Can Someone Please Spell It Out For Me? Gpr What?

[8i8]

ok, i've just spent 2.5 hours (!!!) reading the posts about GPRS and my head is spinning from all the information and all the contradicting opinions. so perhaps YOU would like to clarify.

i think i've decided to settle down in koh-phangan. since i don't want to be limited to the-one-place-on-the-island-that-offered-me-a-land-line, i'm now looking into GPRS.

i still haven't bought a computer, or a mobile phone, so basically i'm starting from scratch.

so....

has anyone had experience with gprs on koh-phangan?

what kind of speeds can you get? coverage?

many people here recommended DTAC, but then a few said HUTCH is superior. is that available in phangan?

which mobile phone would you recommend? i don't care if it takes photos or anything, as long as it does the internet thing... how much does it cost?

when you say approx. 900 baht unlimited surfing, is that all inclusive? or are there hidden payments for the ISP or phone company or...

are any of those options possible without using a thai friend's service?

and finally, i plan to buy a mac-mini. does this work with a mac? should i upgrade it to include Internal Bluetooth?

have i forgotten anything?

if you've read all this, you are a very kind person indeed...

d

[ode]

I used DTAC edge/gprs in Bangkok. It's okeish... if EDGE in use. GPRS is slow.

If you'r not using internet much, maybe. Otherwise, I would consider two-way satellite system if out of reach from ADSL service.

/ode

[ProThaiExpat]

I am not surprised at your confusion, as I have read almost all of the posts in the last three years regarding internet connectivity and they vary from enthusastic to very negative on every provider and system. Name the system and you can find a post that slams it.

I have had GPRS from AIS for three years in Chiang Mai and have used it when visiting Pattaya. The system is as good as the dialup I had with loxinfo and j-net. It is slower than ADSL, broadband and Ipstar, when they are available and Ipstar is worling.

My cost on an old unlimited program is 850 a month.

I was living without a landline for the last three years, until last week when TOT finally came through. When I saw a GPRS system in a Fujitsu demo booth in Carrefour, I was intrigued. They were very professional and were using a Sierra Wireless card in their laptops.

The cost was irrlevant to me at the time, as I had no internet at home due to the lack of a land line and so I was really thrilled. I required that they set up the system on my laptop, Dell Inspiron 4100, as a condition of purchase. The cost was15,000 Baht for the wireless card.

I didn't know it at the time, but my laptop has a card slot on the side that receives various cards, one of which is the wireless card. About the size of a quarter deck of playing cards, the wireless card itself has a slot to recieve a "sim" card from any of the cell phone providers.

The Fujitsu people took me to the main AIS office in Chiang Mai and signed me up and installed the program and had me online in a jiffy, right at the AIS office. The account is in my name.

Since my primary conectivity point to the AIS cell phone system is their relay antenna in Chiang Mai, that is the crititcal element when your out in the "boonies" so to speak.

I am sure a visit to each of the cellphone providers in your planned area of location will let you know where there closest cellphone relay stattion is.

Thus, the software program that came with the wireless card on my laptop connects me to the internet via the cellphne lsim card ink contained in my wireless card. I can make voice calls while online. There is a phonebook in the software program. I have been online many times a day for the past few months and I have been trouble free, sometimes slow, but often it is my browser, also somtimes a re-boot or re-logon solves the "stuck" problem. Remember, we are dealing with Thailands far from ideal portal situation to international internet sites.

I am due to get a another laptop from IBM, used, reconditioned and originally very expensive model, through my daughter an IBM employee and I explored a PC replacement and a blue tooth connection. Both my daughter and her husband, another IBMer, advised me blue tooth was not dependable and advised against it.

I know there are many posts from blue tooth advocates.

When you think about it, every problematic step you can remove from the origin of your imput, your laptop and your target, a website, the better.

Thus I reasoned that by sticking with the wireless card in my computer, I only hand the prolematic connection to the AIS cellphone relay station to deal with, where if I had a PC, I would have the PC connection via blue tooth to the sim card in cellphone and then the cellphone to the cellphone relay station to deal with. By eliminating the wireless connection between the computer and the cellphone, I was eliminating a connection that is rumored to be a major problem area by many posters.

I have posted in detail, as I find bald faced opinions about how good or bad somehting is as not illuminating at all.

IMHO internet service is poor in general in Thailand once you get out of the metropolitan areas and it is just something you have to live with for now. If Shin ever gets the new Ipstar sallelite up and that service proves good, I would change to get better speed.

I have often wondered why UBC doesn't use its existing T.V. sattelite connections to offer a form of broadband to its residential customers? I suspect it has to do with infrasturcture on the existing sattelite, something the new ipstar is supposed to cure.

My advice would be to pick the best cellphone service provider in your area, easy to determine among cellphone users and then connect to their GPRS system with a wireless card, thus eliminating the blue tooth additional connection.

I did explore a wireless card for a PC and there are ports that can be installed into a PC, if you have one made on a custom basis, but the computer partss are not available in Thailand. You need to order them from overseas.

I have decded to live with my current slow AIS GPRS wireless card approach with a laptop for convenience of use for me, feet up in my lazyboy, even with the land line now in place until broadband, ADSL or some other reliable high speed internet system comes along. I have learned to live with the slow speed, as my life was intended to slow down here when I retired to Thailand. I am sure, slow speeds drive working Bankokiaans crazy, but they have broadband to server their frantic lives.

Good luck with anything that you come up with that works for you. PM me if you have any specific questions for me.

[8i8]

hi all,

thanx for the replies...

any other opinios?

8i8

[stumonster]

prothaiexpat gave you a nice summary.

I am a bluetooth user with my GPRS phone and use it when I am away from home , though it came in handy the other week when the phone line was inexplicably disconnected for a couple of days.

definately go for the EDGE option if you can ( either phone or pc card ) , as the cost when using is the same price here in thailand.

I have a USB bluetooth dongle for my computer , my PDA has BT built in and I use a nokia NGAGE which has BT. Other cool things you can do with your BT enabled phone is use it as a remote control for winamp and power point.

[pluto_manibo]

What speed are you connected at with the gprs?? faster then dial up?

[Khutan]

What speed are you connected at with the gprs?? faster then dial up?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

About the same

[craig]

Thanks to 8i8 for starting this topic and to ProThaiExpat for his great reply. I'be been reading about it on the internet and am really confused.

I will move to the countryside near Sattahip at the end of September and am told I will have some difficulty in getting a landline phone...I presently am in Jomtien and use a dialup which is slow but I can live with it...I don't download a lot of graphics. I'be read about Maxnet and the Sierra Wireless from Edge Thailand....then I read that some cellphones can be used as a modem.

This just confused me more...So, I would really appreciate some more recommendations based on personal experience...

Thanks to all.

[ProThaiExpat]

While my Sierra Wireless software tells me I am connected to AIS GPRS at 40 GBPS, on the occasions when I have downloaded updates I have been advised that I am downloading at around 4GBPS. Online meter sites likesise report my download speed at abou 4GBPS.

I concur that it seems to me to be the same speed I got from loxinfo and g-net dial up when I was in a condo three years ago.

[yuyi]

I use(d) GPRS from AIS and DTAC, EDGE from DTAC, and CDMA from Hutch.

Very clearly the winner is Hutch with CDMA.

I can downlaod a > 4 GB DVD with Hutch in 4 days. Try that with Dialup or GPRS! You will not make it, even not in 2 weeks.

Check with Hutch if you get it where you are. The greater Bangkok and all Eastern Seabord is fine, down to Satahip. Craig, this is what you should try first. It gives you about 3 times the speed of dialup, and it works quite reliably, at least by Thai standards. Hutch did sell a PCMCIA wireless card for it, but now it is sold out, they offer a modem which gets connected by USB. Thus you can use it for a notebook and for a desktop PC. About 900 - 1000 baht / month.

Hutch also sells a 2 of its phones with data cables, they will work the same, but more inconvenient, and the batteries of the phones will be empty in about 1 hour of Internet connection.

Sorry, not yet available for Koh Samui or Koh Phangan. But check with Hutch.

Runner up is DTAC with GPRS / EDGE

DTAC will work using GPRS in all Thailand and automatically using EDGE where it is available. This is currently the greater Bangkok and parts of the Eastern Seabord, around Pattaya. The DTAC office in the former World trade center in Bangkok can tell you exactly if the next DTAC tower to your home can do EDGE already.

GPRS and EDGE suffer much more than Hutch's CDMA from a latency and dropped package problem. That's what makes it slower than it theoretically is. EDGE should be faster than Hutch's CDMA, but it is not, it rarely can keep pace with it at downloads, and never at regular browsing. But EDGE is much better than GPRS.

Therefore if you cannot get Hutch's CDMA, try DTAC's GPRS / EDGE. They sell in DTAC office in the former World trade center in Bangkok a Sony Ericson EDGE card for notebooks (around 13000 baht), and this will automatically use EDGE where available, and otherwise GPRS.

I tested it in the deepest Isaan, and on Koh Samui, it works, you can do Email, and slow browsing, but sometimes it cannot load some sites, or freezes at FTP uploads.

I assume it works also on Koh Phangan with GPRS. About 1000 baht per month.

Next is Orange

GPRS only, but you can use some wireless (WIFI) hotspots free in Bangkok and maybe elsewhere. I don't know if they will offer EDGE etc one day. About 1000 baht /month.

Last is AIS

GPRS works as good, or better said as bad as DTAC GPRS. But no option for EDGE, probably never. They f***cked up their network by mixing equipment from different vendors using different technologies. This made the purchasing department guys rich but the network incompatible with EDGE. About 1000 baht /month. They had offers using Sierra Wireless PCMCIA cards.

Plus the service is not as good as Hutch or DTAC.

Do not believe if anybody tells you that you can receive only AIS and not DTAC. In most, if not all cases, you can receive DTAC where ever you can receive AIS. In the deepest Isaan I have seen DTAC being better than AIS myself.

============

You will not need another contract with an ISP. The ISP service is included in the offers from all the vendors listed above. Besides VAT no additional costs, but make sure you get a contract with unlimited data traffic, or at least 1 GB / month, if you only browse and check email, without bigger downloads.

[craig]

Yuyi,

Thanks again for this information and for your quick reply to my PM.

I will plan a trip to Sri Racha toward the end of the month. Would you send the number of the Lady manager who speaks English...I will go with my Thai wife so this should help in communicating.

How much money will this entail? The USB modem is probably what I will use.

Again thanks for your help....

[monty]

Yuyi,

Are you sure of edge being available on the Eastern Seaboard (especially the Jomthien area)....

If so, then Mr. Toxin and AIS will loose one customer

As long as it is just regular gprs, there is not much point in switching as they both offer comparable speeds!

[yuyi]

Yuyi,

Are you sure of edge being available on the Eastern Seaboard (especially the Jomthien area)....

Yes, definitely. The DTAC tower at Lotus south (corner sukhumvit to Threppasit road) does EDGE, and that is almost Jomtien already. And there are more DTAC towers there with EDGE. Download speed are up to 3 times GPRS speed, so obviously it works there.

In BKK in the DTAC office in the world trade center they can look it up for every single tower, and tell you if it has EDGE already.

I made a test once in Phoenix Golf Club and I think the speed was also clearly above GPRS speed.

But even with EDGE you do have the GPRS latency problem, and downloads get stuck often due to too many dropped packages.

If so, then Mr. Toxin and AIS will loose one customer   

They lost me long time ago

As long as it is just regular gprs, there is not much point in switching as they both offer comparable speeds!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Absolutely.

But for you I would recommend to switch to Hutch CDMA. It is faster, and much more reliable that GPRS and also EDGE. The latency is much better, and not so many dropped packages.

Hutch CDMA is working fine from Bangkok down to Chonburi, Pattay, Jomtien, I tried it also at the Phoenix Golf Club, which is almost Satahip.

As said, I did download using Hutch CDMA several 4 GB DVDs with Linux source code (for beta testing), one DVD took about 4 days.

[yuyi]

Yuyi,

Thanks again for this information and for your quick reply to my PM.

I will plan a trip to Sri Racha toward the end of the month.  Would you send the number of the Lady manager who speaks English...I will go with my Thai wife so this should help in communicating.

How much money will this entail?  The USB modem is probably what I will use. 

Again thanks for your help....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fujitsu shop Sriracha

khun Sirintra (May)

038310863

016868112

As said, she speaks some English.

They will do all Hutch paperwork, but bring your wife's housepaper plus ID card plus a recent utility bill, plus copies.

They had the Hutch airplus on stock some time ago, but you might want to check first.

I forgot the price for the airplus USB modem. It is the same as at Hutch directly.

Monthly costs < 1000 baht for the subscription.

Good luck!

[stumonster]

some nice posts here yuyi , thanks for sharing the hard work you have done with us.

for the Hutch CDMA internet access , do you recieve a sim card? I was wondering if you could use a 900/1800/1900, EDGE and WCDMA phone if the device you wish to use does not have a USB host? My pocketPC has bluetooth but no USB host.

I am just about to buy a new phone and was looking at the nokia 6230i , but there are some new phones out which do both EDGE and WCDMA so if it would work I would think it was worth paying an extra couple of thousand. the nokia 6680 supports both gsm and cdma.

http://www.slashphone.com/72/1418.html

edit - there seems to be a few phones out there with WCDMA and EDGE capability , am having a look around now - I had previously ignored the CDMA phone as I did not realise until yuyi spoke up that there was a good WCDMA network available.

Edited August 5, 2005 by stumonster

[yuyi]

some nice posts here yuyi , thanks for sharing the hard work you have done with us.

you're welcome

for the Hutch CDMA internet access , do you recieve a sim card?

The Sierra Wireless PCMCIA CDMA card does not have a sim, or the cdma equivalent of it. But as far as I know the Hutch Airplus USB modem does have such a card. (I did not buy the airplus, because when i bought they offered the Sierra Wireless PCMCIA CDMA card, which was fine for me).

I was wondering if you could use a 900/1800/1900, EDGE and WCDMA phone if the device you wish to use does not have a USB host? My pocketPC has bluetooth but no USB host.

I am just about to buy a new phone and was looking at the nokia 6230i , but there are some new phones out which do both EDGE and WCDMA so if it would work I would think it was worth paying an extra couple of thousand. the nokia 6680 supports both gsm and cdma.

http://www.slashphone.com/72/1418.html

edit - there seems to be a few phones out there with WCDMA and EDGE capability , am having a look around now - I had previously ignored the CDMA phone as I did not realise until yuyi spoke up that there was a good WCDMA network available.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have tried GPRS once with a GPRS phone and a datacable. It did work, but it was even worse than GPRS with the Sierra Wireless PCMCIA GPRS card or the Axen PCMCIA GPRS card. The phone I tested seemed to add to the latency problem.

For Hutch, they sell a datacable and the cdma Internet subscription for 2 of their sanyo phones. That is supposed to work as well as the PCMCIA cards, but I have not tested it yet. They told me though that if you use the phone with the datacable for Internet access then the battery of the phone would be empty after about one hour already. So you would need to connect the charger plus the datacable when using the internet.

Do these phones have a Sim card, or the cdma equivalent of it? I do not know, I haven't bought one yet. I almost did, but then they extended my contract for the Sierra Wireless PCMCIA CDMA card and unlimited Internet access, so I did not need it.

[yuyi]

I had previously ignored the CDMA phone as I did not realise until yuyi spoke up that there was a good WCDMA network available.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Stumonster, please be aware that Hutch CDMA is not WCDMA .

WCDMA / UMTS would be nice to have.

Hutch CDMA is giving you theoretically a little slower speed than EDGE. I download with Hutch CDMA with 16 kB/sec. EDGE gives me in good moments around 20 kB/sec. But that does last a few seconds only, then it drops to half of it or less. However Hutch CDMA can be quite stable, staying a long time around 14 - 16 kB/sec .

WCDMA stands for "wide-band CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), a 3G technology that increases data transmission rates in GSM systems by using the CDMA air interface instead of TDMA. WCDMA is based on CDMA and is the technology used in UMTS, offering excellent voice capacity and a peak data rate of 384 kbps".

384 kbps would be really nice. EDGE and Hutch CDMA (~150 kbps) have about half of that today.

Edited August 6, 2005 by yuyi

[stumonster]

thx yuyi.

in the end I decided to stick with GPRS/EDGE and went and purchaced a nokia 6230i for 12k baht from MBK yesterday.

# EDGE Class 10 (4+1, 3+2): speed up to 236.8 Kbit/s

http://www.nokia.com.sg/nokia/0,8764,72747,00.html

[billd766]

While CDMA and WCDMA is very nice and useful if you are doing a lot of downloads etc it is not widely available outside the cities and main roads.

Spare a thought for us people living in the sticks where the choice is GPRS on AIS or DTAC. It takes a long time to download even some photos and 2 hours on line at one time is sometimes possible.

On the other hand it is a lot nicer up here where life is slower and mai bpen rai rules the roost.

[Phil Conners]

I can't get ADSL from TTT (box full) and TOT doesn't support ADSL in my area and say it's probably not going to be this year. In the meantime I've been using GPRS first with AIS, later with DTAC. The quality varies a lot, sometimes it's quite usable, other times not. It's generally always better than dialup though.

Inspired by this thread I went to Hutch in Pattaya Tai today to test it myself.

With GPRS I use my normal GPRS enabled phone, connected to my computer with Bluetooth (built into both phone and laptop). This is very transparent once setup. With Hutch apparently the phones can only do phone-duty, for data transfer a special PCMCIA based phone is needed. The card is a whopping 12,900 baht but that includes 7 month use of up to 890 MB bandwidth/month. From the 8th month the cost is 890 baht per month, again up to 890 MB download and after that one baht per MB.

First the guy in the shop tried to convince me that I had to reinstall Windows on my laptop to make it work. I finally convinced him to let me install it and after 2 minutes I was online (without reinstalling Windows of course).

The first test, a webpage to my webmail was a little faster than GPRS on average, but not outrageously so.

Second test, ping to a known US server was considerable better, around 300ms vs. the 900ms I generally get with GPRS.

Third test, traceroute to same server did a lot of timeouts at Hutch's peering hop (CAT). I don't know if this is due to actual problems or a firewall, but it made the test useless.

Last test "the eating of the pudding", a ssh connection to a US server, was very disappointing. I did the old "hold down the x key and see how long it takes for the x-line to come up". Unfortunately it was just as slow as with GPRS.

I realize I should have tried a big download, though that is not really a priority for me. What I really need is a responsive SSH session and webmail.

A final consideration is I live a fair bit out of Pattaya, near Mabprachan lake, and Hutch would not give any guarantees that the coverage would be acceptable in this area, nor did they offer any way for me to test it.

My conclusion is that the marginal improved network is not worth the cost considering the bandwidth cap. Had the price been the same I would probably go with Hutch but my current DTAC subscription is 999 baht/month for unmetered download. With Hutch I would probably double that with overages to the 890 mb limitation and I would have to flex out around 5000 for the needed hardware.

FWIW and YTMW.