siam2007

submaniac, on 2012-03-29 11:03:42, said:

No they are not scary hiring standards you are scare mongering!

A nervous breakdown can happen to anyone for a number of reasons and it would be almost impossible to identify such a problem occurring in the future at any form of selection process. Thank God the co pilot had the monumental courage and kuhoonas to lock the cockpit door. Do you have any idea how much of a massive decision it is to lock the Captain out of the cockpit! That is a lost job and occupation for life if you are wrong. The co-pilot showed incredible courage and you are talking of scary hiring standards! I would place him amongst the best, and the passengers are very very lucky he was up front.

I heard of the following solution from the PT-Government to stop the long queues at immigration desks:
1. Pay the Immigration police more
2. Move low budget domestic flights to Don Muang (no immigration procedures needed)

May I suggest a few more along the same line of thinking:
3. install mobile toilets under the seats of the immigration police desks to avoid sanitary breaks
4. provide fresh water to the long queues or rent free books for reading whilst standing in the queue...
5. Let the passengers stay closer to each other to reduce the length of the queue
6. allow the richest passengers to bribe the persons standing in front of them to take their place so that the poorest will have to wait the longest but get also the most of the money

These are some thoughts that are much better than the Government's ideas...

Maybe the worst "advice" I've ever read on this forum.

super.excellent.jihad.ending.all.life?

dutchweller, on 2012-02-19 10:53:31, said:

Just a thought, but do you approach the taxi Driver in the same way you approach making a post on this forum - might explain why you don't seem to get on with them!

dutchweller, on 2012-02-19 11:59:04, said:

You must attract bad service, in more than 5 years of living in Thailand I can count with the fingers of one hand how many times a taxi driver didn't want to use the meter (excluding airport). Only once I noticed at the end of a short drive that the meter was not working, once I notice the meter was running faster than normal.
On the other hand I've had on a couple of occasions been taken the wrong way due to a genuine misunderstanding of the directions and the drivers offered me to not pay the fare at all when getting to my intended destination.
I use a taxi at least twice a day (other forms of transport are really not convenient at all) and for the most part drivers are decent people, perhaps 1 out of 30 or so is dodgy, drives recklessly or unfriendly but that's about it.

dutchweller, on 2012-02-19 10:53:31, said:

Whilst I totally agree with the som nam na, your generalisation of the Taxi drivers as '...,uneducated, dirt bags' is an insult to the thousands of drivers who are doing a rather good job every day. Your political leaning seems to cloud your fair judgment, if you want to see real sleazebag taxi drivers go visit Pukhet or Samui, you'll praise BKK's taxis upon return.

The taxi drivers are now learning how much their allegiance to the red shirts was worth.

Som nam na

TOT has operated a 3G network, on 2100 Mhz, in metropolitan Bangkok for a few years. Over the past few months they have greatly expanded their coverage nationwide, with a reported 3,500 base-stations in 18 provinces (maybe by May, 2012), and plans to expand that to 15,000 over the next two years.

http://www.tot3g.net/GUI/Home.aspx

You can view TOT’s 3G coverage here; it uses Google Maps in English so that is handy, and if you hover on a cell tower it will give you some detail in the left-hand side box.

http://www.i-bkk.com/ilocation/viewer/

TOT sells direct to consumers, but primarily they use resellers, also called Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO), to reach the mass market. Those resellers are:

iMobile 3GX (Samart) http://www.i-mobile3gx.com/main/

iKool (Loxley) http://www.i-kool.net/th/index.php

365 http://www.365.co.th/store/

IEC http://www.iec3g.com/web/home.php

Mojo (Mconzult) http://www.mojo3g.com/

These resellers, and TOT, offer both pre- and post-paid services. There is some talk that TOT is looking to drop some of these resellers and recruit new ones.

I am not sure what happens when you roam off-net? A certain number of customers apparently will roam onto AIS, and AIS data customers can roam onto TOT. There is not a lot of documented, public forum like experience that I’ve been able to find.

TOT launches 3G in Pattaya Note they are actually roaming onto AIS’s 900 Mhz network in Pattaya.

Happy is the pre-paid brand name for DTAC.  DTAC has nationwide GSM (voice, text and 2G data). They operate 3G on 850 Mhz, and have somewhat limited coverage compared to AIS/One-2-Call/TOT and TrueMove H/CAT.

http://www.happy.co.th/home_en.php

Happy has a decent offering of SIMs (data only, smartphone), calling plans and data plans. Their data plans have recently been re-priced/re-packaged, adding unlimited 384 Kbps above the plan ceiling on plans down to 1 GB/399 baht.

Take a look at the Invulnerable (Kong Kra Pun) SIM http://www.happy.co....emid=37&lang=en
..which has 0.99 baht/min to all networks, 0.99 baht per SMS fee. This SIM has a rolling 43 day expiry, which is automatically extended each day you use it.

Note that Happy has daily, weekly and monthly plans.

http://www.happy.co....mid=368&lang=en

DTAC/Happy have by far the best user account management offers, with a web-based eservices platform that is better than One-2-Call’s (TrueMove H doesn’t have anything), along with two different Android Market Apps.

As stated, DTAC’s coverage is limited, for a number of political reasons but it is being expanded. You can take a look at their coverage here.. http://www.dtac.co.th/3g/coverage.php

TrueMove H recently launched a Prepay service for their national 3G network. This network operates 3G on 850 Mhz, and is shared with CAT, through a complex relationship. CAT just started offering services on this network under their "My Net" brand, and are recruiting resellers (MVNOs). Legacy CAT CDMA customers are also being migrated to this network. Any roaming is onto the legacy TrueMove network for GSM voice, text and data (2G: GPRS/EDGE).

Their website is in Thai so Google Chrome with Translation may help figuring out what is on offer.

They have three SIMs: iPhone (for the iPhone, presumably a microSIM) , iSIM (a MicroSIM, for data, aircards) and Smartphone SIM (regular size).

http://www.truemove-...sim-iphone.aspx
http://www.truemove-h.com/isim.aspx
http://www.truemove-...smartphone.aspx

The iPhone and Smartphone SIMs are 99 baht. The iSIM is 169 baht.
Calls are 1 baht/min to all networks, SMS are 2 baht each.

This ThaiVisa thread has some additional detail and information. http://www.thaivisa....epay-available/

Voice, text and data plans can be found here: http://www.truemove-...ay-topping.aspx

3G coverage is impressive, nationwide and expanding daily.  http://www.truemove-...k_coverage.aspx