TMN FTTH vs 3BB ADSL

[wpcoe]

TMN (Thipmanee) FTTH (Fibre to the Home) was just installed in my condo in Jomtien.  TMN is a local Pattaya-area CATV provider who has branched out into fibre internet service.  They offer month-to-month (i.e. no contract) service if you pay B2000 for the modem so I decided to try a test run, leaving my existing 3BB 18/1.8 Mbps ADSL service to fall back upon if the TMN test was a bust.  TMN has (at least) two FTTH plans:  20/7 Mbps for B599/mo and 30/10 Mbps for B1200/mo.  I currently have the 20/7 plan.

 

To muddy the tests I had planned, when the fibre was installed on Wednesday, I had turned off the ADSL model/router just to keep things simple.  After the fiber was up and running, I turned the router back on and there was no ADSL signal even after rebooting and after leaving the router on overnight.  I went out of town for two days, and turned everything off while I was gone.  When I returned and turned all the equipment on, the ADSL signal was there, but the speed is reduced for some reason, probably to 10Mbps?, so the following test results reflect a less-than-18Mbps speed.

 

 

Some unexpected results, including:

- Using VPN on TMN decreases download speed and increases upload speed?

- Using VPN can increase upload speed to overseas to be significantly above local upload speed to Bangkok?

- Using VPN can provide modest gain in download speed on 3BB, but lower speed on TMN?

 

In another thread, @RedCardinal said: "Thailand and Singapore signed a peering arrangement a few years back, and that essentially makes traffic to Singapore similar to Thai in-country traffic."  Then why is the download speed from Singapore less than half the speed from Bangkok on TMN?

 

With the TMN 30/10 Mbps plan, will the overseas speeds increase proportionately, or perhaps even more since it's not a discounted promotional plan?  (i.e. Is the 20/7 plan for B699 intentionally crippled beyond what the 30/10 plan for B1200 might be?) I might extend the test for another month to find out.

 

In other threads I questioned the advice from 3BB staff given to me and other forum members that their VDSL plans with higher advertised speed than older ADSL plans would actually provide lower overseas speed.  I had wondered if a 30Mb/s VDSL could really have lower download speed than a 18.8Mb/s ADSL plan.  Based on my experience now with TMN FTTH, I guess the speed really *could* be significantly throttled.

 

[topt]

Sorry does not add to your OP but

1 hour ago, wpcoe said:

In another thread, @RedCardinal said: "Thailand and Singapore signed a peering arrangement a few years back, and that essentially makes traffic to Singapore similar to Thai in-country traffic."

when I complained to a True technician some months ago about issues accessing (in particular) the TV forum and I said I thought it was hosted in Singapore he acted like it was not surprising and said Singapore was a well known issue (with True anyway) - which directly contradicts what your quoted poster said?

[RedCardinal]

A few years back a peering arrangement was negotiated.  Peering doesn't mean unlimited bandwidth, but at that time they increased the bandwidth available between the 2 states.

 

In my experience accessing data from Singapore from Thailand is faster than any other country.  It's also why some posters here report full bandwidth from their ISP connections to that country.  Not all, but at least some.

 

The other thing to mention - all ISPs route traffic as they see fit.  It's not like you sign up for access and get the same service as everyone else online.

[KittenKong]

Yes, peering to Singapore does mostly improve connection speed for most people with most ISPs compared to other nearby countries. It certainly does with my 3BB ADSL. But there are still exceptions and variations.

 

But it's all a bit of a red herring unless you particularly want to connect to servers in Singapore.

[KittenKong]

On 07/01/2017 at 5:27 PM, wpcoe said:

 After the fiber was up and running, I turned the router back on and there was no ADSL signal even after rebooting and after leaving the router on overnight.  I went out of town for two days, and turned everything off while I was gone.  When I returned and turned all the equipment on, the ADSL signal was there, but the speed is reduced for some reason, probably to 10Mbps?

 

Installing fibre should have had no impact at all on your ADSL. The fact that you lost your ADSL completely indicates that the line was damaged. The fact that it returned but is slow indicates that the line is still damaged, but less so.

 

If you log into the ADSL modem setup page you should find that your sync speeds and your S/N ratio and noise levels are not as they should be. As it came about during work in your unit it is very likely that the cable was damaged in or very near to your unit, probably by the workmen or by the fibre installers who probably ran their fibre near the phone line in the common areas and may have disturbed the phone connection in so doing. In my experience in older buildings the connection from common area phone cable to the cable in your own unit is often just twisted together and sealed with a bit of tape (if you're lucky!), rather than with a proper phone cable connector. Either way, the 3BB technician should be able to tell you exactly how many metres away from your unit the fault lies: they have a device that can measure this very precisely for most types of fault.

[wpcoe]

When I first took over the 3BB account last month my speeds were almost identical to now, and it took four days for 3BB to get here to tell me that it was the wiring inside the building that was the problem.  Building maintenance guy "installed a new line" (in his words) and my speed was closer to the 18/1.8 until last Wednesday.

 

I think I'll still have 3BB come out, just to make sure nothing is amiss up to the building connection point, and then have the condo maintenance guy do his magic again.

[KittenKong]

I dont think you mention what time of day you made those tests. You may get very different results at different times of day. Personally I'm not very surprised at the fairly poor performance outside of Thailand from the fibre provider. As far as I know the 3BB ADSL 18 package uses CAT connectivity, and the TMN service also uses CAT connectivity. So if one costs significantly less than the other then there may be some saving being made somewhere to compensate, and international bandwidth seems an obvious target, especially as most Thai customers will not be very interested in what happens outside of Thailand anyway.

 

I would be surprised if your "new line" went all the way into your unit and to your phone socket. In my experience building technicians usually just run a new (cheap) phone cable to outside your unit and make a shoddy connection to your internal phone cable there, with the variable results one might expect. The best solution is to run a new phone cable with no joins at all from your wall socket all the way to the point where the DSL line enters the building. This should be very reliable (until some clown cuts it).

[wpcoe]

I rebooted the ADSL modem/router and connected back at full speed for my 18/1.8Mbps package.

 

Since it's the middle of the night (3:00am) I ran the test for both TMN FTTH and 3BB ADSL, and the results are quite different.  In very inconsistent ways, but oh, well:

 

new test:

   

 

previous test:

 

The overseas TMN tests using VPN are quite a bit higher than before, though the non-VPN tests aren't.  Go figure.

 

I originally started using PureVPN's Singapore server based on a thread that @Pib started some time ago.  At that time I was using True DOCSIS and the speed boost for overseas sites was significant.  Based on what I'm experiencing with both TMN and 3BB now, I think I'll stop using PureVPN other than to access content that is otherwise unavailable, which isn't often.

 

The only benefit I can see for keeping TMN FTTH on this plan is significantly faster uploading to domestic Thailand-based web sites (which really isn't much of a benefit).  I'm going to see if I can upgrade to the 30/10Mbps plan for February and see if it yields significantly better overseas speed.

Edited January 8, 2017 by wpcoe

[wpcoe]

7 hours ago, KittenKong said:

I dont think you mention what time of day you made those tests. You may get very different results at different times of day. Personally I'm not very surprised at the fairly poor performance outside of Thailand from the fibre provider. As far as I know the 3BB ADSL 18 package uses CAT connectivity, and the TMN service also uses CAT connectivity. So if one costs significantly less than the other then there may be some saving being made somewhere to compensate, and international bandwidth seems an obvious target, especially as most Thai customers will not be very interested in what happens outside of Thailand anyway.

 

The previous tests were all done in mid-afternoon on week days.  I ran the TMN tests on Weds, the day the TMN was installed, at 300pm.   Then when the 3BB ADSL signal came back on Friday, I ran the TMN tests again along with 3BB.  The Wed and Fri afternoon test results for TMN were very similar.  The 3:00am tests just now for TMN overseas via VPN were quite different.  Different moon phase?

 

Both plans cost the same.   So both 3BB and TMN use CAT?  I wondered whose gateway TMN used.  I'm curious to try TMN's 30/10Mbps FTTH plan for B1200 (which is double the price of their 20/7Mbps plan) to see if the overseas speeds are less throttled.  If not, I will cancel TMN completely and continue on with 3BB ADSL.

 

Quote

I would be surprised if your "new line" went all the way into your unit and to your phone socket. In my experience building technicians usually just run a new (cheap) phone cable to outside your unit and make a shoddy connection to your internal phone cable there, with the variable results one might expect. The best solution is to run a new phone cable with no joins at all from your wall socket all the way to the point where the DSL line enters the building. This should be very reliable (until some clown cuts it).

 

I put "installed a new line" in quotation marks, as it was obvious that he did not install any new wiring.  From the time he left my room until he returned was probably no more than two minutes.  I'm sure he just switched me to another existing wire between two intermediate points. Probably without tape.    Definitely the same wire goes to the RJ45 jack in the wall.  As long as I keep a stable connection at the current speed, I'll not tempt the gods and ask for any new line.  

[KittenKong]

10 hours ago, wpcoe said:

The previous tests were all done in mid-afternoon on week days.  I ran the TMN tests on Weds, the day the TMN was installed, at 300pm.   Then when the 3BB ADSL signal came back on Friday, I ran the TMN tests again along with 3BB.  The Wed and Fri afternoon test results for TMN were very similar.  The 3:00am tests just now for TMN overseas via VPN were quite different.  Different moon phase?

 

Both plans cost the same.   So both 3BB and TMN use CAT?  I wondered whose gateway TMN used.  I'm curious to try TMN's 30/10Mbps FTTH plan for B1200 (which is double the price of their 20/7Mbps plan) to see if the overseas speeds are less throttled.  If not, I will cancel TMN completely and continue on with 3BB ADSL.

 

I suspect that speed tests done in the evening and at the weekend will reveal more.

 

One would expect the more expensive TMN package to be significantly better than the cheaper promotional one, but this is Thailand and so you would have to try it to really know what the difference is. Luckily they apparently dont impose any long minimum contract terms so you can test their offers without much financial loss.