3BB internet speed and problems

[musungu]

I can only say that when 3BB surveyed my property they checked out the nearest electricity poles and although I am a little off the beaten track they were quite clear that the optic cable would come straight to the house from the electricity pole outside.

As regards to Billy Joe 1 a friend of mine was telling me 3 weeks ago that there were many people in Soi 102 who had a lot of problems with poor connection etc with Fibre Optic: he said it was something to do with being too far away from some (connection?) box -I am no expert on this ( quite the reverse) whereas some of you seem very knowledgeable so will probably understand

[Nereus]

I can only say that when 3BB surveyed my property they checked out the nearest electricity poles and although I am a little off the beaten track they were quite clear that the optic cable would come straight to the house from the electricity pole outside.

Do you have an existing land line telephone connection?

[Farang]

I have recently signed up and awaiting installation so your comments concern me, as did those of BILLY JOE 1, my location is Pala U Road past Elephant Village so I am very interested to hear where BOTH yours are?

I did hear that people were unhappy down past Soi 112.

I infest Bong Gai, between the 88 and 94 and my optic speed is good, when it happens to connect. About 20 % of the time the connection just cuts off interrupting whatever I or the computer was doing. Whats more, the 3BB technicians do not phone before appearing even if this has been agreed with the 3BB. They just appear and leave a note brazenly lying they phoned but got no reply. This 3BB inability to rectify the situation as well as the atrocious service is something new. Before the 3BB had really good service. Perhaps they now have so much problems they just can not cope with it?

Anyone having a halfway decent connection should stay away from optic cable until 3BB has sorted out the thing.

DO NOT TAKE AN OPTIC CABLE FROM 3BB!

[Billy Joe I]

Nereus - The FO line was run directly into the house and is terminated at the 3BB supplied router. Just a small yellow line that is similar to other FO lines I have seen. What I don't know is where the local junction box is and how far. When they came to install they ran the FO cable along the existing telephone and electric poles but thats about it.

DO NOT TAKE AN OPTIC CABLE FROM 3BB!

I couldn't agree more about not getting the FO until they have sorted out the issues they have. Sadly I don't think this will be any time in the near future...TIT! They have to believe they have a problem before they start to fix it and right now I don't think they give a hoot!

[Farang]

This is a link to a graph fairly typical of my current internet connection.
I just post the link, not the sob-story as it longish and would throw the
site out of kilter.

There is nothing one can do with a connection like that. Nothing!

http://tinyurl.com/1-h-of-3bb-oc

[Big Boy]

That's shocking. I assumed you were getting a reduced service, not total outage.

[Farang]

I wish that the valleys would've been just slow, but they were
complete interruption of service. I was out, totally. KO'd.
I need to find an alternative to 3BB OC, but can only actively
star looking for a solution mid next week.

I am currently finding out if there really is life without the internet.

[Nereus]

Nereus - The FO line was run directly into the house and is terminated at the 3BB supplied router. Just a small yellow line that is similar to other FO lines I have seen. What I don't know is where the local junction box is and how far. When they came to install they ran the FO cable along the existing telephone and electric poles but thats about it.

Hmm, I have not seen the fibre optic cable that they are using, but as posted previously, the stuff has to be terminated correctly. It cannot be terminated with an RJ 45 type plug that fits a router, it would need to have some form of adapter, and that adapter would require power to operate.

Cat 5 twisted pair cable used to be yellow, at least the stuff that I used was. I think that it looks like the fibre optic ends outside in a box someplace and they are using Cat 5 copper for the run into the house. And I suppose that is tacked down the outside of the wall where it suits them? There is no practical limit on the length of run of the fibre optic, unlike the Cat 5 which is limited to less than 100 metres, as posted previously, so hence the question.

If the above is the case, combined with shoddy connections, then it is not surprising it is not working correctly. It is not the fault of the fibre optic per se, but the way it is being used.

[hhinner]

3BB's web site describes the fiber offering as FTTx (Fiber to the Home). This would actually be FTTH, which is one of the options described by FTTx standards. The website also mentions a deposit for the "GPON ONT" which would be the 3BB "router" mentioned by Billy Joe 1. In which case the yellow cable would be fiber optic cable.

The following is gleaned from the internet, but I think I have it basically correct.

GPON - Gigabit Passive Optical Network
ONT - Optical Network Terminal (the "router" in the home).

GPON is point to multipoint so one cable from the central office equipment can be split further down the line to serve multiple homes. Split lines can be further split. Splitting is passive and the stream is duplicated at each split point. So, essentially, there could be many users accessing the central office on a single port. So, if the capacity of the port at the central office is 2 Gbps downlink, 100 users should theoretically be able to get 20 Mbps download speed. Uplink may be slower. Typically each user's traffic is encrypted for privacy.

Shoddy or damaged conections will certainly cause degraded service. Intermediate splitters need to be properly shielded from the weather, and if powered, need reliable power. If cable termination is done on site then I doubt that your typical 3BB cabling guy could do it properly every time (if at all), even with properly maintained tools.

[Farang]

I had a pleasant - unannounced, of course - visit from two very polite and nice 3BB gentlemen this morning. They decided my router was hung and proceeded to reboot it. As it always happens just after rebooting either computer or router the connection is OK for a short while.
Then the gentlemen measured my net speed which surprisingly - measured by 3BB own speed test - was up to par and the gentlemen left.

Of course my connection after the visit was just as bad and erratic as it has been for past two weeks. This kind of visit is just some sort of mental support, a bed-side visit. The fault is somewhere else, the 3BB know this but at the moment is either impotent or unwilling to remedy the matter.

I'll see next week if I can terminate my contract and get my money back.

DO NOT TAKE A 3BB OPTIC CABLE!

[Ratsima]

This kind of visit is just some sort of mental support, a bed-side visit. The fault is somewhere else, the 3BB know this but at the moment is either impotent or unwilling to remedy the matter.

I don't let them in the house anymore. They always assume that the problem is yours, not theirs.

I have a rather unconventional network setup at home. The modem is in bridged mode. The router is an Apple Airport Express. All the machines on the LAN are Apple products.

They hate all of this. The first thing they so is dismantle my network, connect their Windoze laptop to the modem and put the modem back in router mode.

Then, when they discover that the problem is elsewhere, they leave me to do the work of reconfiguring my network.

As I said, I don't let them in the house anymore.

[Dr Mike]

I was just about to sign up for 3bb and then read this thread--Are there better options??

[Farang]

I had another surprise visit from the 3BB gentlemen on sunday morning. They replaced my router by newer one. No help there, the same-o, same-o. Occasionally the net speed is simply fantastic, then the whole net connection just vanishes. This great for DL/UL but impossible for anything interactive over the net, so no banking, no conferance attending, no calls or any such thing.

On the advice of the 3BB gentlemen I even bought a small fan to blow on router to make absolutely sure the router is not too hot. Not much help there, the see-saw connection pattern just keeps on emerging.

I must admit the 3BB people do try their very best and are very polite and considerate. It really is a pleasure to deal with them at their office, on 1530-number and while they are visiting. I really hope 3BB can solve this matter as I do appreciate their service-mindedness and good efforts.

More of this later.

http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/inpos ... 1.jpg.html

[Big Boy]

NB: This request is not doubting anything thet Farang is saying.

Is there anybody out there getting a decent service from this relatively new 3BB product?

[Dr Mike]

Can I repaet my question
If not BB3 then who is better??