3BB Internet Service

[Shilo 371]

On the surface this will seem like a really stupid question.... but then again, this is Thailand

 

I use 3BB for my internet service. They have three levels called Indy, Pro, and Premiere. I understand that the Indy level is the cheapest because they have upwards of 50 customers using one line. Premiere is what I use and is supposed to only have 5-10 customers on a shared line. The Pro level is a mystery....

 

I currently pay 1090 baht per month for 3mb of speed.

 

The Pro level has a 10mb service for 1490 baht per month.

 

But I have heard that the Pro level only works best within Thailand and is much slower when accessing sites outside of the country. And I have no idea how many customers are on a single line.

 

So my really stupid question: is the 10mb Pro service worth the extra 400 baht over the 3mb Premiere service?

Edited June 23, 2010 by Shilo

[CheshireTom 1,377]

On the surface this will seem like a really stupid question.... but then again, this is Thailand

 

I use 3BB for my internet service. They have three levels called Indy, Pro, and Premiere. I understand that the Indy level is the cheapest because they have upwards of 50 customers using one line. Premiere is what I use and is supposed to only have 5-10 customers on a shared line. The Pro level is a mystery....

 

I currently pay 1090 baht per month for 3mb of speed.

 

The Pro level has a 10mb service for 1490 baht per month.

 

But I have heard that the Pro level only works best within Thailand and is much slower when accessing sites outside of the country. And I have no idea how many customers are on a single line.

 

So my really stupid question: is the 10mb Pro service worth the extra 400 baht over the 3mb Premiere service?

 

Shilo,

 

I am on 3BB's 10 mb Pro service - there is also a 12 mb and 16 mb service available.

 

 

 

I get everything it says except slightly slower upload speeds. I've just done two Speedtests; the first is to BKK (I am down south) and the second to SF. Whether it is worth it to you is really only something you can answer.

 

 

 

 

[englishinsiam 15]

I have the 8 Meg Premier with True pay about 1200 per month.

 

Get very few dropouts and sometimes it's blisteringly fast other times like a snail.

 

Overall though compared to the 3Meg Basic Maxnet I was using last year I'm very pleased.

[RWB 0]

We were supposed to have the 10 Mb, tested it before I left last Jan. and while it wasn't what it was claimed, as I remember speed was ok and I have lost the test. When I got back I noticed that downloads seemed slower and when I saw this post I decided to check. Crap, not even 1 Mb. Speedtest listed me as Maxnet in Khon Kaen, kinda close, 3BB in Udonthani. Anyway, it appears from what the wife says she has been paying we ended up with the Indy so now have to call and start dealing with them again, oh what a headache. It took 3 weeks just to get internet installed, up and running last time (the line was in in one day-all went to crap from there). Then they didn't ever send bill, for phone line or internet service. The wife had to track it down and pay. Glad I brought plenty of coated asprin 'cause I'm not going back. Ok, back to painting wall (honey do's).

[frostfire 1,279]

If you are a gamer, the premier is absolutely necessary.

 

Its not the speed that counts when gaming, but the ping rate, which is MUCH better with premier.

 

I had Pro 10mb, but my ping to almost any US server was between 1000-3500 on average. Changing to premier dropped the average to 300. Still high for a gamer, but at least playable.

 

With the Pro, websites did not load as fast as with premier either for the most part, but downloads with Giganews/Getright actually got close to 10mb, so they were very fast.. much faster than my current premier package.

 

Hope that helps....

 

Frosty

[MM 6,562]

If you are a gamer, the premier is absolutely necessary.

 

I can't find any reference to "premier" on the 3bb products page. Where is it offered/described?

[CheshireTom 1,377]

Its not the speed that counts when gaming, but the ping rate, which is MUCH better with premier.

 

I had Pro 10mb, but my ping to almost any US server was between 1000-3500 on average. Changing to premier dropped the average to 300. Still high for a gamer, but at least playable.

 

I've just done another Speedtest using 10 mb pro.

 

To SF my ping is 243 ms and download speed is 9.89 mb. Yesterday the numbers were 257 ms and 9.84 mb.

 

 

 

 

If you are a gamer, the premier is absolutely necessary.

 

The numbers suggest that's not the case.

[CheshireTom 1,377]

I can't find any reference to "premier" on the 3bb products page. Where is it offered/described?

 

Here you go, Martin ....

 

3BB - Premier

 

and the prices ....

 

 

[Shilo 371]

Well, I just got back from 3BB where I upgraded to the 10mb Pro level... and naturally, my speed then dropped

 

But I spoke with a friend here in my complex who did the same a while back and he said after a bit of time it'll sort it's self out.

 

For what it's worth, the girl at the office said that the Premier level allows for 10:1 clients to band lines while the Pro level allows for 20:1... so the math suggests that at 3mb w/10 clients to the line I should get about 300K while at the 10mb w/20 clients to the line I might get 500K.

 

Where I'm hoping to see the most benefit is late at night or early mornings when I'm downloading stuff and there is far less traffic... we'll see.

[Lucky 47]

I have had a Premiere 4MB with BBB for three years but about six months ago they started restricting my bandwidth, especially on uploads. A few months back I switched to TOT and I get much better speeds with them. I complained many times to BBB but it never did any good and now I'm happy to be with TOT, I think that BBB just has too many customers to service properly.

[CheshireTom 1,377]

Well, I just got back from 3BB where I upgraded to the 10mb Pro level... and naturally, my speed then dropped

 

But I spoke with a friend here in my complex who did the same a while back and he said after a bit of time it'll sort it's self out.

 

For what it's worth, the girl at the office said that the Premier level allows for 10:1 clients to band lines while the Pro level allows for 20:1... so the math suggests that at 3mb w/10 clients to the line I should get about 300K while at the 10mb w/20 clients to the line I might get 500K.

 

Where I'm hoping to see the most benefit is late at night or early mornings when I'm downloading stuff and there is far less traffic... we'll see.

 

Shilo,

 

I had similar issues when I first changed over to TT+T. However, when I moved house, I managed to grab the techie guy and he sorted me out. He reconfigured my modem (Linksys) at the shop (that appeared to cure the problems) and then came to my house to do the settings on my Mac.

 

I've just done another speedtest and the numbers appear to be very stable.

 

 

 

[RWB 0]

Went to the 3bb shop this pm, the young lady there says pro only good for connection inside LOS, and yes I know I had already seen the speed test. At any rate, we will try for one month on premier, assuming that is what we actually get this time, and if I don't like it we will switch to pro. The lady says we have to change modem/router and they will be here tomorrow, I'm not holding my breath. This is the same lady that doesn't smile when we first went to shop and was anything but helpful back in Nov. When the owner of our subdivision called the next day she was in the subdivision office with papers etc in less than 20 mins with big smile. Why is it I don't think we will like premier? The lady is quite attractive anyway, at least when she does smile, even it is fake.

 

Damn I miss Roadrunner, but Time Warner must have given these folks classes on customer relations or lack of.

[CheshireTom 1,377]

Went to the 3bb shop this pm, the young lady there says pro only good for connection inside LOS,

 

That was certainly the situation previously but I think since the internet companies have taken advantage of the recently opened AAG (Asia-America Gateway) that it hasn't been an issue, or rather, not to the extent it was before.

[RWB 0]

The tech just changed the settings on my modem, and now with the outstanding, tremdous, stupendous, great premium package, lo and behold will wonders ever cease I have exactly the fucking same! 0.88 Mb/s download speed enabling me to download an 800Mb movie in only 123 minutes. He checked the speed, said everything ok and split. Just gotta' luv it. I will give it exactly 24 hours to improve considerable and then back to 3bb and no more mister nice guy.

[Lucky 47]

If you do a lot of downloading and uploading torrents then BBB, even with a premiere account, severely restricts your bandwidth with torrents and that is the reason that I switched. Now I have two ISP's at the condo, CAT and TOT. Neither one restricts my bandwidth when downloading torrents. The CAT connection is the best but it is also the most expensive. If you do a lot of downloading/uploading I would think twice before going with BBB, otherwise it doesn't matter.

[Regyai 415]

Just got 4mb 'Indy Plus' 3BB installed today http://www.3bb.co.th/product/adsl/3bb_indy_plus.php

 

Does what it says on the packet

 

 

 

 

 

.

[Shilo 371]

OK, I need some help guys... I've run out of ideas.

 

I went ahead and made the upgrade with 3BB from the 3MB to the 10MB "speed". That was about 2 1/2 weeks ago.

 

As soon as I made the switch my speed dropped from 3MB to around 1.5 to 2MB. I called 3BB's hotline 1530 and was told that they would contact a tech and he would call me. No one ever called. For the next two weeks I called about 15-20 times, spoke with supervisors, had them do some stuff over the phone and some times the speed would increase to 7.5-8MB only to dropped down again after a few hours, or it would stay around 2.5-3.75MB for a day or two and then it would rain and dropped down to 1MB.

 

Again, after many calls and promises there was NEVER any callbacks. I did finally catch one of the 3BB trucks while they were at my building with a work order for a different client and got them to check the line. They checked it and then left without any explaination. And of course it didn't fix the problem. Then a couple of days later after a few more calls 3BB showed up again with a work order with my name. They checked the line again and showed me on my modem status page where the signal was coming in at 11.772MB. The tech guy seemed pissed that he had to keep coming out when as far as he was concerned there wasn't any problem to fix.... note: at this point my "speed" was and still is a constant .30MB My Thai girlfriend was trying to explain that nothing had been "fixed" and he response was something along the lines of "we have done what we had to do, we won't be coming back again, fuxk you."

 

So here is where I stand:

 

I believe that 3BB is pumping 10+MB into my line... though their customer "service" is total crap.

 

I have used my computer on a friends wireless modem and it worked fine... so no problem with my computer.

 

I went out and bought a new modem because my old one was a hand-me-down and several years old. No change with the new modem.

 

And the View Talay 2 building guys have checked the phone lines and can't find a problem.

 

The best advice I have gotten from other expats is to drop 3BB and move over to TOT. While other expat friends have said NO... they just moved from TOT to 3BB because they got lousy service from TOT. Personally, I just want this problem to go away

 

So here is the question: it's not my computer, the modem, and for kicks let's assume that the feed is actually 10+MB... any ideas out there as to why I get a constant .30MB speed? has anyone else had the same problem and found a fix?

 

Errr......

[Fondles 94]

If the modem is showing the correct speeds coming in then their end of the contract is being fullfilled, My guess is you have issues on your end, Maybe update the firmware on the modem....

 

As for an expat telling you to move from 3b to ToT...bwahahahahahahahahahaha those two companies are as bad as each other.

[Shilo 371]

I've talked to several other guys here in View Talay 2, a couple who own and rent out multi units, and some have TOT while others have 3BB. It is hit and miss where some have lost the internet completely, some are seeing power spikes up and down, and still others have had no problems at all.

 

There is only one common theme that I hear over and over... those with problems say it all started about two weeks ago.

 

But then there is the rub. In my case it was about two weeks ago that I made the switch. Another theory is that a couple of weeks ago the city was doing road work outside in front of the complex. Or the last theory, that again it was about two weeks ago when the building moved several UBC dishes from one side of the roof top to the other side for better reception. So many guys are thinking that some where... some how... some wires were clipped or some type of central box took some damage.

 

For myself, I know that it's not my computer, the modem is brand new, and I'm showing that the feed coming from 3BB to my line on my modem status page is showing a very strong signal. I'm stamped my foot for the past two weeks and tried everything I could think of, so now I've just going to ask around for any new ideas and let others in the building with problems take the lead.

 

Does anyone have any idea what is involved with the equipment that is used to pass the internet feeds from the box outside by the parking lot into the building? Is there some sort of transformer unit or could there be a way that the phones lines could squeeze the signal?

 

again Errr.....

[joekicker 53]

As for an expat telling you to move from 3b to ToT...bwahahahahahahahahahaha those two companies are as bad as each other.

 

They also are as good as each other. As is True in areas that have True. As are the smaller, niche ones. Connections and speed and the like have very, very little to do with the ISP, and depend almost exclusively on where YOU are located and what your phone connections are like. The humans you deal with are 90% interchangeable across all the the ISPs too - most are barely competent but pleasant, and know just what to do if you walk them slowly through what you want. The rest are either horribly dumb, dreadfully rude or fantastically switched on and knowledgeable, 100 times better than you... er, me.

 

.

[Shilo 371]

OK, almost by magic.... my speed problem has been resolved.

 

For no apparent reason, I am now getting the 9.5-10MB speed that I was paying for. And most of the general stuff that I use the net for is working just fine.

 

BUT this is Thailand, so nothing is ever as simple as it would seem.

 

My new problem is that my U-torrent speed has gone to crap. Once is a blue moon it is great (1mb download rate), very once in a while it is decent (500-750 kb), but most of the time it is total crap ("lucky" to get 10-70 kb).

 

My best guess is that the 10MB Pro level is a 20 customer shared line and 3BB "squeezes" the torrent downloads to insure that all the customers get a decent level of speed for the normal net surfing stuff.

 

Anyone else run into this problem and or have any suggestions? Other then calling the damned 1530 call center line. I haven't tried that yet just because I doubt it would do any good and because I'm not sure what their policy would be about torrent usage.

[Owen` 2]

Shilo, I think there is a uTorrent based limit on downloads if the person is not doing original seeding. It may have nothing to do with your link. The utorrent people do this to get more content available.

[Shilo 371]

Shilo, I think there is a uTorrent based limit on downloads if the person is not doing original seeding. It may have nothing to do with your link. The utorrent people do this to get more content available.

 

You might be right.... but I've never had this problem till after I made the "upgrade" from the 4mb to the 10mb service level. And none of my friends who use the 4mb level are having any problems.

 

I'm currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. I want to keep the 10mb speed which is great when I'm watching streaming video over the web. But during the day I am lucky to get 40-90kbs on downloads till after about 7-8pm when it'll often pop up to between 750kbs to 1.1mb downloads.

 

Not a serious problem now but come this fall when all of my favorite TV shows come back and the NFL season starts I'll have to choose between streaming speed vs download consistancy

[Owen` 2]

Another possibility is the internet service is noting use of utorrent and given such users have been recognized as heavy users, they get throttled back when such packets are identified on an ultra high speed service.

 

This would not be service inadequacy per se. Many services do this all over the world. You can surf on this to investigate workarounds. eMule, perhaps. Or maybe some utorrent camouflaging plugin.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Owen`