Gprs/edge Service Available For Laptops In Phuket..?

[sukatoro]

hi all, am going to be heading to Thailand next month for a very good stretch of time and trying to make sure i have my ducks in a row in terms of connectivity... is there GPRS/Edge data connectivity available in Phuket, or even better cloud-style Wifi services available to pay for? i really need to make sure i have fairly constant access to the web when over there and not sure what my options are going to be like over there these days...

if there is GPRS/Edge data available, what is the pricing structure like? is there 'unlimited data' plans available or no? does anyone make use of the Sony-Ericsson GC79/83/89 Aircards w/ their laptops over there for access, and if so, how do that perform?

thx in advance for any clarification friends, knowing what to expect will really help me w/ planning... btw, when in Phuket i will mostly be around Patong and Rawaii. cheers all..!

[monty]

GPRS/Edge will be available pretty much all over Phuket. I use Edge on a daily basis in Pattaya and it works pretty good.

There are two main providers in Thailand, AIS and Dtac. Both charge 1 baht/minute for gprs/edge access when you have not subscribed to one of their packages.

With AIS you can subscribe to several packages, ranging from 107 Baht for 20 hours monthly to 1000 Baht/month for unlimited. Just dial *138 and follow instruction on what to press on your keypad to get your desired package.

With Dtac you can choose for a weekly unlimited package or monthly unlimited (Not sure about the price)

In Pattaya AIS is faster, but also a lot less stable! I don't use gprs that much (have adsl as well) so I have an AIS simcard with 40 hours/month (207 Baht) and have a Dtac sim standby, without any package selected. Most of the time AIS is fine, when it does start to slow down/stop altogether, I just switch simcards and just pay the 1 Baht/minute on the Dtac card. Happens maybe for a total of two hours/month, so it only adds 120 Baht to my monthly expense!

All the above is with pre-paid simcards, so no paperwork or contracts. You just have to take care that enough credit is on your simcard when you subscribe to a package or when it will get renewed at the end of the month. You will get an sms if not enough credit is there so you can quickly rectify this.

Another thing to keep an eye on is the expiry date of your sim. When you put money on a simcard you buy not only credit but also airtime. With AIS 300 Baht gives you 90 days. So even if you didn't finish of the credit, the card will still stop working after 90 days!

Unfortunately personally I have not had any positive experience with the Sony Ericcson aircards. USed to have one and dumped it in favour of a Sierra Wireless (775), and my connections improved substantially! The Sony's are quite a bit cheaper though...

As an aside, quite a few places in Phuket have now CDMA-EVDO coverage by CAT. Unfortunately it requires both an aircard from them (the Sierra wireless 580) and a monthly contract, so not sure if convenient for you! Speeds are reported to be between 300 and 700 kbps though!

[Tywais]

With Dtac you can choose for a weekly unlimited package or monthly unlimited (Not sure about the price)

The DTAC is 269 Baht + VAT for 7 days unlimited. The monthly is only available for post paid subscription and believe is 999 Baht.

[sukatoro]

ah, thx very much for the speedy and informative replies friends, they are greatly appreciated! it sounds as if options have changed considerably and gotten much cheaper since my last visit to Phuket three years ago...

i will be staying in Phuket for about 6 months, but really not sure if i would bother w/ a true contract unless it was for the EVDO access option, i don't suppose anyone knows offhand if there is an ExpressCard option for any of these services available, either the Edge or EVDO? i have two laptops and if i could find an ExpressCard option for my MacBook Pro that would really be great...

thx for the warning about the Aircards, i have been seeing them very cheap on eBay but perhaps that explains why...

many thx friends, any more input about connectivity options in Phuket, especially in the Patong area, they would be greatly appreciated...

also, can anyone comment on what kind of upstream they achieve w/ the DSL options in Phuket? when i was last there they were abysmally slow, so it would be great to hear that the upstream has improved some..

[sukatoro]

one other thing friends... if i were to plan on going the EVDO route, can i source the needed hardware from anywhere or do they require that i purchase the card from them to get service? any clarification of pricing on the EVDO scene would be greatly appreciated, and especially if they offer an ExpressCard hardware option... thx in advance friends..!

[sukatoro]

sorry, guess i shouldn't derail my own thread going off on an EVDO tangent... back to the Edge queries though, i assume i can bring my own Edge hardware modem w/ me to Thailand and just pop in a prepaid SIM? i'm going to hunt around for an Edge device that works in an ExpressCard slot at this point, i'm somewhat worried that i could find myself in Thailand and find that ExpressCard devices are not common or available like their PCMCIA brethren and my MacBook Pro only sports an EC slot...

thx again for all the help friends, cant wait to arrive next month..!

[monty]

Unfortunately there is not much support for the Expresscards!

I'd love to upgrade my laptop, but I'm completely at a loss why the newer ones only have expresscard slots, while there are almost no express cards around!!!

I have several (expensive) PCMCIAA cards which suddenly would become utterly useless..

For the EV-DO, only the card from CAT will work, you cannot source one somewhere else.

Not sure about CAT's pricing for the EV-DO service, but definitely less then 1000 Baht/month for unlimited access.

Just checking Sierra wireless' website, and it seems they have both GPRS/Edge and EV-DO capable express cards! Haven't seen them yet in Thailand, and doubt you could get the EV-DO card to work on CAT's network. The GPRS/EDGE card will definitely work, and will also give you 3G (HSPA) when and where it gets deployed...

http://www.sierrawireless.com/product/expresscards.aspx

Upstream on ADSL in Thailand is limited to 512kbps on pretty much all home and small business packages. In my experiences, upload mostly performs at rated speed, since it is downloads which are saturating bandwidth, not uploads!

Do note that on the wireless options, including EV-DO, uploads are painfully slow! Between 30 and 70 kbps on Edge and not much more on EV-DO!

[sukatoro]

Unfortunately there is not much support for the Expresscards!

I'd love to upgrade my laptop, but I'm completely at a loss why the newer ones only have expresscard slots, while there are almost no express cards around!!!

I have several (expensive) PCMCIAA cards which suddenly would become utterly useless..

For the EV-DO, only the card from CAT will work, you cannot source one somewhere else.

Not sure about CAT's pricing for the EV-DO service, but definitely less then 1000 Baht/month for unlimited access.

Just checking Sierra wireless' website, and it seems they have both GPRS/Edge and EV-DO capable express cards! Haven't seen them yet in Thailand, and doubt you could get the EV-DO card to work on CAT's network. The GPRS/EDGE card will definitely work, and will also give you 3G (HSPA) when and where it gets deployed...

http://www.sierrawireless.com/product/expresscards.aspx

Upstream on ADSL in Thailand is limited to 512kbps on pretty much all home and small business packages. In my experiences, upload mostly performs at rated speed, since it is downloads which are saturating bandwidth, not uploads!

Do note that on the wireless options, including EV-DO, uploads are painfully slow! Between 30 and 70 kbps on Edge and not much more on EV-DO!

thx very much for your reply monty... that helps a lot, i will just have to bide my time and when i arrive inquire as to whether they can/will provide an ExpressCard option for the CAT service. i think i will attempt to get my hands on a GPRS/Edge ExpressCard to bring along in case that turns out to be my only option for access, time to see what an unlocked EC Edge card is going to cost me...

cheers for all the help friends..!