A good friend of mine lives near Ao Nang, Krabi. His home is in a valley and he has VERY poor reception for his mobile phones. Inside his house, there is no signal. Outside he can sometimes get a weak signal. Does anyone know of an EDGE GPRS phone that will accept a remote antenna. There is no difference between AIS and D-Tac. He doesn't know if he has any CDMA signal.

There are things called Pico-cells which hook up to a power supply and work as a booster in the house. Should call his local operator, but i dont think its a standard offering ( meaning the technical sections will know, but call center staff will most likely not. ).

Could search the internet for independent suppliers, but be carefull it has the right frequency. From memory, they cost between 8k baht and 20k baht depending on manufacturer.

Ask to be put in touch with a Techie.

A picocell is usually owned by the cell company; you can sometimes buy a femtocell which is intended just for a single home/office. This is actually a switching site, not just an amplifier re-broadcasting a weak signal from far away. Never heard of any of the Thai carriers selling one; but it wasn't uncommon for a building in Hong Kong.

Personally, I have an antenna and amplifier for our house, but it has never really worked worth a darn. (JDTech) It has an outside flat-panel or yagi antenna, 10m cable, and and indoor amplifier with a little omnidirectional antenna. A higher gain unit might have done better, but I have pretty much given up now. For under 10,000B expect snake oil.

For what it's worth we bought an antenna from a local hardware store which is wirelessly coupled to the phone by an addaptor purchased from the local phone shop. Placed on a 10 meter mast it worked well in a valley 20km from the nearest repeater tower - GPRS as well. All up about 500 bahts worth.

Most Sony Ericssons have an external antenna connector. I know the K800 did anyway, which would meet your requirements. I would definitely start there. The connector is special though, so I'm not sure you'll find it locally. You may have to mail order.

As for the 1800 MHz signal amplifiers that are available, I would do my homework first. Make sure you can return it if it doesn't do the job. I haven't tried one myself, but I've heard several stories that they usually don't work very well. If you go that route, please let us all know the results.

Most Sony Ericssons have an external antenna connector. I know the K800 did anyway, which would meet your requirements. I would definitely start there. The connector is special though, so I'm not sure you'll find it locally. You may have to mail order.

As for the 1800 MHz signal amplifiers that are available, I would do my homework first. Make sure you can return it if it doesn't do the job. I haven't tried one myself, but I've heard several stories that they usually don't work very well. If you go that route, please let us all know the results.

It's for a friend of mine. He has been trying to use CSLoxinfo Ipstar for the past three years. He calls it Shitstar. He is VERY frustrated with his 2,600 baht per month package. When I told him that I dumped my TOT Crapstar and went to AIS EDGE, he would like to try that too but first he needs to try to get a signal. I told him to get hold of CAT CDMA to see if CAT has a signal there. He's working on all the options of which, unfortunately there are few. I sent him a link for external antennas that look like a car antenna but I have no idea which phone they work with. I'm sure he wouldn't hesitate to buy whatever it takes to be able to dump his Shitstar.

You should really use a directional (Yagi) antenna to obtain the best signal strength. I used to use these many years ago in the Uk. They look like miniature rooftop TV antennas and worked amazingly well. Price was around 20 pounds at the time.

Try Googling for 'mobile phone yagi'. Here was one link that I found, although this antenna is for the GSM band, whereas you might need a PCS (1.8GHz) antenna - check with your network provider.

http://cell-phone-accessories-wholesale.co...amp;ProdID=5999

Simon