Advice On Bringing Laptop To Thailand For Holiday

[Pearlgirl]

We are going to Chiang Mai early December for a month and plan on bringing our wireless laptop. While we are there we'll be renting a house for the month and its outside of chiang Mai city. First question, does Chiang Mai have 3G service yet for internet, and if they do, will it work on our laptop there? Next question, if there isn't 3G service yet, can we go wireless setup in our holiday home without having to purchase a full year's service with the local service provider, or, will we have to travel to some of the local internet cafes to use our laptop? The home does not have internet connections.

[SantiSuk]

If TOT (Thai telephone monopoly) is same in CM as in my part of Thailand then the standard service can be purchased without great installation cost (nil I think) and with a facility to cancel at any time (unless you go for some promotional deal that may lock you in for a year. You will need to pay for a telephone line but that is only 100 baht ($3) a month and the internet line is relatively cheap (500-600 baht a month).

But the service is cr@p (slow and disappears for hours on end), particularly for accessing international websites. Others in CM can tell you of local alternatives - most of us in the sticks have no alternatives. Welcome to the Third World!

[Pearlgirl]

Thanks for this. We have talked to some people there already but not much help. For this year we are more interested in something temporary as we will be moving there next year. I was thinking of posting this on the Chiang Mai site, but thought some wonderful computer expert could give me advice. I think I will post on the CM site.

Thanks again.