Internet reliability/speed in Samui

[muratremix]

Hi,

 

After living over 6 years in Bangkok, we're moving to Koh Samui for new business venture.

At the moment, I'm in samui and I made some observations, but I'd like to hear from people actually live in here.

 

From what I understand, ADSL/VDSL is highly unreliable due to rainy nature of this Island. 3BB is heavily throttled even for domestic speedtest.net servers.

3BB fiber seems fine, I managed to get 66mbps via 40mhz 2.4 ghz router in hotel. Singapore speedtest was also good despite the 2.4 ghz wifi limitation.

 

I'll live in Bang Rak area, and AIS seems to be servicing that area. Just 500 meter in same main road, I've seen True online docsis and 3BB fiber.

I'm mainly interested in 3BB fiber, because I use 50/20 vdsl in our home in Bangkok and I'm pretty happy.

 

So how is speeds in Samui? Is under-sea fiber cable capacity enough? 

[samuijimmy]

Personally, I find 3 BB excellent Ban Por / Maenam area.... However it could vary in different areas of Samui, One Banrak member always seems to have problems.

 

It might be better to move this question to the Samui Forum, for better local knowledge.

Edited August 24, 2017 by samuijimmy

[jasonsamui55]

No problems with CAT 50 Mbps plan. Quite reliable, only used for usa and European traffic and IPTV services. It was down maybe twice in the last year only for a few hours each time.

[robertson468]

I have tried a variety of ISP and finally settled with CAT, which is delivered by fiber optic.  As Jason said above, has been down a couple of times, but nothing significant.  I also use a UPS with the Router, which seems to help overcome the electical surges up and down.  Good luck.

[muratremix]

Not sure cat fiber available everywhere? I will stay between two piers in bang rak main road. 3bb, true and ais is within reach. No idea about tot ( ot my first choice anyway!) or cat.

[PoorSucker]

This is my 200/100 3BB line.

[samuijimmy]

3 bb showed up today, to install my Fibre line... 100/30 @  700 baht a month. Plus I paid 800 baht for the new wifi router.

 

I was paying 900 baht, ADSL line which was fine ... so this should save me about 200 baht a month after router  is paid (4 months)

My speeds (so far pretty good )

 

110.00 down  31. 00 up ... just now and about the same this afternoon.

(Better than Poorsuckers speed!)

 

A little slower testing to Vancouver BC.... but seems acceptable.

 

CAT is good, so I hear...

 

Never heard anyone say anything good about TOT.

[PoorSucker]

11 hours ago, samuijimmy said:

 

(Better than Poorsuckers speed!)

 

Forgot to tell, probably three staff looking at Thai soap operas on YouTube same time.... ☺

[khunPer]

12 hours ago, samuijimmy said:

Never heard anyone say anything good about TOT.

Not true, you've heard me saying it several times – and I'll say it again right now...

I've been using TOT in Maenam, extremely stable and excellent service – had nightmare 3BB before – they just automatically upgraded my cheap 590 baht a month 10 Mbps ADSL-line to fiber on their own account (36.4 Mbps down/18.2 Mbps up), and gave me a free new 5-port router with higher Wifi-speed (2 speeds available simultaneously).

I may even consider to pay slightly more in monthly fee now and upgrade to some 100/50, if the free ADSL-upgrade is not speedy enough...

[samuijimmy]

6 hours ago, khunPer said:

Not true, you've heard me saying it several times – and I'll say it again right now...

I've been using TOT in Maenam, extremely stable and excellent service – had nightmare 3BB before – they just automatically upgraded my cheap 590 baht a month 10 Mbps ADSL-line to fiber on their own account (36.4 Mbps down/18.2 Mbps up), and gave me a free new 5-port router with higher Wifi-speed (2 speeds available simultaneously).

I may even consider to pay slightly more in monthly fee now and upgrade to some 100/50, if the free ADSL-upgrade is not speedy enough...

Obviously you are an exception with TOT... lucky you...

[aussiehat]

Good luck on the rock my friend

[PoorSucker]

On 25/08/2017 at 10:41 AM, khunPer said:

Not true, you've heard me saying it several times – and I'll say it again right now...

I've been using TOT in Maenam, extremely stable and excellent service – had nightmare 3BB before – they just automatically upgraded my cheap 590 baht a month 10 Mbps ADSL-line to fiber on their own account (36.4 Mbps down/18.2 Mbps up), and gave me a free new 5-port router with higher Wifi-speed (2 speeds available simultaneously).

I may even consider to pay slightly more in monthly fee now and upgrade to some 100/50, if the free ADSL-upgrade is not speedy enough...

They draw a fiber optic line to you for free,? 

You can not automatically upgrade from a copper cable ADSL line to a fiber optic line. 

WiFi has a maximum theoretical speed of 54 mbits but is in reality only average 20 mbits 

 

[khunPer]

19 minutes ago, PoorSucker said:

They draw a fiber optic line to you for free,? 

You can not automatically upgrade from a copper cable ADSL line to a fiber optic line. 

WiFi has a maximum theoretical speed of 54 mbits but is in reality only average 20 mbits 

 

Yes, TOT called and said they could upgrade the ADSL-line to fiber for free, and with faster speed for same fee as charged for the ADSL-line.

Some time later the called and said they would come tomorrow and install a new fiber-line, drawn from the Ring Road down to the beach; which they did.

TOT also installed a new "ZTE, ZXHN F670" router for free – the old ADSL-router I had bought myself – including two wireless Wifi-channels, 2.4GHz and 5GHz; stating that it's faster than my old WLan, as it has 3-antenna IEEE 802.11n, which may go up to 150 mbits (if it actually does, I have no idea, or equipment to measure, but it works fine enough).

 

Originally I had TT&T, and I was satisfied with their service, but then TT&T sold their ISP to 3BB, and service moved to Nakon Nowhere. One day the Internet stopped, and after a week an engineer came and found out that the line was broken somewhere between the Ring Road and our "old" bungalow, one we rented by Soi 4 in Maenam, and they needed to come back tomorrow or the day after, and install a new wire. They didn't show up, so I called service department again, and was told that maybe tomorrow; or next week; or as soon as an engineer had time. After a month with no Internet  I bought a dongle and an utterly slow back-up mobile connection from DTAC; meanwhile 3BB still charged me the monthly fee. After two month with no 3BB Internet I went to their office by Tesco and gave them the last monthly bill, which had just arrived, and said they should just forget me, when they cannot repair a broken line within two month...

TOT made a new ADSL-line in a week from ordering it; so I'm a happy TOT-client...

[muratremix]

So I guess underwater fiber capacity to Samui is large enough to allow high speeds over fiber packages. No idea why they throttle adsl/vdsl (even for domestic speedtest)

 

 

[longtom]

On 8/27/2017 at 1:44 AM, PoorSucker said:

They draw a fiber optic line to you for free,? 

You can not automatically upgrade from a copper cable ADSL line to a fiber optic line. 

WiFi has a maximum theoretical speed of 54 mbits but is in reality only average 20 mbits 

 

 

TOT upgraded my 1.5mbs ADSL to 30/30 fiber 3 month ago, without me asking for it. Same price, free new router, in Nathon. Happy!

[PoorSucker]

For all that upgraded to fiber, did they remove he old copper cables..... [emoji23]

[khunPer]

13 hours ago, PoorSucker said:

For all that upgraded to fiber, did they remove he old copper cables.....

TOT has been working for about a week in the Maenam traffic light intersection, installing fiber and numerous distribution boxes – saw today that they are also working at several spots en route Maenam to Nathon, so they may indeed cut the old copper– however, don't think the physically remove the old cables, my old TOT copper-wire, and all the other various lines, are still hanging in "my" electric posts...

 

A propos physical removal of wires: When I should build my house there was the usual bunch of wires crossing my land, exactly where my house should be built, so I bought nice new posts and had the electric department to install them and move power cables. Then I talked to both TT&T and TOT about their lines, and after a couple of month both came and moved some wires, and finally only something left that looked like antenna cable. Contacted Samui Cable TV about the last ones. They said: »Just cut the cables, someone will complain about lost signal, then we know what to replace«...

[ethaniel]

Where I live (The Bay Condominium) we have 4 cheap fiber optic lines coming in (TOT, 3BB, CAT), which we connected to a cheap TP-Link Load balancer. This helps us automatically load balance through different connections based on congestion + gives 3x reliability in case one line goes down. Internet is rock solid.

Edited August 29, 2017 by ethaniel