Hookin' Up On The East Coast

[patsfangr]

Let's see if we can put together a reference thread that I think would be very useful to anyone planning to settle somewhere in the East Coast region. In my research and consideration, including my pestering of you great residents in this Forum, I've learned that there are concerns that a newly arriving farang must address in such a relocation. The degree of difficulty in obtaining the various utility services seems to vary fairly significantly. For that reason, it would be really helpful if you could contribute whatever knowledge you have, whether first hand or not, of the utility services noted below for each of the major towns along the East Coast. Here's a format that I hope you can use to help all of us newbies searching for a home in the region. I believe these towns to be the most popular ex-pat areas of the region. Please fill in the info for whichever of these towns you have such knowledge. (And if I missed a town, or an issue for concern, please add it.)

CHON BURI

Water service, pressure, and cost

Electricity service and cost

Telephone service and cost

Internet service and cost

TV service and cost

SRIRACHA

Water service, pressure, and cost

Electricity service and cost

Telephone service and cost

Internet service and cost

TV service and cost

PATTAYA

Water service, pressure, and cost

Electricity service and cost

Telephone service and cost

Internet service and cost

TV service and cost

SATTAHIP

Water service, pressure, and cost

Electricity service and cost

Telephone service and cost

Internet service and cost

TV service and cost

RAYONG

Water service, pressure, and cost

Electricity service and cost

Telephone service and cost

Internet service and cost

TV service and cost

Edited June 28, 2005 by patsfangr

[banchang]

What about Banchang?

[patsfangr]

What about Banchang?

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Any and all East Coast towns are of interest to me, Banchang. I certainly did not mean to slight you!

George

[monty]

Pattaya:

I guess anywhere you rent or buy, water and electricity are connected already.

If you buy and you still have to connect, would be hard to give a price as this will most probably be dependant on the development you buy in.

Anyway, in my opinion any decent builder should take care of these hassles for you.

Most houses/apartments just leave utilities hooked up when not rented out, since the maintenace fee is very low when no consumption...

Telephone: connection cost between 3000 and 3500 Baht for a house. In a condo you will have to add an amount payable to the juristic of the building (in my condo it's 1200 Baht/line)

Monthly fixed fee 107 Baht + calls. Local calls 3 Baht, not time metered and long distance calls between 3 Baht and 12 Baht/minute

Internet: if you have adsl available, both TT&T and TOT (the phoneline operators) have cheap packages available of around 800 Baht/month for 512/256.

No start-up fees apart from paying 2 months up-front and buying your own modem/router...

If no adsl, you're stuck on dial-up. Packages for unlimited access are less than 500 Baht/month. 1 phonecall will be billed 3 Baht, irrespective of how long the call is.

Cable TV. Local cable company Sophon/BTV. Around 1000 Baht for the hook-up and 450 Baht/monthly. Even less if you pay 6 months/1 year upfront. Only so-so quality, and sport coverage is not very good, but cheap.

UBC sattelite TV: hook-up is very dependent on current promotion, Between 4000 and 10000 Baht. Monthly fee is 1750 Baht. Expensive but very good sport coverage, very good quality apart from drop-outs during heavy rainfall.

Most bars/pubs with big screens have UBC and will show all big sporting events, so you'll get by with Sophon and drop down to the pub if you need to see a game!

Edited July 1, 2005 by monty

[patsfangr]

Pattaya:

I guess anywhere you rent or buy, water and electricity are connected already.

If you buy and you still have to connect, would be hard to give a price as this will most probably be dependant on the development you buy in.

Anyway, in my opinion any decent builder should take care of these hassles for you.

Most houses/apartments just leave utilities hooked up when not rented out, since the maintenace fee is very low when no consumption...

Telephone: connection cost between 3000 and 3500 Baht for a house. In a condo you will have to add an amount payable to the juristic of the building (in my condo it's 1200 Baht/line)

Monthly fixed fee 107 Baht + calls. Local calls 3 Baht, not time metered and long distance calls between 3 Baht and 12 Baht/minute

Internet: if you have adsl available, both TT&T and TOT (the phoneline operators) have cheap packages available of around 800 Baht/month for 512/256.

No start-up fees apart from paying 2 months up-front and buying your own modem/router...

If no adsl, you're stuck on dial-up. Packages for unlimited access are less than 500 Baht/month. 1 phonecall will be billed 3 Baht, irrespective of how long the call is.

Cable TV. Local cable company Sophon/BTV. Around 1000 Baht for the hook-up and 450 Baht/monthly. Even less if you pay 6 months/1 year upfront. Only so-so quality, and sport coverage is not very good, but cheap.

UBC sattelite TV: hook-up is very dependent on current promotion, Between 4000 and 10000 Baht. Monthly fee is 1750 Baht. Expensive but very good sport coverage, very good quality apart from drop-outs during heavy rainfall.

Most bars/pubs with big screens have UBC and will show all big sporting events, so you'll get by with Sophon and drop down to the pub if you need to see a game!

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Thanks, Monty! Very valuable information. What about the English language programming (all types) available on cable vs. sat? I have gotten the impression from what I've read thusfar in the Forum that sat offers much more of it. True? Is there much U.S. programming on either? I mean, we fought long and hard to get that ###### Brit accent out of our country!

George

[Digger]

Just to add to other comments about telephone and Internet in Pattaya and its surrounding neighborhoods (particularly up by Maprachan Resevoir which is about 8Km's out of town centre) - due to popularity of this area, phone lines are like gold dust and virtually impossible to get. Do not believe the developer unless they can show you lines working in the property you want to buy or rent. If no phone already, odds are that property will not have one for many years due to the fact that although many many houses are being built around the resevoir, the phone companies for some reason are not laying additional cables and all the existing ones are full.

Hi speed Internet also does not extend this far at the moment, but of course like the phone lines, you will hear the comment "oh it will be here in next few months" - be very wary of that and do your homework. the local phone office will tell you how likely it is to have phone lines and hi-speed internet.

[monty]

digger,

It is indeed difficult to ge phone lines at the moment around the lake, but not impossible so.

I just got two lines through a "fixer" at a cost of 18000 Baht each. (includes some 900 meter cabling for each line into my housing project)

Certainly not cheap but worth it for me.

If you are on a TT&T number (038 733 XXX or 038 734 XXX) you can get adsl.

You do have to be within a radius of 3km from their exchange, which is close to the intersection of the road between Mabprachan & Naklua and the road to Crocodile farm.

If you live further away (between 3 and 6km) you can still apply (have to pay upfront 1690 Baht) and you stand a good chance it'll work OK. If it doesn't you just lose the 1690 Baht!

[tuky]

SRIRACHA

Water service, pressure, and cost

Depends on where your intending to live, we have mains water probably 90% of the time, but normally just a phone call and 15 minutes away is a refill. haven't really paid too much attention to the volume we get delivered but cheap water is 150 baht per truck load and better water is 300 baht per load. Pressure is non existent so a pump is needed to pressurise the retic. Cost I am unsure of, but obviously the less you use the less you pay

Electricity service and cost

In our previous house in Sriracha we lost power quite regularly, this was mainly due to upgrades that were taking place to supply the moobaans further down the road. Now that we live in one of the moobaans we have yet to have a power cut. The voltage is a bit up and down though so it does pay to have some sort of protection on your expensive kit. Cost depends on usage, but we are spending around the 3k per month range.

Telephone service and cost

In our previous house we diod not have a land line at all. The cabling was there but the exchange could not allocate us a number. We tried bribes, we pestered etc etc for over two years, now in our new house we have two phone lines Our phone bill is extremely high, but that is due to overseas calls.

Internet service and cost

Due to not having a land line in our old house, we got an Ipstar internet connection. 256/128 costs us about 4k per month. Very expensive considering what is available now, I will soon be looking into an ADSL provider.

Ipstar has not caused me too many problems, I did however have to replace the sat box not too long ago so I had a couple of days downtime. New box and all is well.

TV service and cost

We have PTV cable. I think it costs roughly 400 baht per month. English speaking channels are A1, Star World, BBC News, Fox News, A movie channel, ABC AsiaPacific, Reality TV, um a few more but I cannot remember.

Hope that helps.

[patsfangr]

WOW! Thanks for taking the time to provide that detailed response, Tuky! As with most of life, there's some good news and some bad news in there.

You mentioned using "Ipstar" for your internet connection. Am I correct in assuming that this is a satellite service? Is satellite connection subject to monitoring by big brother, as I gather that land lines are - blocked sites, etc? Looks like speed is slower than ADSL, which surprises me.

As an aside, the contrast in areas of "progress" in Asia are fascinating. In Shanghai, as in Thailand, the more essential elements of modern technology, such as simple telephone lines, are still difficult to obtain, and less reliable than they should be. Yet they have cable and satellite TV, and many other "modern technologies" that actually seem to be ahead of the older ones. 'Tis a puzzlement! Likewise, they don't seem to be able to manage maintenance of facilities or roadways to anywhere near Western standards.

George

SRIRACHA

Water service, pressure, and cost

Depends on where your intending to live, we have mains water probably 90% of the time, but normally just a phone call and 15 minutes away is a refill. haven't really paid too much attention to the volume we get delivered but cheap water is 150 baht per truck load and better water is 300 baht per load. Pressure is non existent so a pump is needed to pressurise the retic. Cost I am unsure of, but obviously the less you use the less you pay 

Electricity service and cost

In our previous house in Sriracha we lost power quite regularly, this was mainly due to upgrades that were taking place to supply the moobaans further down the road. Now that we live in one of the moobaans we have yet to have a power cut. The voltage is a bit up and down though so it does pay to have some sort of protection on your expensive kit. Cost depends on usage, but we are spending around the 3k per month range.

Telephone service and cost

In our previous house we diod not have a land line at all. The cabling was there but the exchange could not allocate us a number. We tried bribes, we pestered etc etc for over two years, now in our new house we have two phone lines    Our phone bill is extremely high, but that is due to overseas calls.

Internet service and cost

Due to not having a land line in our old house, we got an Ipstar internet connection. 256/128 costs us about 4k per month. Very expensive considering what is available now, I will soon be looking into an ADSL provider.

Ipstar has not caused me too many problems, I did however have to replace the sat box not too long ago so I had a couple of days downtime. New box and all is well.

TV service and cost

We have PTV cable. I think it costs roughly 400 baht per month. English speaking channels are A1, Star World, BBC News, Fox News, A movie channel, ABC AsiaPacific, Reality TV, um a few more but I cannot remember.

Hope that helps.

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