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[ianc66]

Whilst waiting for my CSLoseinfo IPSTAR service to be fixed last week, I thought I would look at mobile as an option.

Bought a NOKIA 3110 (nice phone thanks for the suggestion EDWARDandTubs), got a download of Nokia PC Suite -- difficult internet cafe -- 'no download here' Why is it going to slow all these infants playing Ragarnok? PrePaid AIS SIM with 300 baht. And fake USB cable.

You can ignore this bit


********************************************************************************

Why prepaid?

Applying for postpaid the scene:-

At the desk after a 3 hour wait whilst the Dedicated Staff touch up their make up, phone boyfriends girlfriends, snack, and etc.

DS 'No must have original Affidavit from ALL eight Great Grandparents'
Me 'Aww Gee but I only had six to begin with, and one died tragically young aged 125'

(I know the details may be slightly wrong -- but I think I got the essential tone of it).

********************************************************************************

Welcome back.

Called *138 and after a dialogue designed to take as long as possible signed up for the 39 Baht 'unlimited' daily package, cost so far 39 + VAT and a phone call total about 43 Baht.
Loaded Nokia PC suite. Connected phone and it all sprang magically into life -- quite impressed.

Speed tests about 140Kbps down 60 Kbps up. Got mail OK a bit sluggish, so far so good, started a large download (I know that is not what it is for but I was testing) a bit more surfing walked away and came back about 5 Hours later phone was saying was out of credit! and everything had stopped.

Looked at the small print (this has the shortcut 138 numbers)

http://www2.mobileli...php?nServID=208

Can't see any traffic charge (the per minute is just that .03 satang/minute for 24 hours does equal 39 Baht).

Anybody any explanation?

So now my elderly phone has been given to the Mother in Law and replaced by my shiny new 3110 in this months new colour -- purple since you ask.

Edited by ianc66, 2008-05-13 10:30:39.

[edwardandtubs]

AIS are useless. DTAC has one day unlimited for the same price and I've never experienced any problems.

[nikster]

General note: In my experience with AIS, DTAC, and AIS, location is the only thing that matters when determining speed. If you are in a good location, you get the full 200Kbps with AIS/DTAC or 800Kbps with CAT. If in a bad location, it depends how bad but it can go down to near zero with any of them.

So don't call either of these providers useless - choose the one that's best for you depending on where you are.

[Gary A]

nikster, on 2008-05-13 22:15:28, said:

General note: In my experience with AIS, DTAC, and AIS, location is the only thing that matters when determining speed. If you are in a good location, you get the full 200Kbps with AIS/DTAC or 800Kbps with CAT. If in a bad location, it depends how bad but it can go down to near zero with any of them.

So don't call either of these providers useless - choose the one that's best for you depending on where you are.

I agree with nikster. When I decided to go with GPRS EDGE, Dtac was crap and AIS was great. It appears that has now gone totally the other direction. Hopefully one or the other will have decent service and the best solution right now is to use both.

[GeorgeKi]

I have connected with both AIS & DTAC using an EDGE mobile but I cannot get 'international' web sites. I get Google Thailand for example, but not US & UK newspaper sites (I use IE7 & firefox - same). Any ideas - have I got to change a browser setting or is this it?

[Gary A]

GeorgeKi, on 2008-05-14 10:32:43, said:

I have connected with both AIS & DTAC using an EDGE mobile but I cannot get 'international' web sites. I get Google Thailand for example, but not US & UK newspaper sites (I use IE7 & firefox - same). Any ideas - have I got to change a browser setting or is this it?

I have no idea what your problem is but both AIS and Dtac are better than my previous Shitstar (Ipstar) satellite Internet service was. Either connects to wherever I want to connect to.

[qwunk89]

thanks for all this info people . . great stuff. after reading it through a few times, i think i have it all down. one question: why is it important to have an edge phone (nokia/edge seems to be preferred) - will non edge phones work?

[dave_boo]

qwunk89, on 2008-09-14 06:48:56, said:

thanks for all this info people . . great stuff. after reading it through a few times, i think i have it all down. one question: why is it important to have an edge phone (nokia/edge seems to be preferred) - will non edge phones work?

Non-EDGE phones will work, but you'll be limited to GPRS speeds (which admitedly will also happen if there's a problem with EDGE in the area you're at).  If you're willing to go from ~144 kbit/s on EDGE down to ~60 kbit/s on GPRS (if you're lucky!), than don't worry about buying an EDGE capable phone.

[qwunk89]

dave_boo, on 2008-09-13 20:27:41, said:

qwunk89, on 2008-09-14 06:48:56, said:

thanks for all this info people . . great stuff. after reading it through a few times, i think i have it all down. one question: why is it important to have an edge phone (nokia/edge seems to be preferred) - will non edge phones work?

Non-EDGE phones will work, but you'll be limited to GPRS speeds (which admitedly will also happen if there's a problem with EDGE in the area you're at). If you're willing to go from ~144 kbit/s on EDGE down to ~60 kbit/s on GPRS (if you're lucky!), than don't worry about buying an EDGE capable phone.

thanks dave_boo. anyone know the coverage range for hutch? looks like central thailand and the eastern seaboard mainly . . does it work down in samui/phangnang/koh tao?

[longball53098]

From the Hutch MBI website here is the coverage


http://www.hutch.co....ite/map_eng.htm

[qwunk89]

longball53098, on 2008-09-16 18:07:54, said:

From the Hutch MBI website here is the coverage


http://www.hutch.co....ite/map_eng.htm

thanks longball! looks like the samui area is out of hutch range . .

[selftaopath]

edwardandtubs, on 2008-05-06 12:32:29, said:

monty, on 2008-05-05 15:37:35, said:

Dialed customer service (1678, followed by 7 for English operator), asked the lovely lady for a 1 week unlimited GPRS package.
Received an SMS with the new, 249 Baht lower credit, followed 10 seconds later with an SMS stating that he has now 1 week of unlimited GPRS.

It actually takes off 266 baht including VAT and 3 baht for the call to customer service. AIS one month unlimitied is 999 baht + VAT so it works out about the same but DTAC is vastly superior.

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge. We're about to relocate to Nong Sung/Chiaphum district. Is dtac better even in Isaan?
Being w/out internet is unthinkable now. :-) How things change eh?

Thanks,
Keoki

[nikster]

qwunk89, on 2008-09-18 14:44:28, said:

longball53098, on 2008-09-16 18:07:54, said:

From the Hutch MBI website here is the coverage


http://www.hutch.co....ite/map_eng.htm

thanks longball! looks like the samui area is out of hutch range . .

Samui is covered by CAT CDMA, which is much better than Hutch. They'll merge eventually - CAT runs the Hutch network and actually already bought them out - but given the speed with which these companies operate it could take years. So until then some areas are covered by Hutch, others by CAT, CAT us using CDMA-EV-DO everywhere so it's way faster. I have heard Hutch is switching to EV-DO but not sure on the status. I am sure they've upgraded all the stations already so why wouldn't they....