snapshot of new plan

 

 

 

 

[Pib]

On 11/4/2017 at 6:23 PM, RedCardinal said:

The AIS package pricing is really put of whack now:

 

Fiber Power 4 100/40 is 1799 (platinum free for 6 months) = 1799 first 6 months, 2398 second 6 months = 25,182

HomePlus 100/40 is 899 (serenade) with 599 for Platinum =1498 p.m. = 17,976 

 

Only difference is SIM and AISwifi included in Power4, but added cost THB ~8.8K.  Really not worth it at all now.

 

I see AIS Fibre has already made changes....have reverted back to giving 12 months free Platinum TV for the Bt1799 and Bt1990 plans.  I wonder if change was made due to customer feedback (negative) or correction of a typo.

http://www.ais.co.th/fibre/power4pack/en/index.html

 

[shariq607]

19 minutes ago, Pib said:

 

I see AIS Fibre has already made changes....have reverted back to giving 12 months free Platinum TV for the Bt1799 and Bt1990 plans.  I wonder if change was made due to customer feedback (negative) or correction of a typo.

http://www.ais.co.th/fibre/power4pack/en/index.html

 

They have also made platinum cheaper from 899 to 599 per month.

 

 

[Pib]

17 minutes ago, shariq607 said:

They have also made platinum cheaper from 899 to 599 per month.

Indeed they have.  And the Gold TV add-on is now Bt299 (I "think" it was higher before...lost track with all the price changes).  Wonder if it's short term as they have offered the Platinum TV add-on at Bt599 before...or this is their new & improved price?  Guess time will tell. 

 

One thing for sure AIS Fibre sure has a lot of different packages/prices to choose from....I guess that is good thing.

 

I also see they have expanded from Bangkok & 27 provinces to Bangkok & 47 provinces.   New coverage areas shown in red text below.

 

 

 

[shariq607]

Indeed they have.  And the Gold TV add-on is now Bt299 (I "think" it was higher before...lost track with all the price changes).  Wonder if it's short term as they have offered the Platinum TV add-on at Bt599 before...or this is their new & improved price?  Guess time will tell. 
 
One thing for sure AIS Fibre sure has a lot of different packages/prices to choose from....I guess that is good thing.
 
I also see they have expanded from Bangkok & 27 provinces to Bangkok & 47 provinces.   New coverage areas shown in red text below.
 

 
 

Just wondering what’s going to happen to folks who subscribed with Ais power 4 when they were doing platinum for 6 months, real bad luck for them.

I hope they buy enough international bandwidth for all the large scale expansions to other provinces.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Pib]

 

17 minutes ago, shariq607 said:

I hope they buy enough international bandwidth for all the large scale expansions to other provinces.
 

 

No need more international bandwidth....This Is Thailand....everyone should just be using Thai sites.  

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Just a side thought related to fiber internet performance here:

 

Any connection is only as strong or fast as its weakest/slowest link. For those with 200 Mbps fiber plans and whatever may come in the future, have you checked to see what standard of ethernet cable is being used between your fiber modem/router (assuming it's a Gigabit router) and PC, and and devices connected to your router?

 

I had a variety of years old ethernet cables used in connecting the various devices on my main desk at home. And since even the newest standard Ethernet cables are relatively cheap, I decided to buy a 5-pack of the latest standard 5 foot-long Ethernet cables known as Cat 6a, and replaced the older standard 5e cables that had been in place. The 5 pack of cables cost less than $20 on Amazon.

 

In general, the oldest Cat5 cables are only meant for LAN/100 Mbps speeds at maximum, whereas Cat5e cables are meant to support Gigabit speeds (1 Gbps), whereas the newest Cat6 and 6a cables are meant to support maximum 10 Gbps speeds. All of those are technical maximums, as I understand it, similar to how different wifi standards support up to certain speeds, but what you actually get may be much less.

 

Of course, you also need to have a faster than LAN/100 Mbps internet service and a Gigabit router and Gigabit capable devices in order to take advantage of the better than LAN speeds.

 

 

At any rate, after replacing all my older cables with the latest Cat 6a cables, last night about 7 pm I ran a series of speed tests on my 3BB 200/100 Mbps fiber connection (direct Ethernet connection between my fiber modem/router and my PC), and was pretty impressed with the results, which seem noticeably faster than what I was getting before with the older cables, which were not just an older technical standard but also were just old, having been in the house and used for many years.

 

Here's what I got with the new/newest standard 6a cables, and again these were run between 7 and 7:30 pm last night, so heading into peak local use time:

 

3BB's Local Speedtest

 

Netflix FAST test for Thailand

 

Direct (no VPN) test of TestMy.net's Los Angeles server

 

With the both new and new standard 6a Ethernet cables, I figure I'm now pretty well covered for whatever comes next from our local ISPs beyond the current 200 Mbps fiber plans in the coming years...

 

Have you checked your Ethernet cables lately?

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

BTW, I should have mentioned above just for the non geeky, the type of ethernet cable you have -- 5, 5e, 6, 6a -- is typically printed along the length of the cable itself. So that's how you know what version you've got.

 

[dr_lucas]

For short distances (up to 10m) on 1GBps network, cat 5e or higher won't make any difference (by the way, if you want to get even more detailed, you could have specified the different types of these cables like UTP, S/UTP, FTP, STP and SFTP) 

The 3bb test results you have witnessed would have probably be the same if you immediately switched to your cat 5e unless it is faulty or it is not properly shielded and gets a very strong interference from an external source.

3bb has very recently improved their routing to speed test servers (e.g. testmy and speedtest) following a discussion I had with their Jasmine international team (kind of cheating if u ask me...).

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

There's different technologies in cables and then there's just plain OLD cables that have been wound and unwound for years...  For relatively little money, it seems to me to be a good future proofing investment for anyone with a Gigabit router and 200 Mbps ISP plan. And especially if someone has straight Cat5 cables that only are rated for LAN speeds.

 

BTW, the new ones I got were of the SSTP/SFTP variety of Cat 6a. Maybe 3BB has been monkeying with their speed test routing, but based on the results I got, I believe the change in cables has made a difference as well. Particularly as yesterday's results are notably different that comparable ones from as recent as just a week or so ago.

 

 

 

 

[dr_lucas]

Yes, 3bb made those changes on 03/Nov, so it makes sense that yesterday's results are different. 

You can switch back to Cat 5e and as long as your cable and environment are fine, you will get the same results.

I do agree with you that it's pretty cheap to upgrade to higher grade cables and there is no reason not to do that (especially future-proof-wise), but my point is that it doesn't supposed to make any difference on a 1Gb/s network either way.

[Pib]

A person definitely needs good quality Ethernet cable, at least CAT5e which is good up to 1Gb speed.   But CAT 6 cable is not really expensive so it wouldn't hurt to go with CAT 6 cable but it's probably overkill for speeds up to 1Gb.   I wouldn't replace current 5e cable unless I needed to exceed 1Gb speeds.   

 

And all CAT 5E or CAT 6 ethernet cables are not created equal.  Some manufacturers use small gauge wire when they should be using larger gauge wire...some use cheap end connectors....some use lower quality or no shielding.  So do your best to buy quality cable which can be a challenge sometimes the way manufacturers/sellers advertise their product as being "good stuff" when in fact in may just be low quality, cheap stuff.

 

I have a 20 to 25 meter CAT 5e ethernet run from my upstairs main router to my downstairs access point....and my home server is connected to that access point.  The CAT 5e cable is the "outdoor" type like used to connect between buildings....be out in the sun and ran.  It's basically an  indoor  CAT 5e cable but with outdoor insulation protection and a messenger/support wire just like you would find on an outdoor telephone cable or fiber optic run hanging on the soi poles.   I got the outdoor Ethernet type since about two-thirds of my upstairs-downstairs run goes on the outside of my house which means the cable is exposed to the sun, rain, wind, critters, etc.   It's been installed probably around 2 years now.

 

This evening I did a few speed tests using one of my laptops with a 1Gb ethernet port and then doing some 500MB and 1GB file size ZIP file transfers from the home server downstairs over the approx 20-25 meter CAT 5e cable run to my laptop.   I used the Windows Task Manager to monitor/graph the speed obtained.    See snapshots below.

 

As you will see in the snapshot for the 1GB file size I averaged around 940Mb transfer speed in four test transfers.  And for the 500MB file size I averaged around 800Mb transfer speed in five transfers.   Goes to show CAT 5e is plenty good enough for 200Mb internet plans....even 500Mb internet plans...."and maybe even 1Gb internet plans assuming your equipment/1Gb ethernet ports could actually handle 1Gb speeds."  

 

Can CAT 5e cable actually reach 1Gb  speed?  I expect it can as I think ethernet cable speed ratings are on the conservative side.  I expect a person's speed choke point(s) in reaching/exceeding 1Gb speed would not be the 5e or 6 ethernet cable speed capability but the equipment/ethernet ports the cable is connecting together--and I fully expect that is why I didn't reach 1Gb transfer speeds....didn't reach 1Gb speed because of my equipment/ports and not because of the CAT 5e cable.  

 

Over CAT 5e Outdoor Cable

"1GB" File Size Transfer....4 Transfers...Averaged Around 940Mb speed...going a little over 950Mb at times

 

 

 

Over CAT 5e Outdoor Cable

"500MB" File Size Transfer...5 Transfers...Averaged around 800Mb transfer speed.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Pib

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

 

Well Lucas, you laid down the challenge, I took it this evening, and it appears you were correct. In my case, when I went back tonight and tested the two sets of cables (5e vs 6a) back to back, there wasn't any meaningful difference in my case with 3BB's 200/100 Mbps fiber service.

 

That said, I'm still fine to spend $20 to get brand new, latest standard cables that I know are good quality and will support whatever future speeds our ISPs can offer up. Also, some folks out there may still be using regular Cat5 cables with Gigabit hardware, which is a definite mismatch bottleneck.

 

The only notable difference I noticed tonight when I swapped back in the Cat5e cables, tested them, and then ran another round of tests with the new Cat6a cables I just bought and will continue to use, is tonight's speeds to TestMy.net Los Angeles were vastly slower with both the 5e and 6a cables -- about 60 Mbps -- vs the +-150 Mbps results I got last night about a half hour later.

 

Here's the results I got tonight when I temporarily swapped back in my old 5e cables:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

FWIW, these are the Cat6a cables I bought, not expensive at all. And I think, the first time in my life I've ever purchased my own Ethernet cables. Before, always just used what I had or what came with my hardware.

 

 

 

 

[dr_lucas]

I am personally using this one, a CAT 7 cable, which goes for around the same price as the CAT 6 and 6A cables (although it makes no difference between them and a CAT 5e on a 1 Gb/s LAN/WAN network either way, as I pointed out earlier):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TGJHPGS/

[Pib]

20 hours ago, dr_lucas said:

Yes, 3bb made those changes on 03/Nov, so it makes sense that yesterday's results are different. 

 

Specifically what changes did 3BB do on 3 Nov and what effects did they produce? 

 

Maybe superduper/skewed speed test results, etc?  Just wonder what changes are being talked about.  Thanks.

[dr_lucas]

They can't skew testmy speed test results.

They didn't specify the full details, but said they optimized routing, which basically means they redirected the traffic through more optimized (possibly their best) peering/transit providers, as they have many to choose from.

Also, if there were any caps (or "choke points" as you normally call them), they probably disabled them on the testmy servers routes.

That's why I said - it's kind of cheating if you ask me, as they don't optimize all international routes to/from those countries, they only optimized to show the best possible 3bb single-threaded speed to/from the testmy servers.

Edited November 10, 2017 by dr_lucas

[muratremix]

I did some testmy.net testes yesterday 21.30 and speed was not better. They probably changed your account routing?

 

I did not test all servers, but I did dallas, japan, UK and singapore.

Singapore was the best of course.

Edited November 10, 2017 by muratremix

[dr_lucas]

It's possible since I have no other account to test from, and I didn't test last night to compare with your results. Optimized routing doesn't necessarily mean that the speed will be better 24/7.

Let's test together now and share the results here. brb

[dr_lucas]

Here they are:

 

[Pib]

The international speeds you guys are getting on 3BB, like TG's speeds, are definitely much better than what I get on AIS Fibre since around late September on my 200/50 plan.

 

Before late September on Testmy.net I could easily get over 100Mb to Singapore 24/7...more like around 135Mb.  Testmy.net was routinely reporting my speed was the fastest of all testers in the last 30 days of testing.   But since late Sep I'm lucky to get around 30Mb tops to Singapore on testmy.net when using single thread....during prime time down around 10-15Mb.  But do a Global Multithread testmy.net test and it much higher. 

 

Maybe AIS Fibre is throttling single thread operations and has tuned it's network to multithread operations.  But if that was true I still should be getting really good results when using Speedtest.net which is a multithread tester....but my international speeds with Speedtest.net have dropped way off. 

 

As mentioned my Speedtest.net international results have went way down...where I use to pull  over 100Mb speeds to the U.S. west coast....now I only get one-fourth to one-half of that depending on the time of day. 

 

But Nperf.com still reports me getting speeds of 150Mb or more to the U.S. west coast pretty much 24/7.

 

Yeap, my first 15 months with AIS up to late September was happy times speedtests-wise; but since September (and tons of bitching of them about the lower international speed) speeds have not improved back to what they use to be.   But the domestic/within Thailand speed remains full speed...I get a little over 200 down and 60 up.

 

"If," repeat if, my current international speeds are representative of other AIS Fibre customers to include the drop in international speed since late Sept seems AIS has implement some data shaping/rerouting/etc., which probably saves them money on international bandwidth via buying less, using cheaper/slower routing, etc.  But with this being said, my browsing, international video streaming, etc., still moves along just fine...hasn't caused me any real problems except for a few days in October when it got too slow and I could easily notice my browsing was not zippy like it should be and Speedtest.net tests to the west coast showed speeds well under 10Mb....but then that got fixed within a day or two where speeds went up to around 30Mb. 

 

I expect folks on slower AIS plans, say around 30-75Mb, may not have noticed much of a change in international speed. Maybe it's just the higher speed plans, like my 200/50 plan, that have been throttled back to match the international speed of lower speed plans.    But with this being said, my browsing, international video streaming, etc., still moves along just fine...hasn't caused me any real problems.  

 

Then again, maybe it's just my AIS account being punished.  Lord knows I've called them around twice per week since late September bitching at them (nicely to semi-nicely) about the slower international speed.....I always get nice responses like it's fixed now....that's the normal international speed....we'll work the problem and call you back...we deactivated IPv6 on your account so give that a try, etc.  Just a variety of "throw the stick type responses" hoping I'll go chase that stick for a while until I get tired and give up.    But this dog don't chase sticks.

[manchega]

can only say my international speed is improvement over true.  however, it is not close to the domestic speed.

tech who drilled a hole in the wall and put in router made sure we understood this was too fast/overkill for home network and more for big companies.

not sure if they beleived it or not, personal phone number left with us and a name, never answered......

[nategi]

Hey guys, I've been reading through this forum but it seems like so many people have different internet experiences even with the same company and plan. I'm moving to Bangkok soon from New York City, will be working online mostly accessing American websites at night (Thailand time). 

 

I need the fastest internet I can possibly get as well as a way to change IP address through router (not proxy), currently I can log in to my router and switch the MAC, reset, and usually get a new public IP, not sure if these Thai companies are allowing use of your own modem and router or if the ones they provide have these options?

I have a cat also so very limited on apartment options, looking at Manhattan Chidlom, The Lakes, Ficus Lane, it's difficult to tell if they all have every internet option. I realize I won't be able to match speeds I have here accessing American sites but I'll be cutting my cost of living significantly so a little lost income is okay. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!