Mickeymaus

19 minutes ago, NextG said:

Not entirely true… is all I will say. 

It depends on the package. There are offers like the NT Work & Learn that you can extend as long as you pay or until they stop it. But there are for instance also monthly packages that you can extend only for up to 6 months as shown in this picture. You have to read the details of the offer or ask the vendor. 

45 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Here's a question.

If you have an existing annual SIM card that you've bought online, is it usually possible to contact the vendor when it runs out, pay the vendor whatever for whatever their current offer is for that IP, and then renew for another year without starting over with a new Sim?

Or do you always need to start over with a new Sim?

To my best knowledge this is not possible. When the SIM expires you need a new one. Bad if you want to keep the phone number for instance. Perhaps some vendors provide different options. They have contracts with the SIM card issuers. Best ask the vendors directly in the chat. 

2 hours ago, NanLaew said:

This looks like it could be handy. For my locale, it shows AIS leads TRUE with DTAC a close third. NT looks like a bit of a black hole.

 

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/TH/-/3379.TOT-Mobile/signal/?ll=13.152388677984096&lg=101.49499999999998&zoom=5

You have to test at your location with your devices. Everything else are just assumptions. 

I did many tests with True, AIS, Dtac, NT Work & Learn, NT Thunder, with 2 different SIM routers (CAT 4 & CAT 6), different tablets and phones and even at completely different locations in Pattaya. It is not so easy. For instance if you move the router to a different position in your condo you might/will get different results already. And then the time of the day, the day of the week and even the weather.... I posted a very long story about all this in this forum...

The question of course is whether you want to find the best option or just something good enough for your purpose. In the latter case it is much easier ????. 

14 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

I have a DTAC already in the MR-600 which is v2.

 

Had a look at the Status and the Band displayed was "40,40". That was with the SIM installed as-is, no previous tweaks.

 

I had a look at the WAN settings and tried the manual band selection, just to see how that works and it said there was none available. Went back to the Status and it now displays band 28.

 

The TP-Link support page says:

Note:

1. The band selection is for the 4G network, if the 4G band you selected is not supported by your carrier, it might fall back to the 3G network or no service at all.
2. If the band displayed on the Status page still changes sometimes after you select one band manually, please check if it falls back to WCDMA which is the 3G network, if so, it is normal. If you are sure the 4G signal in the area is strong and stable, you could change the Network Mode from 4G Preferred to 4G only on the Advanced > Network > Internet page.
3. For LTE CAT 4 Routers like TL-MR100, TL-MR6500v, etc., they don’t support carrier aggregation, thus they could only work on one single band even though you selected multiple bands;

For LTE CAT6 Router Archer MR600, Carrier Aggregation is supported and enabled by default. For the supported bands and band combinations, please check the specification of the product on our official website. However, whether and how the bands will be aggregated is related to the base station as well, we are unable to force it to work on 4G+ or force it to work on a specific band combination. Therefore, when you select two or more bands, the MR600 might work on only one band as well. If your SIM card supports different band combinations in 4G+ mode, you could also try other supported band combinations.

 

Anyway, it's still displaying 4G (and streaming the Second Test!) but I wonder if the SIM was set on band 40 by default 'out of the box' and it's now irreversibly on band 28 when I tried to select something that DTAC says isn't available.

 

You should set it to 4G only. I have Band 40 because I use the Thunder. Go to Band select manual and then search - can take a while. Then you see all bands you can select. 

Call the Hotline and complain. You don't need many Mbps to play videos. Here what Netflix says

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

46 minutes ago, Purdey said:

You can see the overview of data protection laws in the link below. Personal info includes your photo (not talking about personal photos). It is especially notable that children under the age of 20 must receive parental consent before using their personal information.

Publishing a clear photo without consent where the subject appears involved in a criminal offence is risky for the media as they could get sued for defamation. Which is why they usually blur the faces of alleged prostitutes. The photo Thai PBS showed has nothing to suggest it was published with permission. 

 

https://www.dataguidance.com/notes/thailand-data-protection-overview

Very complicated. So if I take a picture in the Walking Street and put it online I have to ask all persons under the age of 20 for the permission or blur their faces - is this correct? I don't talk now about very young people where you even need the permission of the parents. 

3 hours ago, Purdey said:

Feeling uncomfortable that people without their faces blurred are shown in the article's accompanying photo. That looks illegal in light of current privacy laws. Unless they gave written permission.

Do you have any link to such a law? Would be interesting to know when you have to blur faces.

Before I switch off the Internet for today one last remark regarding Lazada. I posted the website links before. If you can use the Lazada app. Often you get better prices and discounts there. And compare the offers at the checkout (you don't need to confirm the order). Sometimes a more expensive offer might be cheaper than others with all the coupons and the cashback. 

You can buy at Lazada too. Perhaps you have a user there already. They all have stores there. But check where you get the best price. I didn't look. 

JIB

https://s.lazada.co.th/s.Qo1G8

Banana IT

https://s.lazada.co.th/s.Qo1qT

Advice 

https://s.lazada.co.th/s.Qo1Nx

Look here too

https://www.powerbuy.co.th/en/catalogsearch/result?q=Sdcard

https://www.jib.co.th/web/product/product_list/2/293

35 minutes ago, NextG said:

I was the first to link to it and kwak250 bought and tested it. You followed. 
January 18th….

https://aseannow.com/topic/1283854-whats-the-best-1-year-package-unlimited-ais-dtactrue/

 

I am far above the 5th floor…

TOT was a no-go for me. I had TOT internet here in Pattaya at a time when only dial-up modem connections were available. It was a very bad experience. I was so happy when I could switch to Maxnet (3BB later). Therefore the Thunder was the last thing I wanted to test. But since I was finished with my tests of True, AIS and DTAC I gave it a chance. 

Imagine what would be if all bars did not close at 2 already. 

Sitting at home with a beer I sometimes talk to Bixby (the Samsung version of Siri). Since I told her my name is "Sexy Man" she always calls me like this. And (so far) she never asked for a lady drink.

14 hours ago, Jingthing said:

So my question to anyone that knows is if you can buy a 200 baht test Thunder SIM via Shoppee first. Risking 200 with no refund is not bad compared to buying an annual plan and it not working. 

Let's get back on topic. You already have a 1-year DTAC with 30 Mbps. Again, I can't guarantee the Thunder will perform better at your location or even work at all.

Regarding buying from Shopee. I never bought it there. I already wrote that it doesn't make sense in my case. And by the way. Contrary to what was said here, no one has ever suggested to buy it from Shopee. Nobody on this forum ever knew that I wanted to buy the Thunder. After the purchase I posted my experiences here. Maybe someone here bought it from Shopee and can explain in detail what is needed in this case.

Regarding the location check. It is in your interest to do so. And you will not be able to continue the online application if you enter a latitude and longitude that is not approved by the system (it is not the address that is checked). But we all make mistakes sometimes... ???? Just don't blame them afterwards if the SIM card doesn't work at your location.

I can't help you with Shopee. If I can still answer something for you, please let me know. And yes, try the one-month plan first. And no, you cannot convert the one-month plan to an annual plan. You will need to reapply and activate the annual plan. And important: after purchasing the SIM card you have 7 days to activate it. So don't buy the annual package too early.

16 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Can I buy a 200 baht test sim for Thunder from Shoppee without getting pre-approval from.the IP or do you need to start by paying for the annual plan Sim?

Can you upgrade the test Sim later if its good or required to buy a second Sim?

@NextG can surely give you the answers. I have to meet someone now. Will be back in about 1 hour. 

10 minutes ago, NextG said:

You explained for yourself. But I can explain it to you if you need me to do so…

 

You went via the NT website. You had to use Google Translate in order to register and after you registered, you had to travel to the NT Wireless office to pick up the SIM. Quite different from your suggestion that it was just a simple fifteen minute journey to the TOT/NT Wireless office. 
Whereas I told you at the time… order via Shopee, as they give a seven day money back guarantee. So you can test it and if it doesn’t work, you get your money back. No need for the ridiculous long winded palaver of what you did. Remember now? ???? But in the end, it’s nit a problem(at least for me) that you took the long way around. As in the end it turned out to be a good service for you. 

Filling in the online application takes perhaps 5 minutes and you also get 7 days and 500 MB for testing. It has nothing to do with Shopee. This is part of the Thunder package. And since I never use Shopee I don't even have an account there. And I don't have to wait for a courier that he brings me the SIM.

12 minutes ago, NextG said:

I remember that I suggested that you buy and test from Shopee in the first place. 
You decided to take the long way around. ????

Though in the end you had that experience and can recount it to others who decide to go that route. 

 

It takes in the worst case 15 minutes for me to get to the NT service center. Why should I use Shopee? 

4 minutes ago, PattayaPete said:

Quoted me 1500 baht for a small unit and 10% discount on contract.  I will say he fixed a long standing problem that the unit in the bedroom made a rattling noise (very annoying).  Previous guy tried but couldn't fix it.

 

I have quite a few units some of which are not used much so we agreed some done 3 monthly and some done once a year.  For me a failure is a catastrophe so happy to over service the main units.

1500 is very expensive. 

How much does he charge for AC cleaning? 

14 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Thanks.

I'm confused yet again.

You bought online from where or directly?

I bought it from NT Central Pattaya Road. But you have to apply online first before going there!!! After registering, you will receive a registration number and information about where the nearest service center is located.

An other option is to use Shopee. It is an official distribution channel. I never used this source but for sure it is explained there how to activate it in this case. Lazada you can forget. It is completely overpriced what I saw when I looked last time.

2 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I recall that you need to apply to even get a test sim for Thunder and they need your exact geolocation including floor, and that they won't even sell if you're about the 5th floor.

Anyway what kind of deals are there with Thunder? Higher speeds than I have and UNLIMITED? 

It is unlimited speed and data and only 999 for a year. But of course you need to test it at your location. 

Regarding location check and floor warning. They do a lot to make sure that a customer is happy. At least this was my experience. I will never forget, I had a problem with the activation of my yearly SIM (had the monthly before). The next 3 days I got calls from their support hotline every morning asking me if everything is okay. I never had such a good service. 

15 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I was interested but info posted here said they won't even sell that to people on HIGH FLOORS (which I am). I'd still be interested in testing if they would sell a Thunder test SIM. 

20 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I was interested but info posted here said they won't even sell that to people on HIGH FLOORS (which I am). I'd still be interested in testing if they would sell a Thunder test SIM. 

You can buy a 1-month SIM card for 199.  Before activating it, you can test it with 500 MB for a week. But since it's not a lot of data, it's more of a test to see if it works with your device at your location. But of course there is no guarantee. The high floor problem you have with every SIM. Perhaps your DTAC SIM uses Band 40? The Thunder uses DTAC networks. 

23 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Hey there.

 

I want to give an update on my more or less successful transition to Sim router internet access from DSL. I've had TOT DSL since I moved to Thailand, but the cable was stolen and TOT won't redo DSL in my building. This news took several weeks for them to admit. That unpleasant experience motivated me to find a way to be independent of any kind of wiring if that was a workable option.

 

I want to thank all the people that have made helpful and informative comments about this topic including by PM. I knew nothing about the Sim router option before but now I know at least enough to have made it work. 

 

So the first thing I did was to buy a Sim router that was suggested here that had extra ports (which I need). 

This router supports all providers here and at the time I bought I still foolishly believed that I would eventually get my DSL back so in that case the router can be used as a FAILSAFE to take over when the DSL goes out temporarily. Also I was confident that I would find at least one Sim provider that worked in my condo and I wanted to test Sims in the router I would be using. So I bought a D-Link 4G LTE N 300 on Lazada. Inexpensive and decent.

 

Then I bought a few test Sims on Lazada. My priority was DTAC because a kind member gave me a link for a 30 Mbps UNLIMITED DTAC Sim annual plan. So if the test DTAC sim was good enough, I was just going to buy that plan Sim. 

 

If you get Sims that way you need to activate it with the seller via Line. That involves sending pics of the Sim packaging and your passport ID page. The seller I used was using only Thai so had to use Google translate which of course is much less than ideal. 

 

So got the DTAC card activated and then I had hoped I would have a short usage period to test it before buying a plan but the seller told me I needed to buy a plan. So I bought a 15 Mbps plan for 200 baht to test it.

 

The test results weren't spectacular but I felt they were good enough. At 15 I was able to do everything I do online with a few limitations. I found that when downloading torrents and streaming stremio simultaneously the Stremio performace was unacceptable. Also occationally youtube videos would do a quick blackout thing which wasn't my experience on DSL. But I figured the 30 Mbps Sim would fix that and it's not that I really NEED to download torrents and stremio simultaneously. 

 

So I bought the annual DTAC 30 Mbps sim. That seller did speak English but was much more picky about the specs for the pictures plus they needed a selfie. When I say much more picky I am not exagerrating! 

 

But finally got it activated but the plan wasn't automatically in effect.

 

They told me I needed to put it in a phone first (as I did for the test Sim) and assign the phone number to the Sim and then you get SMS from DTAC confirming the plan is in effect.

 

I assume probably that I could have put it into the router first and configured the router to get SMS skipping the phone step but I decided to keep it simple and do what the seller said.

Is my assumption correct? 

 

Anyway theoretically I was all set by then!

 

But no.

 

The 30 Sim's performance was less than expected based on the tests of the 15. Also it BLOCKED torrent downloads and Stremio streams.

 

So I bought a one month test of Proton VPN and can now do torrents and Stremio.

 

The short blackouts of youtube are gone but I haven't fully tested the Stremio mixed with torrents yet (because I was watching a video with very few seeds but need to test a video with a larger number of seeds).

 

I am finding that torrent downloads are noticably SLOWER than with my old DSL even when well seeded. That is unfortunate but not exactly a deal breaker as I've never had a critical need to download large files in seconds. I can wait. There's always plenty of stuff to watch that I already have or can stream.

 

I did have a happy and somewhat surprising result on stremio. A video that was very poorly seeded on torrents (so taking a super long time) streamed very smoothly on stremio. I don't understand how it could with so few seeders, so in that sense the Sim exceeded expectations. 

 

As the cliche goes there are many ways to skin a chicken. Well above is how I skinned a chicken to go from dead DSL to a perfectably usable (but admitedly slower than ideal) Sim solution. 

 

Other than the slower speeds the only downside I can think of about Sim router vs. DSL or fiber is that you need to deal with buying a new Sim every year and there is no way of knowing what deals will be available then (especially as I require UNLIMITIED data). 

 

Cheers.

 

You could have tried the NT Thunder. Your router supports Band 40.