In my last post, I talked about my wireless provider in Thailand, AIS. AIS has a very good blanket of 2G Edge across the country…and even over the boarder into Burma, Laos and Cambodia from my experience. I’ve used the data plan for checking email and light browsing. I also have used it to upload photos to Flickr, Twitter posts, Facebook posts and a few other “light use” apps. So far it’s been decent for this type of work but I wouldn’t want to do much more than this.
I wanted to get a better idea as to exactly the type of bandwidth speeds I was getting so I did a search for bandwidth testing apps for my iPhone and found the Cisco GIST app. GIST stands for Global Internet Speed Test. This app not only performs a speed test for you but it compares you to others that have run the test as well. The program feeds data into a database maintained by Cisco. For those of you that want to keep everything private, this is not the app for you because you will be asked to give up location, phone number and other information. Cisco says they will keep the info private but I just wanted to mention it. You have been warned!
I decided to throw away my privacy and boot the app up on my iPhone. I ran a test and received the following results:
The information section of the app explains that my bandwidth is “Web Grade” and I would agree. Here is how Cisco breaks down each bandwidth category:
Web Grade (150Kbps-449Kbps): Your connection can support Web browsing, email, text messaging and other basic tasks.
Music Grade (450Kbps-749Kbps): Your connection is good enough for audio streaming or downloads and basic web browsing.
Video Grade (750Kbps and Greater): Your connection is strong enough to handle all the rich media the web has to offer.
So what does Cisco do with all this data they are collecting from users that test their wireless bandwidth speeds? According to the Cisco VNI website, “The Cisco Visual Network Index (VNI) is the company’s ongoing effort to forecast and analyze the growth and use of IP networks worldwide. The Cisco VNI initiative includes distinct elements to provide a comprehensive view of the ever-changing IP network landscape.”
The site also predicts: “By 2013, global online video will be 60% of consumer Internet traffic (up from 32% in 2009). — Not with my current bandwidth speeds it won’t! AIS will have to ramp up their 3G roll-out…or even better, migrate directly to a 4G solution. That’s the kind of forward thinking I would love to see. Unfortunately, the demand isn’t quite here yet.
It’s interesting that Cisco posts these kinds of bandwidth increase predictions though. It’s also no coincidence that Cisco purchased Flip back in March 2009. Flip is a maker of consumer video cameras. They are geared towards people that want to shoot video to upload to sites like YouTube. Here’s Cisco’s strategy:
- Sell video Flip products that are mainly used to upload to the Internet. Make a small profit or at least break even.
- Wait until ISP’s bandwidth is tapped out.
- Sell ISP’s the latest and greatest Cisco equipment capable of handling the increased bandwidth needs at a nice profit.
Well done Cisco.
One other cool feature about the GIST iPhone app is that not only does it save all of your tests every time you run it. You can go back and review them on an interactive map. This will show you when and where you were on the planet when you ran each test as well as what your speed results were. In addition, you can look at other peoples test results around the world. You can sort the speed tests by “Most Recent”, “All Time Highs” and “My Tests” referring to your personal tests. Pretty cool to compare bandwidth test results with people all over the planet.
So that’s it, my AIS data plan is web capable and I’m happy with that for now. I won’t really care too much about a faster connection until I finally upgrade my phone. Until then, everything is “sabai sabai” (chill) in the land of smiles.
