3G.. The 'Trials'.. Outside Of Bkk

[LivinLOS]

I hear true has a fair amount of 3G in bangkok.. on the 850 band.

Does anyone have reports of how 3G is working or not outside bangkok including on other bands. Thinking the 900 AIS band especially as I have had my 12Call number 8 years now and would hate to change it.

On Phuket does AIS have 'any' of the trials going ??

I know theres no formal licenses yet.. But is there any hope of a signal ??

[gotlost]

To my knowledge AIS 3G is only in Chiang Mai and Hua Hin. I'm in CM on AIS 3G.

[nikster]

To my knowledge AIS 3G is only in Chiang Mai and Hua Hin. I'm in CM on AIS 3G.

For data it's great.

For phone service, your choice of phones is extremely limited on AIS 3G.

Edit: I just remember AIS was going to use TOT 3G shortly, there was something about it being in their concession contract....

[LivinLOS]

To my knowledge AIS 3G is only in Chiang Mai and Hua Hin. I'm in CM on AIS 3G.

For data it's great.

For phone service, your choice of phones is extremely limited on AIS 3G.

Edit: I just remember AIS was going to use TOT 3G shortly, there was something about it being in their concession contract....

Does that mean AIS might end up on the 2100 band ??

AIS is currently on 900 right ??

[nikster]

To my knowledge AIS 3G is only in Chiang Mai and Hua Hin. I'm in CM on AIS 3G.

For data it's great.

For phone service, your choice of phones is extremely limited on AIS 3G.

Edit: I just remember AIS was going to use TOT 3G shortly, there was something about it being in their concession contract....

Does that mean AIS might end up on the 2100 band ??

AIS is currently on 900 right ??

Don't know the exact numbers. All I know is that TOT 3G and True 3g are both common 3G frequencies supported by all phones, whereas the AIS trial in CM is on an unusual frequency only supported by a handful of phones.

If AIS gets on TOT then it will be on a common frequency. The story (BKK post? not sure) was that AIS has a contract with TOT where it can use TOT 3G once TOT rolls it out - that contract is old and was made a long time before anyone rolled out 3G. The problem is that if AIS goes on TOT, first it would kill the TOT network, as they have way too few sites for the number of customers that AIS would bring. And it would kill off all those MVNOs like Samart and whatnot that are currently offering services on the TOT network. So as usual it's turned into a political struggle where politics and money are impossible to separate; no one knows what the resolution will be, a bit like the 3G frequency allocation in general....

[Phil Conners]

Anyone know anything about the possibility of one day getting 3G from DTAC in Pattaya, either directly or using someone elses (TOT) 3G system?

[LivinLOS]

To my knowledge AIS 3G is only in Chiang Mai and Hua Hin. I'm in CM on AIS 3G.

For data it's great.

For phone service, your choice of phones is extremely limited on AIS 3G.

Edit: I just remember AIS was going to use TOT 3G shortly, there was something about it being in their concession contract....

Does that mean AIS might end up on the 2100 band ??

AIS is currently on 900 right ??

Don't know the exact numbers. All I know is that TOT 3G and True 3g are both common 3G frequencies supported by all phones, whereas the AIS trial in CM is on an unusual frequency only supported by a handful of phones.

I thought true was on 850.. Which is far from supported on all phones..

[LivinLOS]

From another thread..

For an overview:

True offers 3G (UMTS HSDPA) on 850 mhz in parts of Bangkok.

AIS offers 3G (UMTS HSDPA) on 900 Mhz, their biggest coverage area is in Chiang Mai.

TOT offers 3G in large parts of Bangkok on, according to their website, the 900/2100 Mhz band

[jfchandler]

I have TOT 3G in BKK thru I-Mobile as the sub-vendor. To the best of my knowledge, it's only running on the 2100 Mhz band.

On the other hand, True in BKK has a 3G trial running on its 850 Mhz band. But if you look at the news in the past week, you'll see the Thai Govt's CAT has ordered True to halt their 3G trial on that band, though True isn't doing so as yet.

DTAC has a miniscule 3G trial in some very small areas of BKK on the 850 Mhz frequency.

AIS is running their 3G trial on 900 Mhz, but has had plans to move that to 2100 and piggyback on the TOT 3G network. But that plan apparently has been delayed and run into troubles with TOT.

In the long run, supposedly, Thailand's 3G (or 3+G) is supposed to migrate to the 2100 Mhz band. But how long that's going to take in reality is a real question.

I just bought a new mobile phone recently, and I had to search high and far to find a phone capable of both 850 Mhz for True service (today) and 2100 Mhz for TOT/et. al (for today and the future 3G). There probably aren't many more than a dozen to 20 mobile models in the world that do both 850 and 2100 Mhz 3G. A few Nokias, a few Sony's, some others.

[LivinLOS]

Thanks for that, thats a pretty clear answer.. Also it confirms what I had read and or concluded.

As a long term AIS user who would hate to change his number I hedged on AIS + TOT by picking up a 900 / 2100 nexus one. Tho to be honest I kind of feel like it will be another product cycle before we have any real 3G anyway and I will end up just getting edge with this hardware. I worried about it for a day or two and then just thought 'OK go that way now and replace if and when it really happens'.

[LivinLOS]

But if you look at the news in the past week, you'll see the Thai Govt's CAT has ordered True to halt their 3G trial on that band, though True isn't doing so as yet.

You dont have a link to that do you ??

I just had a dig but 'true' isnt a good search term and 3G etc too short.. Not finding it if its on here.

[jfchandler]

Here's one link on the original report...re True and CAT.

Here's an earlier report from The Nation.

Then the latest was a June 9 business section article in the BKK Post that cannot be linked to here, under the forum's rules... It basically talked about True not going along with CAT's order, at least for now. A Google search for True, CAT and 3G produced a link to the article on the newspaper's web site.

PS - I should mention, for me, the 3G service with TOT-I-Mobile has been pretty good thus far here in BKK. In BKK, both phone and data use is carried on the TOT network. However, the TOT-based 3G service is only available pretty much throughout BKK.... Outside BKK under the I-Mobile 3G plan, the customer's regular phone calls are carried on the AIS network but you don't get access to AIS' GPRS network for data. Which is kind of a bummer.

I'm paying 199+ a month for the I-Mobile 3G... It includes 199MB of data use, but no phone calling minutes, though I believe calling minutes are charged at the rate of 1 baht per minute, which is the same rate I was getting on my True SIM which I keep in a second, 850 Mhz 3G band capable phone.

True's 3G trial on the 850 Mhz band supposedly is available for now in parts of BKK, Phuket and Chiang Mai. Here's a link to their 3G coverage areas map.

The AIS 3G service on 900 Mhz supposedly includes Chiang Mai and part of Chonburi province. Here's a link to the coverage map for AIS 3G service.

The DTAC 3G trial is only available in a very few areas in BKK.

For now, the TOT et all 3G is only available pretty widely around BKK, but not elsewhere.

The same search on either Google or ThaiVisa using CAT, 3G, AIS or True or TOT will produce those kinds of links.

[LivinLOS]

Again thanks.. Good info..

[monty]

3G in Thailand.

Will never happen nationwide! Buying 3G devices is a waste of money, unless you live in one of the trial area's and hope the operators won't be forced to shut down any time soon.

The super whiz kids at the Thai Telecommunications Ministry have decided that there will be no 3G licenses, never. They will skip 3G altogether, Thailand must be the only country in the whole bloody world to skip an entire technology by simply never issuing the licenses.

Instead they will issue licenses for 3.9G instead, they are not sure yet if it will be the Wimax or LTE technology, although the latter is likely as that is what the current operators (AIS, Dtac, True,...) would prefer.

Sources:

3.9G : -4G Trends-

Thailand to auction three licenses for '3.9G technology'

[jfchandler]

Monty, I'm making an assumption here, but feel free to tell me if you think I'm wrong.

As long as the govt's future plans center on an advanged 3G (3.9G) network operating on the 2.1 Ghz/2100 Mhz band, I'm assuming today's mobiles that can operate on 2100 Mhz 3G would at least be able to run on their hardware maximum speeds on a future 3.9G 2100 Mhz system. Maybe not as fast as future 3.9G specific devices (whatever those may be), but certainly at basic 3G levels.

Or, is that somehow incorrect or unknown. I'd be a bit surprised (just a bit) if the future system they're aiming for would somehow be incompatible with all of today's current 3G devices.

But if I had a 3G device that only could run 3G on the 850 or 900 Mhz bands, then yes, I'd be worried....

3G in Thailand.

Will never happen nationwide! Buying 3G devices is a waste of money, unless you live in one of the trial area's and hope the operators won't be forced to shut down any time soon.

The super whiz kids at the Thai Telecommunications Ministry have decided that there will be no 3G licenses, never. They will skip 3G altogether, Thailand must be the only country in the whole bloody world to skip an entire technology by simply never issuing the licenses.

Instead they will issue licenses for 3.9G instead, they are not sure yet if it will be the Wimax or LTE technology, although the latter is likely as that is what the current operators (AIS, Dtac, True,...) would prefer.

Sources:

3.9G : -4G Trends-

Thailand to auction three licenses for '3.9G technology'