monekyface

My wife badly damaged a tooth last year and we used Thantakit to fix it- they are our regular dentist here for the last few years. Always very happy with the service but not cheap. 70 years in business.

Are you studying at AIGS?

There are many nice condos situated on the sois that run perpendicular to Silom road, and even though it is the CBD the area is quite chill. You could easily find a place that is walking distance to the JTC. PM me if you want some suggestions.

http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-world-speed-limit-of-ping/

12,735 km between BKK and SFO. so theoretical best ping should be 152ms. Did I do the math correctly?

http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-world-speed-limit-of-ping/

The laws of physics, mainly the speed of light, won't let you get much faster ping than mid-200's to San Francisco.

That's fascinating. So if I know the distance between my location and the other server, is there a formula that helps me compute the best-case scenario ping time?

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longer ping to San Francisco. my skype always drops calls, i thought maybe fibre would be better.

I ended up with the AIS Fibre deal for 1199 baht per month. I used their online tool to set my own appointment and they showed up on time, put in the connection and a shiny new router and a TV box that will take a wireless usb keyboard.

Very impressed so far and it took only one day between online request and installation. Polanskiman you hit the nail on the head re:TOT I would say!!!!

TOT was at my building for about an hour talking to my building manager and looking at different connections in the building. But they said two weeks to get it installed. Is this normal? I thought when TOT did it at our old condo it was only a day or two. Seems odd.

TOT can install in two weeks. LOL

It sounds like my choice is between AIS and True if I want fiber optic here, but True has completely dropped the ball with me at every turn so I will try AIS. Anyone out there with AIS fiber optic? I'd love at least one person to tell me it's OK before I sign up!!

The times that you want to stream movies is the time when the Internet in Thsiland us at its worst. I use all the tricks, pause and let it buffers a bit, result the router frequently etc Yhese things help. However, it's the dark ages of the Internet in Thsiland in terms of download speed. It's only redeeming quality is that it's cheap and that is what the Thsi customer wants.

LOL, so true!!!!!!!!

Thank you Pib! I was thinking that in the middle of the central business district it would be a lot more competitive; I guess not!

Sounds like I have to get AIS. Any experience with AIS around chong nonsi bts? Is it fast? I will get their 50/20 plan for 1990 per month.

Probably because TOT hasn't installed fiber optic lines yet in your area.

that makes sense.

I talked to my building manager and she said it has to be either AIS or True, we can't have TOT fiber optic in our building. I wonder why?

I have TOT coming to my condo tomorrow. We used to live in wongwian yai area and had good internet with TOT. Since moving to the CBD, our True internet is just awful. Anyone in Sathorn area, say around BTS chong nonsi have this service? I am trying to get their 1800 baht per month 35Mbit service. She claims it is very stable, and even though the speed is listed for Thai sites only, it is still a very good and stable connection. What about your experience with TOT in this area? Do you have fiber or DSL?

anything recent on this? i would especially like to hear from people who have any of the Asus phones and how they perform. My mate has a 7" Asus tablet that is a dog! It's too slow to be fun. What about the snappiest versions of this phone? Where are you seeing them for sale? Prices?

If you are paying four Thai people 9,000 baht per month how much of that 36,000 baht will you pay into payroll tax? 5%? 450 baht per employee per month?

I seem to be having a lot of issues with my multiple outlet strips. What brand do you use? I thought if I bought the most expensive strip at PowerBuy, I would get a decent unit. But I am going through them left and right. The outlets stop working, or the switches get jammed or just stop working. I prefer the type with a switch for each outlet but maybe I need to re-think this. Also after taking one apart is seems that the copper plates that come in contact with the different prongs on the plugs are very thin and cheap, and they are not designed to handle much power. I am not running a table saw here, just your basics like a rice cooker, hot pot, laptop, etc.

Where can I buy a high quality strip? What brand should I look for? How much should I plan to spend?

It seems I have what I need now. It is like pulling teeth getting them to do anything. The front desk staff is awful.

I have a question for people who have studied at TLS in Thaniya building in Silom. If you had a need that was not solved by talking to staff, was there any other means to have it addressed? My wife and I have been studying there for about 2 months and our instructor is just fabulous. We are very happy with Khruu Joy's enthusiasm for teaching Thai language and we agree that the way she mixes up conversation and vocabulary lessons is very efficient and effective.

There is only one hitch. We are using the school to get an ED visa, and the staff that handles this part of it doesn't seem to give us consistent answers about what needs to be done to stay legal. We are coming up on our 90-day period and we will need to go to immigration and renew, which I believe costs 1900 baht and involves some paperwork. Because we haven't had good luck with the staff we have asked to be put in touch with a manager but so far we haven't gotten any legitimate response to this request.

Let me scrape up some cash and then I will go in person...

the red stars are where i am speculating Bangkok Assay is. can anyone confirm?

It's really hard to find any maps to the location I am talking about but I did come up with an address:

Bangkok Assay Office

1230-32, New Rd., Suriyawong,

Bang Rak, Bangkok 10500 Thailand

phone 662-233-1295

It's only maybe 5 minutes walk from the main post office if I remember correctly.

Thanks for that info Liberty. I wonder if the Bangkok Assay office just up the street from the main post office sells 999? That is interesting that they want ID. I was just talking to a gold shop yesterday and they told me that for baht bars, as long as I don't spend 1 million baht at one time they don't have to have any ID.