Gprs: 12 Hours Or 30 Mb

[chanchao]

DTAC now offer the option of paying GPRS per MB like before, or per time unit.

99 baht gives you either 12 hours or 30 MB per month.

Which do you think is better? I really prefer paying by the MB as it seems to me that's what GPRS is intended for. And I don't look forward to having to remember to disconnect all the time rather than keep it running... And per MB would be seriously better for instant messaging on my phone, like MSN and ICQ...

But 12 hours is a lot......... With mindful usage that could stretch WAY far.

I do mostly just email, WAP and the occasional web site, mostly when I'm shopping for stuff and I use the web browser to search for reviews on whatever product it is I'm looking at. But really most my ussage is email and (BBC News ) WAP.

What does everyone think is the better deal?

Cheers,

Chanchao

[Amethyst]

AIS is better pay 250baht get 120 hours free....PEr hour is better you could download lotsa things unlimited

[Crushdepth]

As you said, depends how you use the web - if you use lots of low-bandwidth but time intensive services like instant messaging, go for limited MB. If your main use is web surfing or if your work sends you massive email attachments you might be better off getting the 12 hour cap (30 MB doesn't seem like much to me - 1MB = about 5 minutes of surfing !)

Whichever, you might want to check out what the excess costs are if you go over, can be very high (DTAC charged me for a couple of MB 'before activating' my flatrate plan - it cost a packet and I wasn't too impressed !).

[chanchao]

Yes indeed, I just looked at the extra charges if you go over...! On the MB plan, you just pay a reasonable 5 satang per kilobyte. However on the time limited plan, you pay a whopping 50 satang PER MINUTE! With the added risk of forgetting to disconect GRPS, this sounds like a major advantage for a MB limited plan.

I just did some testing, measuring GPRS bytes per 10 minute usage for typical things I do, then comparing. Results:

1. WAP use (BBC World wap site, pretty much the most useful one)

Result: No-brainer, WAP uses seriously little bytes, so paying by the

MB is better

2. MSN/ICQ/Yahoo Messenger/etc. use

Result: No-brainer, paying by the MB allows you to stay online for

hours with very little traffic.

3. Regular web sites, graphics turned off

Result: This works out pretty close. Almost equal between paying by

the hour and paying by the MB. Even with graphics turned off,

websites eat up a lot of bandwith, especially those that aren't

specifically designed for mobile devices.

4. Regular web sites, graphics on (i.e: Porn

Result: Paying by the hour is much better.

5. Email: Didn't test this but as text email w/o attachments is pretty low bandwith I'd say paying by the MB is better. A lot depends here how active you are disconnecting and reconnecting to not waste time while reading. Paying by the MB is much more convenient here, no need to disconnect or do anything special.

So.......... overall I think paying by the MB is better, unless you

really download stuff. This seems unlikely on a phone, but is possible

when you use your phone as a wireless bluetooth modem to connect and

browse on your PC.

As for AIS, 120 hours is indeed a lot more.. But that's also a higher monthly charge, i.e. 250 vs 99 baht. So if you use it all up then that's fine. If not... then 99 baht is better.

AIS is not really an option at the moment, I'm on a special DTAC programme for SME businesses. Really low cal charges, like 1.5 - 2.5 baht and the like. (Don't know exactly how low, but it's low). AND it allows sharing of charges, i.e. if there are 2 people on the plan and one of them uses very little time (when I'm abroad for example) then the total free time can be used by the other partner.

Besides, AIS' owner seems to be successful enough these days.