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[Drew Aitch]

AIS Super 3G Review (first month of usage)

Hi guys.

Okay, as promised, here is my mini review on AIS 3G service with Wireless Router since last month's purchase.

Speed seems to be fine and I've don e a fair amount of uploading and downloading during this past month or so. I think I bought the package (which included the Wireless Router) around the 2nd or 3rd of last month. It's not quite as fast a TRUE was, but to be fair, it's still pretty okay.

I haven't been billed yet, so that means that the first months fee of 799 Baht + VAT would have been included at the point of sale so can be taken off the price of the 3G Wireless Router which some folks were quoting in previous posts. So the actual cost of the physical router is about 4,100 Baht

Okay, so that's the Good News, but it's not all Cream and Candy!

The connection (my end at least) drops often, numerous times daily, every day, guaranteed! Signal strength reports as excellent, but access is only local (not internet). Usually, this 'downtime' only lasts for a few minutes (although at the time of writing this I've had no access for a few hours this afternoon). Now this regular offline/online malarkey is still annoying nonetheless, and for anyone buying, selling, or just transferring money over the internet, it could prove an issue if the transaction got cut mid way through.

I had this once before (few years back now), where I was transferring some money between accounts and the connection got cut mid transaction. The money left Bank A but never arrived at Bank B. Bank B told me they haven't received the cash and couldn't help further so suggested I contact Bank A. Bank A said the money had successfully left the account as per the transaction method, and produced the transaction details to prove it. They then suggested I contact Bank B again and fax them a copy of the transfer details.

Bank B echoed their previous response and said something along the lines of; 'You can show us all the proof you like, but if we haven’t actually received the money, then something went wrong at the sending end, not the receiving.

So to this day, it seems that no one would own up to this online money transfer, nor use their own resources to chase it up. I guess it's in some kind of Cyberspace Bank Account as neither banks, nor I, have it. Anyway, the only reason I mentioned this is because ISP's that keep dropping internet connections may cause bigger issues than just that of an inconvenience to the general web surfer and email scribbler.

This may well be an issue with just my setup and I will speak to about it when I go to pay the first month's bill. It's my guess that no one will own up and likely give a couple of excuses as to how my personal computer might be having issues, but let's wait and see rather than assume!

The other odd thing is that sometimes it says both the local and internet access is fine, signal strength is excellent, yet I can't open any page in any browser (white, blank, unable to connect type of pages). But here's the weird thing; I can still FTP files from local machine to servers in the USA during these times, so the second issue is AIS 3G will not display the internet sometimes in browsers even when status says connected and reports no faults.

I know the above is a problem their end because I'll disconnect from AIS, then briefly connect to a local unsecured network to test, and hey presto! There's the web! Return back to AIS 3G, and the browsers are empty again, yet connection reports as error free.

SUMMARY

Their service is fast enough for most users and to be fair is okay more often than not. However, from my personal experience, the above niggles regarding internet access occur daily, even though they only take up a small percentage of the overall uptime, are still annoying to say the least.

I'm sure such issues would not cause major upsets to Joe Average surfer, but if you're a heavy user like me, it might make you think twice about subscribing to AIS Super 3G in Chiang Mai. Then again, if you can't access TRUE in your area, there's not exactly a plethora of great competition to choose from going by many of the previous posts.

Cheers

Aitch

PS – please not that the above is my personal experience for the last 30+ days, and others may report better or worse experiences, so until there's a bit of feedback to this thread, you might want to reserve any decisions about using this service where you are.

[The_Doctor]

Howdy,

I've been using the router for about 2 months now, and have similar reports...

First up - there was no bill in month 1, which does mean the first month is included in the initial price - a bonus at the end of the month if you didn't know that.

My connection does also drop for the odd minute from time to time. Frustrating - yes! But, I would say on the whole I am very pleased with it and it beats any of the other providers I've tried here. Speed seems on the whole quicker than TTT - although I haven't run exhaustive tests. The connection is pretty reliable, but the best part is the portability. The router slips in my laptop case, and follows me wherever I go.

[NancyL]

We've been using AIS 3G with a Wireless Router for about four months.

Yes, we've had spotty service at times, but almost always in the late afternoon. Nothing as awful as Drew's experience. I can't imagine having money lost in cyberspace!

When we signed on, we were concerned about running over our monthly allotment. We watch about 15 hr of streaming videos per week and download numerous podcasts and have never come close to hitting our 30 mega/giga/whatever limit. Sorry -- the IT dept (Hubby) isn't here. All I know is that if we go over the 30 whatevers per month it gets real expensive. We've never come close despite my efforts in watching all my favorite U.S. TV shows.

It does help to "report" problems. The AIS office is very close and Hubby visits them after I've had problems and they dutifully write down our address. Gives the impression that they're going to do something to upgrade the service in our area.

[ATO1994]

A quick note... I have been using AIS 3G Wireless Router for the past 3 months.

No issue. Service is fine. Perhaps it is the positioning of your router set.

Try adjust the router position.

Edited March 9, 2010 by ATO1994

[gotlost]

I use the air card since it came out. never any problems.

[mcgriffith]

Thanks for your forthright review, Drew!

I like to think AIS has someone who clicks on Google search, and probably reads these reviews. But who knows.

I've used AIS 3G since the roll out 2 years ago.

I also experience occasional very slow upload/download. When things appear frozen, I switch to one of my other 2 backups (DTAC EDGE mobile, and apt bldg ADSL Maxnet connect).

I pay a measly 300 B/mo. for 1.5GB. I understand that the price per GB has been bumped up quite a bit for new subscribers. They extended my old price which expired March, till Sept.

I have a feeling that AIS is feeling very pressured now, what with the Supreme Court judgment.

I also have a small hunch that in Sept, when my old pricing expires, that they will bump me, and everyone else, to cover possible liabilities regarding the TOT concession issue.

If I've lost anyone here on this, sorry. This is a very complex issue, regarding an ongoing tug of war between several major factions, between competing govt ministries and agencies, private corporations, and some quasi-private corporations, largely owned by the gov't. And some recent major court judgments, that you may have read about recently. If you read Thai newspapers, that is.

[Drew Aitch]

Thanks for contributing to the thread guys. It appears that like most ISPs there are happy, unhappy, and fairly happy campers, and I fit into the last of those 3 at this moment in time, probably because my computer is on and active for many hours daily, but also because I have never experienced such niggles with TRUE who I was with in BKK as well as here in CM until the recent move.

Btw, I've been into Windows Update to see if there were any 'wireless related' optional updates available for download and there was for both VISTA and Windows 7. I've installed it, not really understanding it's significance, but we'll see. For the record it's:

Intel driver update for Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN

Caution: Unless you know for certain that your copy of Windows is genuine, it's probably not a good idea to download any updates from their site as it may recognise any copy versions and hence cause issues with the performance of your computer.

Cheers

Aitch

Edited March 9, 2010 by Drew Aitch

[cmdream]

Thanks for contributing to the thread guys. It appears that like most ISPs there are happy, unhappy, and fairly happy campers, and I fit into the last of those 3 at this moment in time, probably because my computer is on and active for many hours daily, but also because I have never experienced such niggles with TRUE who I was with in BKK as well as here in CM until the recent move.

Btw, I've been into Windows Update to see if there were any 'wireless related' optional updates available for download and there was for both VISTA and Windows 7. I've installed it, not really understanding it's significance, but we'll see. For the record it's:

Intel driver update for Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN

Caution: Unless you know for certain that your copy of Windows is genuine, it's probably not a good idea to download any updates from their site as it may recognise any copy versions and hence cause issues with the performance of your computer.

Cheers

Aitch

Wow! staggering ! 799 B a month for this kind of aggravation.

[Drew Aitch]

Wow! staggering ! 799 B a month for this kind of aggravation.

Not really 'aggravation' cmdream. Bit niggly perhaps for heavy users like myself, but if you read the posts of others it seems that most folks are quite content with their service. I mean, c'mon, 799/Mo is only a tad over 26 Baht per day. And although i don't like, nor have ever bought into limited GB/Mo, with the 30GB package, i have yet to read where anyone has exceeded it.

Aitch

Edited March 9, 2010 by Drew Aitch