Good morning - I just inquired with AIS last week about Fibre Optic in Central Pattaya / Bouakao for 1 of my condos. They told me: Not Yet, so I guess the darkside might not be ready yet. 

Go for 3BB which is affordable & reliable overall. Got several accounts with up to 1 Gig bandwidth and hardly any issues. But don't expect to get interantional speed as advertised. These are all local ones. Happy New Year.  MS>

Au Bon Pain / Right side of Avenue Mall!!! (preferred) or the one @ Index Living Mall. Mostly empty & pleasant with misc. choices of seating. Yes, why not the Dusit Hotel (preferred) at the Dolphin Circle. Reception area and/or Coffee shop with excellent bakery attached. You can find Au Bon Pain also on gr. fl. main building BKPH, bit busy, but plenty of seating or in the Dermatolgy building in the back there is a large restaurant self-serve, less comfortable. Alsoplenty of quiet corners allover the hospital, try the first couple floors where Int. Dpt. & Oncology etc. are located. Good luck & Merry Christmas.  MS>

Most often a line problem. If you live in a condo, 3BB uses existing phone lines (4 wires/2 used for ext. or internal phone, 2 left for ADSL or VDSL) & often these cables are poor quality or run via various boards. 3BB can trace the fault with their equipment / signalmeter from your condo and it will show them how far into the cable the problem is. Then you have an idea what cable to check or replace. I am doing a lot of troubleshhoting for friends and I just go ahead and we replace entire sections inhouse with indoor quality phone cable, outdoor with special ADSL (black) cable, can be bought top left Pattaya Nua / North Pattaya Rd. Electro-Shop.

In serious cases run directly from entry point 3BB (gate?) to your router w/o interruptiona nd you won't have that problem again.

Another case I see often is a bad plug/socket, often corroded. I now eliminate plugs and connect wires directly, various options there. In 20 years only seen a couple or so of routers/modems going bad. Got some 10 years running w/o any problems. Obviously the newer the better the standards and speed etc. etc. And yes, your case does not sound like re-booting, it sounds like loosing the signal (the steady light), then finding it again and starting to send data again (the flashing light).

Good luck & Merry Christmas.  MS>

Here how to check your signal quality, if you wanna try yourself & the link one of many tests to see quality of line:

http://freeola.com/line-test/

Thank you very much for those good links. Good night.  MS>

I got no interest in this company, other than having let them handle several funerals & repatriations for friends and friends of friends..... I can always see how most people around me are totally

lost when a friend dies and I feel, this is a good moment to make a post about this. 

http://www.funeralrepatriation.com/contact   Kh. Pim & her team must be the most efficient and straightforward professionals I have ever dealt with in my 20 years here. It is more difficult 

to get a special order at a supermarket than letting them handle EVERYTHING involved in a death case. And I mean everything. From dealing with the embassies to get the necessary documents, dealing with police & City Hall, organizing temple services, taking photos for relatives abroad,  transport of ashes or the deceased to any country in the world, securing and shipping possessions  etc. etc.

My last few simple cases were done within max. 5 days from A-Z. Along the way I was constatly updated & informed, often an important factor for relatives and friends. Everybody was 100% on time and reliable. Quiet incredible & this all in Thailand :-)

There is absolutely no sales-pressure, you tell Kh. Pim what you expect and you will get a quotation which was spot on in every case and starts around 34'000 Baht for a simple, but decent cremation & service with all the above and more included. They can also organize bigger services and everything involved . They work with all embassies and have an excellent reputation.  A very strong recommendation for this company & Kh. Pim. She can also be contaced from abroad, is multi-lingual  and very fast in responding and answering any question you might have. Thank you Kh. Pim & Team.   MS>

Thank you. I am asking for a 58 yr. old lady, who wants to learn as much as possible within 4-6 weeks and a 1 on 1 situation. Agreed on the internet version of teaching, but she prefers the other way.  Regards.  MS>

Good evening:

Anybody aware of a language-school or teacher that does an intensive basic Spanish class? Thank you kindly & Good night.  MS>

Thank you kindly everybody. I used to have CAT until a few years back, when I ran into some problems with them and switched.

Will now re-consider, yes they were very good for a longtime back then. Thanks again & good night.  MS>

Good afternoon

I want to replace one of my 2 Fiber-Optic providers with a new-one or add a third one to my load-balance-router. I am presently with 3BB & TOT. Looking for comments from people who have any other providers with min. 100 MB down. Mostly interested in stable and better international conncetions / bandwidth. Thank you.  MS>

  Amazing what kind of people roam this earth. And I don't even mean that demeaning. Sometimes I envy them. MS>

I am still watching BBC on my different cable provider in a different condo. Might be some other issues, you know what I mean :-)....

Nice dog......

Good night Kh. Benq

Friend called SOPHON.  Was told BBC off the program for the time being. No comments why. Good night all. MS>

Thank you all kindly. Yes, I am certainly aware of the bridge-comedy. And thanks for the quote of the proper laws. Fully agreed, no card games whatever for my friends :-).......Good night.  MS>

Have been asked by a friend who plays cardgames for fun with his colleagues, if playing cards of any kind, NO MONEY or gambling involved is still a problem? 

They want to meet weekly in different restaurants with gardens or on the lake to have a fun-afternoon. Does anybody have reliable information on this

situation? Thank you kindly.  MS>

Digi Boxes or Digital Tuner TV's work with the digital! channels your provider (i.e. SOPHON / 149 channels) provide. 

Condition for good signal and very good quality is proper wiring within your building and proper RG-6 cabling in your own place.

Needs certain range of signal strength, nott too much & not too little. I believe all main providers now have digital signals. An analogue tuner TV will work on a reduced amount of channels and at lesser quality. Sophon Digi-Boxes are  roughly 700 Baht and they are sold out right now :-).  Good night gents.  MS>

Super simple, easy and affordable "retirement-conditions" at a low age limit of 50, compared with most countries, here in Thailand. Not even getting into good tax situation etc. Americans can tell you a bit about this!  Anybody with some common sense has a GOOD health insurance and I can tell you from many, many cases I have followed:

10'000 $ is gone in no time, if you end up with serious trauma-injuries, cancer, emergency heart surgery, a bad stroke or similar in a good hospital. A night in ICU in any of the top-hospitals with basic  treatment incl. - not talking surgery, re-animation or such, will set you back 50-75 K. per day. 

The slogan: "i just fly home, when I get ill, unfortunately often does not work out as planned. Sad sight to see "abandoned, broke, old 

foreigners in the public section of an any public hospital. I certainly prefer to pay top $ for top insurance and was happy to be able to

fly to Singapore for second opinion and then on to Europe for surgery after cancer hit me twice within weeks and several major surgeries hat to be performed.  There is much wrong here, but the visa conditions  IMO are quite acceptable & I have always received friendly service from immigration for almost 20 years. Stay healthy & happy!  MS>

Hi all:

Urgent help needed. Existing system, "maintained" by local small tech-company. Basics:   20 Hotspots, mainly PICO Stations. 3 new D-Link 10/100/1000 switches total. 2 providers with 1000 & 400 MB accounts. Small IBM server with DayTek 2912 Vigor (which might be the problem!!!)   & IBSG 3.5 Software.

Lately, after adding few hotspots and higher speeds we are getting random problems with speed going to zero and drop-outs and other weird stuff like station won't connect etc.. Hard to define. We started with updating all firmware, upgrading switches etc. etc. Pings are good, even via WiFi. 

Just looked up the router-load balance , which is defined as small office network suitable. Jesus, should have double checked every step.....5555...

Any recommendation for a good router/load balance that is still affordable. Will also need 1 more 24 port switch, any ideas there? Stick with D-Link? Cisco etc. are far beyond our reach, unfortunately. Maybe somebody has some hints for a good website for general advanced networking, getting slowly the hang of it and think it is quite interesting. But am not very strong in math, formulas & physics, so pl. keep it basic for the old man. Ready to learn.

Thank you all very much.   MS>

Just now, KittenKong said:

 

Perhaps a duplex/mezzanine style place? There are some in Wong Amat, and they are usually large units. I doubt the price would be right though. I think that Metro has some ground-floor duplexes also, and they would be in your budget.

 

Personally I hate high ceilings: no matter how many you find there always seems to be one more spider's web up there. And duplexes pose possible problems with dodgy knees. When I bought my unit I was careful to pick one with no stairs or steps at all between me and nearby small shops and restaurants.

Thank you KK. Yes, SB etc. have several very large shells of meeting, storage  areas etc. 200-400sqm and at some point I was

very close to buy a larger one to transform parts into studios and the other half into my condo. Owned by a German I believe and price 30%? below what he asked  12 years ago.These units have been in the market for up to 15 years and I backed out, after learning that restriction for use are in place and the committee is not very cooperative, also I did not like Wongamat much anymore, has changed so much the last 8 years. What a mess in some areas.

I am living in a very large place in perfect location right now, so finding something better will not be easy. Drawback are very low ceilings of about 2.40 m Never got used to it. I wanna realize my last project and built a modern, clean industrial open plan place, with great sound & media etc. etc. Bit of a tech freak :-) Keeps me busy. So my price idea is for a shell or trashed unit. Then I will invest another 20K /sqm to make it MY place. If I can't find it here, I will eventually leave.....But where-to????  Ain't easy......Thank you for writing.  MS>

On 11/17/2016 at 8:04 AM, KittenKong said:

 

You still dont say where, and what do you mean by "very high" ceilings? 3m, 5m, more? And are you at all interested in views, floor levels, facilities in the building, common fees?

 

The large meeting rooms that you mention would normally be common areas without their own chanote and so by definition not for residential use or for individual sale.

THX. KK.  Yeah, love those high ceilings - 3.50 to 4m - is fine.  I am aware of the ownership issues. I have been here for almost 20 active years and bought, remodeled etc. etc. many smaller and bigger units. Also fully aware of condo-act, laws & fees. Probably been one of the first who had the Condo-Act translated in E and presented at the A.G.M. in pone of the first Farang-run buildings for every owner to look at and use, man, many years back.

With all this big-discount talk, I was testing the waters for such a great deal. I am only buying into places I know in detail and can at least

evaluate some of the risks involved. So far I have not come across that super-deal and a few smaller units I bought the last 12 months were all pretty much at an all-time high. Certainly no drop in price whatsoever. But as I said, the main factor is location, reputation plus a few other points, which I don't need to tell you or the TV-members, who are mostly well informed.  Have a nice Sunday & THX. again.  MS>

9 hours ago, JB300 said:

180sqm is pretty big for a Condo, so I'm not surprised you're having problems locating one or (rightly or wrongly) getting one for 8Million.

Have you considered buying a number of smaller ones & knocking them into 1?

Edit: Out of curiosity I had a quick look on hipflat & there might be a couple on there that fit your criteria https://www.hipflat.co.th/en/search/sale/condo_y/TH.CB_r1/TH.CB.TY_r2/7000000,10000000_p/any_b/150,250_a/any_w/any_o/any_i/100.874692,12.921155_c/14_z/list_v

Thanks JB. Yes, I have bought a few single units and doubled them in the past and also the opposite, cut down a big one into studios. I am looking for a large unit, with very high ceilings, as isolated as possible from the rest of building / condos, something like a large meeting room, they used to have all these extra rooms in older buildings, that often are empty and unused. Then I want to build and remodel an industrial type large open plan condo with all kinds of ideas incorporated. Thank you for the link. MS>

I am looking for a large condo in good location. Min. 180sqm. I have not come across any huge real discounts or emergency sales in 6 months. The only real discount ever offered was for a 220 sqm shell-unit in a Russian building which I would have bought if there were any people living there. But they could not show me any details about admin, committee etc. etc. 30% off the published price for quick sale.

So if anybody knows of a great unit with great discount up to 8 Mio Baht, please PM me.  Thanks.  MS>

On 10/12/2016 at 8:15 AM, onemorechang said:

 

You were doing ok till then.

But your source of information is not the best !!!!!!.

 

I do believe Suvarnabhumi airport now stocks these for all

Tourists to purchase on the way in now days.

 

Money number 1,   its no joke,  its true. 

 

 

 

Thanks Onemorechang. Just ordered a few pairs. Hope they help before I climb that balcony :-) Guess, plenty of the older TV-members have need for them. Lovely.  MS>

True & sad. But would rather have the old Pattaya back.  MS>

Thank you very much for that. Good info!  Have a nice Sunday.  MS>

Well, the next ferry experiment to H.H. seems to be happening;  HERE

Wonder if their is a market for this at all? Wish them luck.  MS>