AIS Fiber and Playbox Review Comments

[shady86]

I started using AIS Fiber since Oct 2016 and would like to put a short review.

 

Package subscribed: 50/10 with Playbox

Monthly fees: 888B/month ( I got 50% off for first 6 months after jumping from True)

 

Internet Speed 

Nov 2016: 52/12Mbps

Mar 2017: 39/12Mbps

 

My download speed can never go above 40Mbps since these few weeks. Maybe too many new customers?

 

AIS Playbox

Performance: Frustratingly slow due to 1GB RAM

Quality: Only local channels and few overseas channels comes with HD

 

Its free but I find it hassle to use due to slow responsiveness.

 

How about anyone out there? Are you using AIS Fiber and could you post your internet speed and comments?

[JaiMaai]

Speed has been consistent at 50 Mbps since installation last August. I have had occasional issues with international speeds but most acceptable.

I agree with the playbox though, it is a low spec box and it would be a waste of time to try to use the box for kodi etc.

[Pib]

Have been on AIS Fibre since Jul 16...first on 50Mb plan; then around Nov 16 upgraded to 100Mb plan.  My connection is fibre all the way to my house and not fibre to the building and then VDSL for the last X-meters.   I live in western Bangkok.  Never a problem in getting full domestic speed of the plan; international speed good.

 

Bangkok to Bangkok Using Speedtest.net

 

Bangkok to Singapore Using Testmy.net

 

Don't use the AIS Playbox that much since I have TrueVisions cable & C/KU-band satellite....and use Kodi for movies (use a computer to run Kodi with computer hooked to the TV).    Haven't got around to loading Kodi on the Playbox yet.   The TV channels on AIS Playbox are primary Thai language/free-to-air channels just like the IPTV provided by other ISPs such as True, TOT, etc.   But here in the near future, supposedly the Apr-Jun timeframe AIS Fibre will offer it's HBO and other premium channels....monthly cost has not been announced yet. 

 

Am I happy with AIS Fibre?   Yes.   Reliability/up time has been north of 99.99%.   The few times I've called the AIS Fibre Call Center predominately with "curiosity-type" questions, I've always got an English speaking rep....and when they said they would need to call back like within 1 or 2 hours with full info, they have indeed called back within their promised callback time.  Your results may vary.

 

 

 

 

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

15/5 and a happy AIS fiber user.

[Pib]

OP, 

   The speeds you are getting/quoting, are those via a Wifi connection to your computer or you have a ethernet connection between the router and computer?

 

    If the former, be sure to give a hard wire connection a try as Wifi connections can be fickle/slowed down sometimes especially by interference from neighbor's Wifi router signals especially if using the 2.4Ghz band.   And if it is a Wifi connection just because it work good previous doesn't mean it will work good today if a neighbor(s) changed Wifi channels which now interferes with the channel you are using, a new neighbor moved in to added another Wifi signal to those that are already interfering with you signal, etc.

 

    If you are not getting full speed even with a ethernet connection, then call AIS...again if necessary.

[Pib]

6 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

15/5 and a happy AIS fiber user.

They still got such a plan?   They sure don't advertise it anymore.   Thought the 15/5 plan at Bt590/mo had been replaced last year by the 30/10 plan for the same price....Bt590/mo.   Would have  thought you would have been upgraded automatically....but maybe not....maybe you have to call them. 

[shady86]

I sent a complaint to AIS, they resetted my connection and I'm getting back download around 50Mbps range. I find Playbox useless and thinking of changing to they new 75Mbps plan for the same price and ditching Playbox and replace it with a Android box. Any advice?

[shady86]

OP, 
   The speeds you are getting/quoting, are those via a Wifi connection to your computer or you have a ethernet connection between the router and computer?
 
    If the former, be sure to give a hard wire connection a try as Wifi connections can be fickle/slowed down sometimes especially by interference from neighbor's Wifi router signals especially if using the 2.4Ghz band.   And if it is a Wifi connection just because it work good previous doesn't mean it will work good today if a neighbor(s) changed Wifi channels which now interferes with the channel you are using, a new neighbor moved in to added another Wifi signal to those that are already interfering with you signal, etc.
 
    If you are not getting full speed even with a ethernet connection, then call AIS...again if necessary.

Thats wifi from my phone. I'm using an AC grade wifi router which I can get 866Mbps max. I still miss internet speed in Singapore where I can get 1Gbps for the same price of AIS 50Mbps.

[JaiMaai]

I sent a complaint to AIS, they resetted my connection and I'm getting back download around 50Mbps range. I find Playbox useless and thinking of changing to they new 75Mbps plan for the same price and ditching Playbox and replace it with a Android box. Any advice?

It's definitely worthwhile getting a "good" android box. There are number of topics on the forum with differing opinions on what constitutes a good box. The one thing that I think is agreed upon is to get a box with minimum 2GB of RAM and at least android 5.0 and ideally 6.0.

With regards to the playbox, I would personally hold off doing anything until AIS announces details on their HBO / Fox network packages and how they will be made available. This may or may not be important for you though.

[Pib]

28 minutes ago, shady86 said:

I sent a complaint to AIS, they resetted my connection and I'm getting back download around 50Mbps range. I find Playbox useless and thinking of changing to they new 75Mbps plan for the same price and ditching Playbox and replace it with a Android box. Any advice?

Up to you on the Android box whether you use it or not....or buy a better/more powerful one.  The AIS Playbox didn't cost you anything...it was free.  Yes, recently AIS started offering plans "without the Playbox" but the price difference between a plan with the playbox or without a playbox is very little.  In fact, it hard to compare now since plan speeds available for "with playbox" and plans "without playbox" are different.

 

Keep in mind the 75Mb plan "depends on the quality of line your landlord provides" because it's fibre to the building and then VDSL (i.e., copper phone/DSL lines already installed in the building" for the rest of the distance. VDSL can reach speeds of approx 80Mb over a short distance on a "good quality" line.  The reason you see most VDSL plans limited to 50Mb is because ISPs know the lines within many buildings is old, lower quality, many splices, many switches, etc....the kind of stuff that slows down max speed possible on the line.

 

[shady86]

I was told HBO and the new channels would be given free. I'm using a 4K TV now so anything lower than HD channels are unwatchable. Maybe I'll ask AIS to give me a trial for 75mbps to see if worth to change plan

[The Fat Controller]

Using the Playbox for KODI Jarvis and very few issues, the addon streams are where the problems lie.

 

Whilst the Playbox is not the most responsive, it copes fine as long as you do not try to do anything too quickly.

 

Can easily watch HD movies using the Exodus addon.

 

We have a 50/10 fibre connection at our 20 room building, 1 WiFi SSID from the terminal, 2 from the slave and an old LINKSYS set up for our exclusive use, Playbox on LAN cable.

 

Even in the evenings when a lot of devices are connected, the Playbox always manages to play the Thai TV channels in HD

[Jeffrey346]

Did you guys pay activation fee??

 

• Get discount for installation fee with outdoor wiring installation amount of 4,800 Baht (when agree to use AIS Fibre service continuously at least 12 bill cycles)
• AIS PLAYBOX activation fee 2,500 baht
• Dual Band Wi-Fi Router that support 2.4 GHz and 5GHz for any packages

 

[Pib]

I was told HBO and the new channels would be given free. I'm using a 4K TV now so anything lower than HD channels are unwatchable. Maybe I'll ask AIS to give me a trial for 75mbps to see if worth to change plan

No way it will be free...AIS even said in earlier media releases pricing had not been finalized. If it was going to be free they would have said that from the get-go.

And Truevisions would not have dropped those channels..but they did because of pricing from HBO that True did not want to pay anymore...True wanted HBO to lower their price so True could profit more...it was a standoff that True loss.

[Pib]

Did you guys pay activation fee??
 

• Get discount for installation fee with outdoor wiring installation amount of 4,800 Baht (when agree to use AIS Fibre service continuously at least 12 bill cycles)
• AIS PLAYBOX activation fee 2,500 baht
• Dual Band Wi-Fi Router that support 2.4 GHz and 5GHz for any packages

 

No activation free paid. Above is just AIS advertisement as to what the activation is valued at.

[ExpatOilWorker]

5 hours ago, Pib said:

They still got such a plan?   They sure don't advertise it anymore.   Thought the 15/5 plan at Bt590/mo had been replaced last year by the 30/10 plan for the same price....Bt590/mo.   Would have  thought you would have been upgraded automatically....but maybe not....maybe you have to call them. 

I signed up September 2016 and got the 15/5 plan for 100 x 6 month and 590 x 6 month. That said I often get download speeds around 17-18 Mbps, so maybe AIS did upgrade me. Compared to the True ADSL I had before, I am over the moon happy with AIS.

[Pib]

7 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

I signed up September 2016 and got the 15/5 plan for 100 x 6 month and 590 x 6 month. That said I often get download speeds around 17-18 Mbps, so maybe AIS did upgrade me. Compared to the True ADSL I had before, I am over the moon happy with AIS.

Unless you are getting 30Mb in local speed tests, you are still on the 15Mb plan. If you are still paying Bt590 for 15Mb, I think I would prefer to pay Bt590 for 30Mb.....twice the speed for the same amount.   You might want to call AIS.

[elfpattaya]

I have been with Ais Fibre since September 2015, originally power pro package (that is all they had at the time) and changed to power home package in May 2016 50/10 for 888 baht.

Everything was wonderful had Kodi working great with Real Debrid. Then September 2016 had my first problem with Kodi buffering, but they sorted it out even though it took a month.

Then December 2016 everything went tits up. Every night at about 8p.m. buffering starts on Kodi and My IPTV. Both start working perfectly again at midnight.

But the thing is I telephone them and they try to blame Kodi although it works OK on SD lower quality links, and sometimes if I'm lucky I will get a call back within the hour and everything is reset and working again.

I have been told this is the peak period and I should not expect anything better, but this is when I want to watch TV without constant buffering. I have asked for a solution and nobody seems to have one.

They have given me a Public IPv4 address and that has still not stopped the problems.

This morning they came to change my router, but still gave me a crappy fibrehome model(same as I had before), when I asked for an Huaweii router they told me that was only for certain areas of Bangkok??? Probably have too many fibrehome left. So give them to us in the outskirts of Chonburi

Anyway I don't think the new router is going to make any difference, but I'll wait and see.

My AIS playbox is still in its Box, as it won't work in the room where I want it, though they gave me another router to put into Bridge Mode,  they didn't install it.

So I also would like to upgrade to 75mbps for another 2 Baht, and give them their playbox back.

I think probably the bottom line is that they now have to many customers on their CG nat and like True and the others they don't give a damn as long as we keep paying the money.

 

Edited March 14, 2017 by elfpattaya

[fvw53]

Does AIS fiber allow unlimited Gigabytes download ?  Does it throttle download of torrents?

[Encid]

15 minutes ago, elfpattaya said:

Then December 2016 everything went tits up. Every night at about 8p.m. buffering starts on Kodi and My IPTV. Both start working perfectly again at midnight.

But the thing is I telephone them and they try to blame Kodi although it works OK on SD lower quality links, and sometimes if I'm lucky I will get a call back within the hour and everything is reset and working again.

I have been told this is the peak period and I should not expect anything better, but this is when I want to watch TV without constant buffering. I have asked for a solution and nobody seems to have one.

They have given me a Public IPv4 address and that has still not stopped the problems.

This morning they came to change my router, but still gave me a crappy fibrehome model(same as I had before), when I asked for an Huaweii router they told me that was only for certain areas of Bangkok??? Probably have too many fibrehome left. So give them to us in the outskirts of Chonburi

Anyway I don't think the new router is going to make any difference, but I'll wait and see.

It sounds like your ISP is load-sharing the available bandwidth and throttling your international download speed.

 

Try a speedtest like testmy.net and set the test server to some cities/countries outside Thailand like Singapore, Frankfurt, and London.

Take screen captures of the results during both good and bad connectivity.

Show the results to your ISP.

They will say that they cannot guarantee download speeds outside Thailand but this is just lies... they are throttling and the results will be evident in the ranges shown in your speed tests.

[shady86]

It sounds like your ISP is load-sharing the available bandwidth and throttling your international download speed.
 
Try a speedtest like testmy.net and set the test server to some cities/countries outside Thailand like Singapore, Frankfurt, and London.
Take screen captures of the results during both good and bad connectivity.
Show the results to your ISP.
They will say that they cannot guarantee download speeds outside Thailand but this is just lies... they are throttling and the results will be evident in the ranges shown in your speed tests.

Sounds like "single gateway" working at its best

[ExpatOilWorker]

1 hour ago, fvw53 said:

Does AIS fiber allow unlimited Gigabytes download ?  Does it throttle download of torrents?

I am way past 2 TB, so most likely unlimited.

[Straight8]

1 hour ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

I signed up September 2016 and got the 15/5 plan for 100 x 6 month and 590 x 6 month. That said I often get download speeds around 17-18 Mbps, so maybe AIS did upgrade me. Compared to the True ADSL I had before, I am over the moon happy with AIS.

I was on that plan too, but since got two upgrades, and Now on the 30/10 plan, for the same price.

 

Very happy with the speeds, and get full download speeds most of the time.

[Poppadom]

Quote

 

AIS Playbox

Performance: Frustratingly slow due to 1GB RAM

Quality: Only local channels and few overseas channels comes with HD

 

My playbox only has 768MB ram - installed google play and some apps onto it:

• CPU-Z to check specs
• Youtube
• Modbro
• Deezer
• Firefox (this one's a bit slow due to limited ram)

Takes USB keyboard/mouse so it's pretty easy to navigate. Ok to run one app at a time and it is indeed slow when switching between apps.

[chilli42]

Happy with AIS fiber.  True was a nightmare.  Playbox is a paperweight on my desk. Offers nothing interesting.  Use a Kodi box for series and movies .... Apple TV on occasion.

[Poppadom]

13 hours ago, chilli42 said:

Happy with AIS fiber.  True was a nightmare.  Playbox is a paperweight on my desk. Offers nothing interesting.  Use a Kodi box for series and movies .... Apple TV on occasion.

Just installed Kodi on the stock AIS Playbox and realized it's in fact XBMC, which I used a lot on 1st gen XBOX as home media center :)

[richthai]

Have 20/10 since October for 590 + 150 (Playbox) + tax = 840.  Download Internet speed in Rayong varies between 25 and 7mb/s, with most readings below 15.  Upload is consistently around 10.  Playbox seems to be a waste.  Planning to take it back.  Better than True, but disappointed with speed.  I'll check again and if it keeps happening, I'll complain to AIS.

[Pib]

On 3/14/2017 at 3:47 PM, elfpattaya said:

I have been with Ais Fibre since September 2015, originally power pro package (that is all they had at the time) and changed to power home package in May 2016 50/10 for 888 baht.

Everything was wonderful had Kodi working great with Real Debrid. Then September 2016 had my first problem with Kodi buffering, but they sorted it out even though it took a month.

Then December 2016 everything went tits up. Every night at about 8p.m. buffering starts on Kodi and My IPTV. Both start working perfectly again at midnight.

But the thing is I telephone them and they try to blame Kodi although it works OK on SD lower quality links, and sometimes if I'm lucky I will get a call back within the hour and everything is reset and working again.

I have been told this is the peak period and I should not expect anything better, but this is when I want to watch TV without constant buffering. I have asked for a solution and nobody seems to have one.

They have given me a Public IPv4 address and that has still not stopped the problems.

This morning they came to change my router, but still gave me a crappy fibrehome model(same as I had before), when I asked for an Huaweii router they told me that was only for certain areas of Bangkok??? Probably have too many fibrehome left. So give them to us in the outskirts of Chonburi

Anyway I don't think the new router is going to make any difference, but I'll wait and see.

My AIS playbox is still in its Box, as it won't work in the room where I want it, though they gave me another router to put into Bridge Mode,  they didn't install it.

So I also would like to upgrade to 75mbps for another 2 Baht, and give them their playbox back.

I think probably the bottom line is that they now have to many customers on their CG nat and like True and the others they don't give a damn as long as we keep paying the money.

 

Maybe I've been lucky with my AIS 50/10 (Jul-Nov 16) and 100/10 (Nov 16-Current Date) plans in terms of good speed, prime time or non prime time.  My AIS is fiber all the way to my residence....fiber right into the router.   I live in western Bangkok.  No buffering/pausing when using Kodi.   For example, just did a Speedtest.net and testmy.net to Singapore and LA at around 9:30pm (prime time).

 

Singapore

 

Singapore

 

 

LA

 

LA

 

 

[SooKee]

I've been with AIS on Fibre Home  50/10 (IIRC) a couple of months now.  I wanted the 100 package but living in a condo you could only get max 50 when I signed up.  I see now they offer 75 too, whether you'd get it I'm not sure.

 

Mostly it's been OK service and speed wise but funnily enough I just checked today (having noticed yesterday that pages seemed slow to load when browsing but never got round to checking) - 1.7 Mbps (wifi) / 7.7 Mbps wired!!!!  Made a call to 1175 and they called me back about an hour later, did the standard "is that by wifi or ethernet" Q&A session and the fastest we managed was 22 / 7 wired and 1.7 / 1.8 wifi using testmy.net.  I did point out that up to now I had been getting close to the 50 on both wifi and wired. The contact centre guy said he'd refer it to the technicians and it would take up to 3 days to check?  Seriously?  Not impressed with that at all!!!  I said so AIS will be refunding me for the the 3-4 days I'm down to the 'yogurt pots on a piece of string' connection would they? I will be monitoring the performance very, VERY closely from today that's for sure!!  Up to 50Mbps to me DOESN'T mean just above 0.  Deliver the service or I stop paying! I have limited patience where I'm paying for something - contracts cut both ways.  Hold up your end of the bargain or you can whistle.

 

Further testing:

Ookla (yeah, right)

First test: 8.7 / 3.1

Second (after talking to the first tech): 50/9 (wired and wifi)

 

testmy.net

Dallas: 2.1 / 1.9

UK: 1.5 / 1.7

Singapore: 42.7 / 10.8

 

I can live with the latter Singapore test but the speeds to the UK / US suck!!!  I see some get better speeds with a VPN.  Not interested in going that route at the moment.  Mostly because I don't need a VPN on a day to day basis plus you need to pay for it (the free ones are crap IMO) AND, invariably, a DDWRT router.

 

Playbox is OK seeing as it's free but no way would I pay for it at the advertised cost, nor indeed any of the services on it.  We've kept it around but it's been used only a couple of times since we've had it, and that was only in the first couple of days.  Problem is I have a much more capable box sitting underneath it and most of the channels on the Playbox we can access through other sources at far higher quality and with much faster / better performance. Personally I wouldn't judge the performance of an Android STB on the basis of the Playbox, superior devices are WORLDS apart in terms of ease of use and performance.  

 

The only PlayBox app of some interest for me would be HooQ (one of the, ahem, 'premier' services), headlined at having over 10,000 titles but in reality, once you filter out the Thai / Asian and crap-feed stuff it has no content that I can't get elsewhere, and most of that is REALLY dated.  One of the bonuses is that some of the English content has Thai subtitles, but iFlix is MUCH better at that.  In addition, on HooQ, I've fired up a few movies expecting them to be English with Thai subs, only to find the audio is in Spanish or whatever!!   Searching though HooQ content is a bit of a pain too, way too much junk in the various categories with loads of cartoons, anime and other crap to filter through (on many screens you'd get one series or movie you MIGHT be interested in watching and 8 other tiles of junk) and without a better input device (which I wouldn't waste on a Playbox), searching would be a pain.  At 1,400 per year once your free subscription ends, iFlix at 1,000 per year is far, FAR better value IMO.  Some of the streams via the PlayBox, even from HooQ are of very low quality I find too. Depends where they're sourcing the material from I guess or the quality of what they've loaded.

 

I am trying to see if I could get HooQ on my other box but there are some log-in problems I'm encountering which I'm liaising with HooQ over.  That said, I'm not sure I'll be putting much effort into it, the end result just doesn't justify the time / effort.   It's one of those 'It's free so why not have it on-hand to access' but not one I think we'll ever use. 

 

Finally, I also find the Playbox as a device a little slow with quite a lot of buffering and juddering even on wired connection, something my Minix U9-H doesn't encounter. Moving between the various UI screens can be slow at times as well, down to the 1GB RAM and processor.   I could load all of the apps and resources I use on Kodi (not a lot I must admit as I find I use Kodi ONLY when I can't access what I need from sources like Netflix, iFlix and Amazon Prime) on the Minix onto the PlayBox I guess but why bother loading to a much less capable device.  I think if it doesn't get used at all within the next month we'll box it up again.  Not sure there's any value in taking it back to AIS but I would want to ensure I don't get switched to being billed for Playbox subscription after the 1 year free.  I suppose what MIGHT be useful is if you could get the AIS Playbox APK on another device but they say it's not possible and I'm not interested enough to research it further.

 

OT a little, I MIGHT invest in one of the higher quality routers that AIS offer at (in some cases) subsidised rates to its customers at some stage like the Nighthawk D7800 or the D-LINK DIR-895L but ONLY if they can be used direct  (e.g. I won't need to keep the AIS supplied HG180v2 as a modem in bridge mode) - waiting for AIS to answer that one.  I'm 100% against stacking boxes up now and the HG180 works OK (ish).  In some cases Lazada offer what appear to be the same routers at cheaper prices but they are mostly 1 or 2 generations behind.  Plus, there's (hopefully) more chance of AIS supporting devices they sell in the event of a problem (but then again, TIT) and better warranty coverage.  I have a penultimate (5th) gen Apple Airport Extreme that I could use but that would definitely need the AIS box as a modem.  I've never been THAT impressed with the AEBS wifi performance since I bought it and, AFAIK, the Extreme is yet another hardware line that's been binned by Tim Cook's dumbing down of Apple (while I've historically been impressed with Apple and it's ecosystem benefits they seem to be developing at a slower pace than competitors with ever increasing prices for ever ageing tech - the Apple TV was the first hardware to go, the phone will be next and my next laptop will not be Apple).

Edited March 16, 2017 by SooKee
Typos

[Pib]

Your Wifi performance is purely between the router and your equipment...Expect you have major Wifi interference with neighbors' Wifi.

That test I posted earlier was via Wifi as I have no Wifi interference from neighbors and a Wifi router snd devices that can handle higher speeds.. 5GHz band router/device capability.

But since you are "not" getting 50Mb when hardwired that's an AIS or building wiring problem....but the Wifi slow speed is a separate problem.