jfchandler

Well, a bit of an update here... and I must report that today has been a typical True Online day...

After me politely pounding on them daily for the past three days via telephone...and getting repeated promised to check and call back the next day, and then not a single call back each day -- today I not only got an unscheduled home service call from two tech guys totally out of the blue, with a 5 minutes advance warning phone call, for my cable internet service, and then also about three different phone calls from other folks at True Online about the restoration of my DSL account.

Although the tech guys didn't speak much English, in querying them about the 18 hour continuous outage I had on my cable internet service from last Monday night to Tuesday afternoon, the senior guy seemed to say they had had some kind of electrical equipment failure (not power outage) in something on my soi. And as best as I could tell from what he was saying, that it wouldn't have just affected me but also other cable internet subscribers on my soi, however many there may be. Though my TrueVisions cable service continued to operate normally during that time.

It sounded like he was saying they had fixed the problem that caused the outage on Tuesday afternoon, when my internet service was restored, and then done some kind of "rebalancing" of the power levels on the lines on my street. And indeed the numbers do seem a bit better today:

--Signal Noise Ratio of 33... whereas you want at least above 30 or 32 depending on which source you consult.

--Downstream Power of -3.4... whereas numbers between -4 and +4 or -8 and +8 are considered optimal.

--and Upstream Power of 36, which according to Pib's research is supposed to be pretty good.

At various times, other True techs have told me their target for that is in the mid to upper 40s... Today's guy said the acceptable range is 30-50...

But the best part of all today was, through our discussion, I finally managed to raise with them the idea of swapping out my current cable model for a different/new modem to see if that would make any difference in the service quality, since my modem has been continuing to show a variety of internal error messages on its own errors log.

It so happened the True tech guys had some cable modems, or at least one extra, on their truck. So one guy went out and brought it back in, hooked it up and turned it on... It powered up, but then didn't connect at all, even though the internet feed to my house was OK by that time. A bad modem, they said. So they sheepishly hooked back up my original cable modem and promised they'd be back tomorrow with a different new cable modem to try... hopefully one without recurring error messages.

I am, BTW, going ahead with restoring my DSL service under their 7/512 plan for 599 baht per month. Since their cable and DSL networks supposedly are separate and one failing supposedly wouldn't pull down the other, I'm hoping the DSL will serve as backup insurance for the next time the cable goes out...or we have lighting...or heavy rain... or someone at True forgets to feed their monkey.

I'm feeling a lot better now.. Before, I was worrying I wouldn't have anything to do with my life tomorrow... But now I know I at least have something to look forward to... another day with True Online's now-you-see-them, now-you-don't tech support folks.

I certainly think the approach being raised by the OP has been done before in a variety of circumstances, and done successfully and through normal official channels... not any kind of back-door or under-the-table deals.

But I also think the general approach of "exploring business opportunities" is usually one of some limited duration... though I can't recall ever hearing anyone here say that they had run into any specific years limit in such a situation. I think that approach usually serves to cover a limited period of years before transitioning to perhaps a retirement extension or an actual B visa for employment or some other provision.

If I were in that situation and in my mid-30s, I guess I'd be asking that question to the law firms/visa consulting firms that I was considering to handle my application, since they'd essentially be serving as a kind of sponsor on your behalf.

Not only what are they willing to do in terms of duration, but what do they think the various Thai Honorary Consulates -- that typically handle such paperwork in the U.S. -- will be saying when the OP comes back for his 3rd or 5th or 10th annual application.

Well, actually, Home Run claims, as you can see on their menu above, that they use Angus beef... I believe Duke's says on their menu they use ground sirloin...

That aside, in my ordering of both, the Home Run burger tasted like a burger that had been fixed in Thailand, whereas the Duke's burger tasted like a burger from the States comparable to something from a place like In and Out...

For 349 baht per order at Home Run vs. 150 to 250 baht at Duke's, HR's offering just isn't worth the difference from a cost or taste perspective...IMHO.

Here's the burger info re Home Run...

Here's the burger info re Dukes...

Between the two, people looking at the photos probably would say that Home Run's burger looks better... And I might agree... But unfortunately, it doesn't TASTE better...IMHO.

And... I haven't tried it...because my wife's been on a Korean food jag lately...but let's not forget Iron Fairies in Thong Lor also...which has gotten food reviews for its burgers...

Ok I will play along_ron at home run bar does a really nice burger.

James, I've tried the hamburger there at Home Run, and as much as I had high hopes for the place, I wasn't much impressed. I found it pretty mediocre...

Dukes at the Emporium definitely is better... But these things are, as pointed out, somewhat a subjective matter of opinion. Everyone has their tastes.

Some here in the TV community think anything with beetroot and fried egg on it makes a great hamburger. I'm happily not one of them.

As I was passing by on the skytrain the other day I wondered if anyone has eaten at that diner place beside Sunset Tacos on Sukhumvit near the Sheraton? Any good?

You didn't say how much The Duke Burger costs. Sub 200 baht Gullivers is still #1; includes french fries & cole slaw. Metro Burger at Bar B Q Sandwich King is excellent, maybe the best in Bangkok.

Great American Rib would be worth trying too.

The burgers at Dukes at the Emporium food court area are among the best in BKK, at least in terms of an American standard...

Prices range from around 150 baht, including fries, and then go upward toward 250 for some of their specialty varieties.

The V8 Diner is the place near Sunrise Tacos.... Great Federbrau beer and other drink specials via their day and night long happy hour 7 days a week... And they have real chili fries on the menu, as well as decent pancakes and syrup for breakfast... Not sure if I've tried one of their burgers yet...

I phone immigration to ask if the mobile unit will be open on Saturday 16th July, given that it is a holiday. He told me to hang on and then came back and said that he had just checked the immigration website and it said it would be open on 16th. I pointed out again that it was a holiday period this weekend and he suggested I phone Bumrungrad Hospital and check with them instead. Great service. LOL.

Great thing to need to ask Bummers what Immigration will be doing... You'd think Immigration would know what Immigration would be doing...

But that aside, I'm wondering where and what the Immigration guy on the phone looked at their web site. I've yet to hear that anyone here has actually found any mention of the mobile Immigration operations listed on Immigration's web site.

There are many so called non bar girls, who are looking for a foreigner to support them and while they do work and are not out every night, in a nutshell they are out hunting but with long term goal

I think best way to meet "nice" girls is through work or friends, friends of friends.

I think the advice above is dead-on correct....

There are plenty of "nice" girls out there that are simply looking for a permanent sugar daddy, to put it crassly -- leaving aside the whole vast cadres of pro's... By that, I mean they are women who are specifically focused on finding someone, or anyone, who will pay their and often their family's bills on an ongoing basis, more than any personal or emotional sentiments.

There are actual real, normal Thai women who just want a good, normal relationship to be found among some of the dating sites for those of us who don't work in the office or school settings... But in my experience, they're vastly the exception rather than the rule...

The best up-front indicator that I've found for a somewhat "normal" Thai woman: does the person you're meeting have a real, ongoing job and career.... Absent that, you're likely dealing with a professional husband hunter or worse.

Re your question, I've used standalone G Linksys routers before with True's modem only DSL box... And later N Linksys standalone routers with True's modem-only cable modem... All of those configurations work just fine...

I've never had a combo modem-router unit with any of my True configurations. They've always provided the solo modem, and I've always provided my own routers.

If I was making arrangements and had the choice, I'd take my own N routers every time over True's own provided equipment.

Thanks to all for the various confirmations that was was reported in the other thread was what we've now confirmed it to be in various ways.... RUBBISH...

Rubbish before July 1... Rubbish after July 1.... Just pure rubbish.

There have been no broad policy changes relating to qualifying for retirement extensions of stay...

So I hope (but am not optimistic) that all the rumor-mongering will settle down a bit now...

Consult the main TV thread on this subject...

But beware of some of the Speedtest.net site results that clearly are false, and often discussed as such, based on their ping times to international destinations.

Tomahawk.. thanks much for that real-time update....

What Immigration office was involved with your friend's case? Chiang Mai?

Kv... now you're getting in over my head in technicalese...

I'm not familiar with the particular equipment you're citing... But I can offer this general guidance....

For someone using True's cable internet... if their plan involves a True-issued cable modem only, then they ought to be able to add any router or any wifi router that's ethernet capable, and it should work fine...

If someone has a True-issued cable modem and wifi router combo... I'm not entirely sure, but I'd imagine it's possible to simply use the modem component and then use your own add-on wifi router of your choice. Such as True issuing B/G equipment, but you wanting to use your own N-based router.

Or, to make it simpler, it might also be possible to simply ask True, when signing up for a particular speed/plan, whether there's a choice of modems and if so, you'd prefer the modem only option.

At my home at present, I'm using a True issued cable modem only device with my own privately purchased N routers....just connected together by Ethernet cable... And they work fine.

When I signed up with True a few months ago, I don't believe they were offering any N equipment... Not sure about now...

Pib and I had an exchange a while back on that subject, wherein he pointed out that for the 10 and 20 Mbps cable service plans, a good G wifi router ought to be more than sufficient to handle the data flow... I'm not sure I ever responded fully on that, but I will now, by adding that from what I understand, apart from data speeds, N routers can have advantages based on reception distance and quality over their G brethren... But a lot depends on the particular brands and models involved...

The whole issue of networking equipment -- and performance variations among different brands and models even with the same class such as G or N -- can best be described as a jungle...

Perhaps others here can offer some additional insights.

duplicate deleted.

Som Tum, the problem is, many of True Online's key internet service pages -- like those links posted just above -- are built as graphic image files...not text-based pages...

Graphic image files are not translatable with Google or anything else similar...

You also can't even copy and paste the text into any other site or service..because they're entirely image files.

You might look at the actual pages before posting useless advice.

HA!! Thanks... None taken.... Of course I understand what you mean...

Hi JFC, just out of curiosity, which area are you living in? I'm considering switching to cable, but if I live in or near the same area as you do I might want to reconsider....

Thanks for all the useful feedback though on your experience, very helpful for us who are still considering.

I'm in the Sukhumvit-Asoke area... But I think the quality of service issues really are probably more localized than that...

For price and speed considerations, I'd give it a try...and I did and have... And I'm still somewhat hopeful of being able to get to a better place in terms of service.

For the first month plus of my True cable service, it was perfect... fast... no outages or downtime... couldn't have asked for anything better... Then, suddenly the situation changed and all these problems began appearing. The only thing I know is, and this is confirmed by True, it's not related to anything having changed or gone wrong inside my home... It's something outside somewhere up the line.

But thus far, True has been useless in identifying the problem or effectively resolving it... And their customer service follow-through is SH###.

As I've mentioned above, if I was going to subscribe new to True cable internet, I'd also certainly be sure to keep whatever existing internet service you have, such as DSL, for a pretty good period of time until you can be sure that True's cable service will perform reliably for your location.

And be aware of the important upstream and downstream power readings on their cable modem, and how to access and see them... so you'll know first-hand what kind of connection you're getting...and if it's a good/stable one.

Sounds like the cable product is pretty dire with downtimes etc.

Had the VDSL 50mb product for a year now never had 1 hour of downtime...

Glad to hear you've had that experience.... I'd certainly hope so..at the prices True is charging for VDSL...

For their regular cable internet service, I'd say it's too early to made any broad judgments about reliability...

In my personal case, I had True's DSL service for years and rarely had any prolonged outage.... It was at least reasonably dependable.

However, for some unknown reason, my True cable service after a promising start has taken a turn for the worse lately...with repeated and extended outages, apparently relating to the cabling connection somewhere out there coming to my home...

Unfortunately, there just haven't been enough TV member reports here on their experiences with True's cable internet, over any kind of extended period of time, to make any sweeping generalizations about its reliability...

As Pib said elsewhere, it's often a large factor of "location, location, location."

The rules have not changed they always did require proof they just never asked for it.

Yes... the Immigration rules for retirement extensions of stay have not changed, at least not thus far....

For Americans, the U.S. consulate has never required proof of income by those seeking consular income letters...

For Thai Immigration, they typically have not asked for proof of income beyond accepting the consulate income letters... Though, Immigration certainly has the right to ask for backup documentation...and have done so in individual, isolated cases.

As you so eloquently put it in your original post:

they just excepted the deceleration from the American Consulate.

I thought I'd heard that the changes were going into effect on July 1, thus the OP's very relevant question about recent experience, i.e. since July 1.

If you read the very recent report I quoted above from the Immigration chief in Chonburi, you'll see he's saying nothing new is in the works...

Likewise, I've neither heard nor seen anything anywhere about any change in rules for retirement extensions taking effect July 1, which is now two weeks past.

If you have something more substantial than "I thought I'd heard" re something changing as of July 1, post a link or copy of it....

I will add, though, I empathize with the concerns... I too have a retirement extension coming up very soon.... So if any change was occurring, I'd absolutely want to know about it...

Unfortunately, the other thread on this subject created a tremendous amount of confusion and, at least thus far, misinformation that left many people adrift...

Thus far, there has been no documented, substantiated report of any broad policy change by Immigration.

Hello I am in KL at present doing a Non O visa. I was asked for a copy oy my bank book and all my other supporting documents. I am a South African. I think the rules have changed.

That's the normal thing for a visa request at Thai consulates outside Thailand...

The question in the thread here is about renewing retirement Extensions of Stay (not visas) inside Thailand with Thai Immigration.

Two entirely different things with entirely different procedures and requirements.

So with whom, and at what phone number, are folks supposed to check with to find out -- accurately -- if and when Immigration actually will be showing up at Bummers?

It seemed from earlier in the thread that the hospital staff didn't always know correctly when Immigration was coming, and neither did the Immigration Hotline, which gave out wrong advice....

BTW, this Saturday the 16th is one of the major Buddhist holidays... along with being the designated 3rd Saturday of the month...

I'll be interested to hear if Immigration does in fact show up that day.... Hope someone here who's planning to go does report back.

Thanks Pib... I'll give that a try the next time my cable service fails out... And I'm sure there will be a next time... sometime...

I had wondered that having the router installed between the PC and the cable modem might have been the reason I couldn't access the web interface for the modem....at those times when the modem can't connect.

The sun is shining this morning, and my modem's reading 41 upstream and -3.4 downstream....and everything seems peachy....

Unfortunately, the other day, close to one of my recurring outages, I remember seeing a -15 or -16 reading on the downstream power.... Not so peachy...

Meanwhile,I know you're working from spec sheets... But I went back through my notes and printouts from the various service calls I've had...and the advice given by the various True Online techs who've been out to my home...

One said he wanted a downstream power reading on the cable modem of between 0 and 4....and an upstream power reading somewhat under 50.

Another said they wanted an upstream power reading between 42 and 47.

BTW, I went back and checked the paperwork I got from my original True cable modem install... I got a single page "cable modem installation work order" sheet...But absolutely nothing on there that I can see relating to modem settings or value ranges.

BTW, one of the things I love about True Online is they seem to be going out of their way to make their web pages inacccessable to those who don't read Thai....

Not only do they seem to be taking down what used to be the English language versions of their web pages re their DSL and cable internet service, but they're also building the new pages as image-based pages instead of text-based one, meaning they can't be translated by Google or any other similar program/service that I'm aware off...

Brickbats to True for that one...

Here's the latest good example...

http://www.trueonline.com/th/product/ultra_hispeed.php

And when you think you might try replacing the "th" in the above address with "en", you get this...

http://www.trueonline.com/en/product/ultra_hispeed.php

Also not in English....

Here's one of the kind of pages I was thinking about showing their modem and router models for different plans.

http://support2.truecorp.co.th/detail.aspx?document_id=316

http://support2.truecorp.co.th/detail.aspx?document_id=317