Mobile Internet Sim Cards

[Wigwoman]

Hi Everyone!

I am coming out to Thailand for my bi-annual jaunt. A month over xmas.

In the UK I have one of those USB mobile internet sticks for my laptop which takes a UK T-Mobile SIM card.

Questions are . . Can I buy a Thai Sim which will work in my current stick? If so is the mobile internet expensive there?

If I can then I can still run my ecommerce business from my hotel room as long as my laptop doesn't get robbed by the occasional visitor that is I don't stay in the 5* gaffs with internet in the rooms and prefer to stay in perfectly adequate 3* places.

On previous visits I have had to find WiFi zones or plug in at cafes which aint ideal for a lazy sod like me.

I'm trying to prove to my partner that I can successfully run my half of the business "remotely". Then its happy days for me and I will be joining you ex-pats again in the sun this time with a job of work to do and a decent income.

Thanks in advance

[monty]

Not sure what kind of "mobile USB sticks" you have:)

If it is capable of doing GPRS/EDGE and it is not locked to one of the UK mobile providers (i.e. you got the thing very cheap when subscribing to a 1 year package) you stand a good chance of being able to stick in an AIS or a dtac simcard and surf away...

Speeds won't be brilliant (no 3G yet here) but still very usable for surfing and e-mails...

[Wigwoman]

Thanks for that!

I reckon it will be locked. Didn't think of that. I will look into it. All I really need to do is to answer a few customer emails every two or three hours between 9 and 5 GMT.

[lomatopo]

It seems like it would work here since it supports GSM900/1800 and GPRS/EDGE (among other things), but it will (probably) have to be unlocked and you'll need to get a pre-paid SIM here (1-2-Call or DTAC) and subscribe to a mobile data plan. FWIW, it is a Huawei E170 unit.

Many mobile phones also support GPRS/EDGE so that remains an alternative for you.

Mobile data plans here are relatively inexpensive ranging from 1 or 2 baht/hour up to 60 baht/hour. I have a monthly pre-paid plan with 1-2-Call for 25 hours at 107 baht per month.

Edited October 5, 2008 by lomatopo

[jonny48]

Hi Everyone!

I am coming out to Thailand for my bi-annual jaunt. A month over xmas.

In the UK I have one of those USB mobile internet sticks for my laptop which takes a UK T-Mobile SIM card.

Questions are . . Can I buy a Thai Sim which will work in my current stick? If so is the mobile internet expensive there?

If I can then I can still run my ecommerce business from my hotel room as long as my laptop doesn't get robbed by the occasional visitor that is I don't stay in the 5* gaffs with internet in the rooms and prefer to stay in perfectly adequate 3* places.

On previous visits I have had to find WiFi zones or plug in at cafes which aint ideal for a lazy sod like me.

I'm trying to prove to my partner that I can successfully run my half of the business "remotely". Then its happy days for me and I will be joining you ex-pats again in the sun this time with a job of work to do and a decent income.

Thanks in advance

tried 12call in my 3 dongle and it wouldnt work

[gbglass]

tried 12call in my 3 dongle and it wouldnt work

As posted earlier did you unlock your modem first?

[davidxl]

unlocked my Three dongle (huawei E220 usb modem) in seconds with an online unlocker in UK, partner took it to thailand, got a DTAC SIM card with a package of 250 hours internet a month for 500B and it works great in Bangkok on her laptop, almost as good as a internet cafe, even got good MSN Messenger webcam pictures and audio with no dropouts so far. She's heading upcountry tonight so will then see how good it is in a rural area

Edited October 12, 2008 by davidxl

[udonsmiles]

unlocked my Three dongle (huawei E220 usb modem) in seconds with an online unlocker in UK, partner took it to thailand, got a DTAC SIM card with a package of 250 hours internet a month for 500B and it works great in Bangkok on her laptop, almost as good as a internet cafe, even got good MSN Messenger webcam pictures and audio with no dropouts so far. She's heading upcountry tonight so will then see how good it is in a rural area

How did your partner get on with coverage in rural areas davidxl?

I am off to Udon Thani for 6 weeks and would be interested to know what speeds are like outside Bangkok. I use the same modem as yours here in the UK right now on Three (Pay As You Go). Guess mine will also be locked.

[mako]

Hi All

I used my 220 in Udon on my last trip with a 12Call card and it worked ok, nothing brilliant but acceptable.

[udonsmiles]

Hi All

I used my 220 in Udon on my last trip with a 12Call card and it worked ok, nothing brilliant but acceptable.

Thanks for that mako were you in town or out in the villages?

[mako]

Hi

I use it when I visit from Oz, it works in town and at "Englishman Retreat" where I stay.

Barry

[davidxl]

unlocked my Three dongle (huawei E220 usb modem) in seconds with an online unlocker in UK, partner took it to thailand, got a DTAC SIM card with a package of 250 hours internet a month for 500B and it works great in Bangkok on her laptop, almost as good as a internet cafe, even got good MSN Messenger webcam pictures and audio with no dropouts so far. She's heading upcountry tonight so will then see how good it is in a rural area

How did your partner get on with coverage in rural areas davidxl?

I am off to Udon Thani for 6 weeks and would be interested to know what speeds are like outside Bangkok. I use the same modem as yours here in the UK right now on Three (Pay As You Go). Guess mine will also be locked.

I've just finished a 3 hour MSN chat with my gf in her village (evening there, afternoon here), about halfway between Ubon Ratchatani and the Laos border, the text transfer is just about instant, webcam picture was good for both of us even when set to 'large', however, the picture refresh was a tad slow though acceptable at around 0.5s. Had 3 disconnects during the chat, 2 of which were complete disconnects and one was just a webcam disconnect, all solved immediately by reconnecting. Also, used the feature on MSN Messenger to regularly send a short voice message with no problems. We did try to initiate a full videocall with voice via MSN, it failed totally, though I wsn't surprised as this feature didn't usually work for us in BKK internet cafe's either. As far as I know it's using DTAC's edge service, dropping down to gprs when it can't get an edge connection, I have tried telling her about using a usb extension lead to get a better signal, but she didn't understand, wish I had shown her before she left, she was in a very basic wooden house though so I doubt it blocked the signal much. The village is highly impressed and amazed with her ability to get internet anywhere which she appreciates. I asked her about general surfing of the web and she said all normall sites were fine, except that while youtube.com was just about usable it was very slow in loading up vdo's.

I'm thinking that if 3G became widely available and the prices for netwrk access and for kit like basic eee pc's with built in SIM modems were right then this could be a huge step to bringing the internet to the whole of the population of Thailand and further could make the supplier companies involved a fortuneas the whole population of Thailand would want to be connected.

I unlocked my my E220 Huawei usb modem/dongle in less than 5 minutes for £15 using http://www.fonefunshop.co.uk/Unlocking/datacard.htm

[martin81]

unlocked my Three dongle (huawei E220 usb modem) in seconds with an online unlocker in UK, partner took it to thailand, got a DTAC SIM card with a package of 250 hours internet a month for 500B and it works great in Bangkok on her laptop, almost as good as a internet cafe, even got good MSN Messenger webcam pictures and audio with no dropouts so far. She's heading upcountry tonight so will then see how good it is in a rural area

Where do you buy these DTAC SIM's with data packages? Is it in Your local 7-Eleven or are they only available in DTAC shops?