Internet Providers in Jomtien / Pattaya

[Jingthing]

31 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

You have to read this more carefully ????. There are SIMs with limited speed and unlimited data. And there are SIMs with unlimited (or high) speed and with limited data. I didn't check them all. Perhaps there is a completely unlimited speed and data version like the Thunder. 

 

Unfortunately, there are no longer any offers that I was able to buy.  For example, not too long ago I could buy a 30 Mbps DTAC with unlimited data for a month for about 200 - see picture. I bought the monthly version because I was testing True, AIS, Dtac, the Thunder and an NT 8 Mbps SIM at my location with my devices. 

 

Filtering that through my limited knowledge base mind I'm taking you to mean I'm not going to find a 100 Mbps unlimited Sim but I might find a 30 Mbps unlimited Sim for a higher price than the deal you got before?

 

So I'm back to the choice of which test Sims to buy from that Lazada link.

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/dtac-24-2mbps-4mbps-8mbps15mbps-20mbps-30mbps-dtac-wifi-i2975561177-s15218584578.html

 

Alas there are no 30s.

 

There is one 15 DTAC and one 15 True.

 

15 doesn't sound so great.

 

Not sure if they would be unlimited but I can look closely at the translated page.

 

If the 15s are unlimited are those what I should buy to test?

 

I was hoping for at least 30.

 

 

[CharlieH]

Bickering exchange removed.

[Mickeymaus]

6 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Filtering that through my limited knowledge base mind I'm taking you to mean I'm not going to find a 100 Mbps unlimited Sim but I might find a 30 Mbps unlimited Sim for a higher price than the deal you got before?

 

So I'm back to the choice of which test Sims to buy from that Lazada link.

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/dtac-24-2mbps-4mbps-8mbps15mbps-20mbps-30mbps-dtac-wifi-i2975561177-s15218584578.html

 

Alas there are no 30s.

 

There is one 15 DTAC and one 15 True.

 

15 doesn't sound so great.

 

Not sure if they would be unlimited but I can look closely at the translated page.

 

If the 15s are unlimited are those what I should buy to test?

 

I was hoping for at least 30.

 

 

Yes, they took the monthly 30 Mbps SIMs off the market. At least I could not find them anymore. Before I posted the Dtac SIM and here the AIS SIM that I bought. I couldn't find them anymore and what you get now is more expensive. Since there is almost no inflation in Thailand, as was recently reported, they must have simply increased prices...

 

[shortstop2]

On 6/4/2023 at 6:55 AM, Henryford said:

3BB put fibre in my condo but i had to pay for the cable to the 5th floor. Might be expensive if you live on the 30th floor.

My terminology is probably not correct but I was told that 3BB has a plan with no installation charge and a also a more direct hookup that has an installation charge.   

 

If this makes sense my question for 3BB customers is do you have the direct wire connection or the wifi version?  Is there a difference in internet reliability?

 

I have been using an AIS 10 Mbs download speed on my phone and 15Mbs in a pocket wifi device and both were sufficient for my prior needs and the price was super cheap.

 

But my needs are changing and will need a super reliable connection and the faster speed would also be helpful.  This is not for torrents but for business video needs.

 

So if reliability is my concern, is the special wired hookup to my floor what is needed?

 

Note, I think 3BB is the only non-wifi option for my condo.

[shortstop2]

It seems that 3BB has 3 fiber plans, for 500, 699, and 999 baht a month.

 

The two more expensive ones have include something called AP Mesh, whatever that is.

 

Not sure if upload or download speed comes first but the most expensive plan has a speed of 1 Gbps/1Gbps while the 699 plan has 1Gbps/500 Mbps.

 

I'm thinking that for my needs, which would be video calls somewhat similar to Zoom that the difference between 1 Gbps and 500 Mbps would not be meaningful but perhaps the APMesh would increase the chance that I don't lose connectivity.   Are my assumptions correct or an I off base here?

 

https://fiber.3bb.co.th/en/3bb-giga-fiber/

 

 

[Henryford]

5 hours ago, shortstop2 said:

My terminology is probably not correct but I was told that 3BB has a plan with no installation charge and a also a more direct hookup that has an installation charge.   

 

If this makes sense my question for 3BB customers is do you have the direct wire connection or the wifi version?  Is there a difference in internet reliability?

 

I have been using an AIS 10 Mbs download speed on my phone and 15Mbs in a pocket wifi device and both were sufficient for my prior needs and the price was super cheap.

 

But my needs are changing and will need a super reliable connection and the faster speed would also be helpful.  This is not for torrents but for business video needs.

 

So if reliability is my concern, is the special wired hookup to my floor what is needed?

 

Note, I think 3BB is the only non-wifi option for my condo.

My 3BB service is via a fibre optic cable to the router in my condo (is there any other type?). Then from there you can use a cable to say a PC or wi-fi within the condo to any device. They are both very reliable but the wi-fi connections are slower, but still @ 400 mbps.

[Mike Teavee]

On 6/6/2023 at 10:02 AM, LOG54 said:

Hello

It is false to say that 3BB doesn t provide fiber in condos.. I had 3bb fiber in my previous condo in Najomtien and have it in the condo I live now in Ban Amphur

Have a good day

I'm currently on TOT/NT (they were the only providers & 50/30 up/down was the best speed I could get from them for my Condo) & noticed that 3BB have been advertising a new Fiber service to my Condo so was considering switching. 

 

TBH the TOT/NT service has been great and the speeds more than adequate for watching Netflix / streaming via my Android Box etc... but I'm semi-tempted to swap for the 3BB TV packages are these worth having? 

 

Somebody asked about the price of the unlimited 10MB AIS SIM only packages, I'm currently on the 349 Flexi (349B pm + tax) which is no longer available but they are pushing the 449 Flexi (449B + Tax) which is 20MB & 5G - Haven't felt the need to upgrade to it as I've never had a problem with speeds on the 10MB package. 

 

 

 

 

[Jingthing]

On 6/6/2023 at 2:08 PM, NextG said:

You don’t need to…we already know you have a capped speed 4Mbps plan…

 

You can add a ‘max speed pack’ *777*7541# giving you 150MB of data for 10.7 baht if you want to test for how much you can get on your current phone. Though not much point unless you are happy to have a 100GB per month limitation. 

This guy is ignoring me now but I did try this and got 32.7 Mbps. Seems pretty good and would do better with a 5g phone.

[Jingthing]

This site is interesting, It's a coverage map of Thailand. I don't know how useful it is compared to directly testing Sims at your location though.

 

3G / 4G / 5G coverage in Thailand - nPerf.com

[Jingthing]

As the SIMS now are 5g, doesn't it make sense to use a 5g simcard router instead of a 4g one? I'm assuming the speeds would be much better.

 

But looking on Lazada I'm not seeing many 5g routers. I also know that just because a router says it "supports" 5g doesn't mean it's really a 5g router. I think that just means you can put a 5g sim in it but it's really 4g.

 

Any ideas on real 5g routers available in Thailand that aren't ridiculously expensive?

[Jingthing]

deleted

 

 

[Jingthing]

Everything you ever wanted to know about Sim routers but were afraid to ask:

 

 

[Jingthing]

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.

 

 

 

 

[Mickeymaus]

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.

[Jingthing]

9 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

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

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. 

[Mickeymaus]

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. 

[Jingthing]

5 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

 

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. 

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? 

[Mickeymaus]

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. 

[Jingthing]

11 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

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. 

Thanks.

I'm confused yet again.

You bought online from where or directly?

They will sell a test sim without location approval?

[Mickeymaus]

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.

 

 

[NextG]

3 hours ago, Mickeymaus said:

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.

 

 

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. 
 

As to buying a Thunder SIM to test, it could be prudent to check access to Band 40 at the location beforehand,  using the DTAC SIM and simply utilising the LTE Band selection function of your Smartphone.
Samsung has recently blocked access to this function, though it might still work on older models. Though you can still reveal the hidden function, I wouldn’t even consider trying to talk the OP through it. Some routers have this function; TP-Link for instance. D-Link perhaps not. 
I prefer to stay out of it. ????

 

[Mickeymaus]

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? 

[Jingthing]

3 hours ago, Mickeymaus said:

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.

 

 

Thanks.

So you bought a test Sim first and later the Sim you actually use or if not what was the process?

 

If it's true that applying online would screen out people on high building floors as I thought was mentioned before then perhaps for me this is academic.

[NextG]

6 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

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

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. 

[Jingthing]

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?

[Mickeymaus]

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.

[Jingthing]

2 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

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.

Sounds reasonable to me. But the application could be rejected. Does buying online bypass the need for a location qualification application, or not?

I will add (if you don't recall) that I don't address member NextG directly as he previously posted he has me on ignore. 

[Mickeymaus]

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. 

[Jingthing]

10 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

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

Thanks for replying. 

He can but he said before that he won't.

That's his choice which I have no choice but to respect.

Cheers.

[NextG]

18 minutes ago, Mickeymaus said:

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.

 

Whatever is the most convenient for you ????