Too Good To Be True?

[Penkoprod]

I know a Thai family who live, and run a farm about 20 or so Kms east of Pattaya/ Banglamung. Not quite in the boonies, but close enough a call to being so.

For the past year, i have been slowly (and, as i am not in Thailand all the time, remotely too) getting them upto speed technology wise....for things like an internet connection for their 3 kids to do school work etc. Not an easy task, as it turned out. They couldnt even get a phone company to install another bank of phonelines to the place, so the family could apply for a line. The younger of the daughters used her cell phone to access internet, but that proved painfully slow, and none of the kids were savvy enough to surf securely at the internet cafe. This was sorted a while back, as the guy from the internet cafe was selling some sort of dongle to plug into the USB port of their home computer, and thats adequate for now.

Now, to get to the point of my question.....Last week's phonecall by me was focused/steered in the direction of Thai TV. The mother of the family said that " a man had called while you were all out in the market today, offering a TV deal" This deal was for 50 free to air channels for a one off payment of 3900 THB, or 4900 THB for 100 channels. A "special deal" was being promoted by him as well...a 2 for 1 offer. The mother and fathers house next door would get a setup at the same time as their offsprings house would .... for just the one payment. This raised an eyebrow with me, so i asked for a name of company, and was told it was someone called "PSI TV" and i left it at that, and went on an internet search for info

After a few false trails, i came upon THIS site that seems to match the description. Today, i got a text from the family saying they went ahead and got the package(s) and that "the nice man" had installed the thing in both houses, and how marvelous it all was. So i called them back and asked for the ins and outs of exactly WHAT they got for the money. "A box with a company logo on it that sit on TV" was all that was mentioned. When i mentioned a sattelite dish i was met with silence. I am smelling a bit of a rat, here, and this all seems too good to be true. For one thing. no dish for a satellite fed system My own feeling is its going to go pear-shaped and that they will get a bill for each month, after a certain length of time, or the whole thing will just become a black screen sooner or later

Anyone know anything, or have had any dealings with this company?

Penkoprod

I meant to put a question mark in the title..........doh !!!!!

Edited April 13, 2010 by Penkoprod

[astral]

I added the question mark for you.

If they are getting programmes now, then there must be a satellite dish somewhere.........

That seems to be what the company is offering http://www.psi.co.th/main/index.php?option...t&Itemid=96

not that the price quite matches. A special deal perhaps?

It looks like they are getting the free to air channels off of Thaicom 5

See the list of channels here. F marks the free ones.

http://www.lyngsat.com/thai5.html

[JustAnotherFarang]

More than likely the installer is offering the service "on the side" and without his bosses knowledge.

We had something similar installed at a similar price and we got 40 channels which also included some premium channels for sports and movies. Great deal it was for 2 years until the contractor was replaced and the new contractor went around disconnecting all his previous setups............In a month or 3, that same contractor will probably be offering his own "one off deal"

Caveat Emptor

JAF

[2008bangkok]

Sounds like a good deal if they got 2 for 1

[longball53098]

In the area you describe I would think a standard TV antenna on a mast about 3 meters above the house would pick up the baisic Thai tv channels free. This pack from PSI does not get them much but then if you are their benefactor then no problem.

[Scully]

I was watching the news on a thai channel today (I am trying to learn thai) and this company were indeed advertising a one off payment of 3990 baht for 80 channels.

A satellite dish was pictured so maybe not too good to be true.

[Penkoprod]

I was watching the news on a thai channel today (I am trying to learn thai) and this company were indeed advertising a one off payment of 3990 baht for 80 channels.

A satellite dish was pictured so maybe not too good to be true.

I've no doubt that the company itself is bona fide, as i posted the link to the site myself in the OP, and the prices mentioned in my phonecall are indeed those quoted on the flyers.

Its this "special 2-4-1" deal that has me a bit sceptical, alongside the families insistance that there was nothing more than a set top box installed at each house, IE...NO dish(es)

Maybe it was a language thing that made it confusing. I will know better during my next phonecall to them this weekend.

Penkoprod

Edited April 16, 2010 by Penkoprod

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi.

The place where i stay right now has a similar setup, it, too, is branded "PSI". On the roof of the house sits a black satellite dish and on the TV sits a rather small box that has no visual elements other than one red and one green LED lights.

The satellite dish has TWO heads ("LNB's") and they are hooked up via an additional small device (splitter?) installed under the cap for the main head, i.d. only one cable runs to the little set-top box and the thingy can catch some 120+ free channels, most of them are Thai but there is also a bunch of Indian, Pakistani, Lao, Chinese, Korean etc thrown in.

The installation for the entire set (i.e. the set including installation on/in the house) was also 3,900 Baht and for 500 Baht more they would have added a dual-feed, i.e. the possibility to add a second set-top box and use both of them simultaneously or each one by itself, watching any of the available channels. The second set-top box can be in another room - or in another house. The required additional device can still be installed for 500 Baht.

The price for the dish and set-top box with only one head (able to catch some 80 channels) would have been 3,500 Baht, by the way.

This is in Chiang Mai and the installer/sales point is a small shop specialized on satellite TV but not under a specific brand name, they have all sorts of dishes and providers.

However a satellite dish is absolutely necessary, the signal has to come from somewhere. Yet they do have amazingly small dishes that can not catch all the channels, i have seen one at that shop about the size of a normal dinner plate and i was told with that i could catch 40 channels in good quality.

Best regards....

Thanh