Rural Internet Access

[JAG]

Hello

First, I am a technological pigmy, and so I need some very simple answers.

I have a house in a rural part of Chiang Rai Province, in a small village some 25km from town. The village has a landline which runs in along the main road, and supports a couple of telephone call boxes. (why I don't know as everyone has a mobile!)

There are DTAC and AIS towers within about 5km. Edge is available.

I am currently and for the immediate future in the UK, visiting about 4 times a year ( I look after my elderly mother). Wife, daughter and stepson are in my house.

I would like to be able to use Skype Video calls to communicate. I am not over bothered about the video quality, as long as it is workable.

Can anyone suggest how to achieve this? Options seem to be:

1. Aircard with DTAC or AIS, although there seems to be some doubt as to wether this would be fast enough to support Skype Video.

2. A landline into the house from TOT. Again, I suspect that the distance from the exchange is such that the copper string would be unable to provide a fast enough connection for Skype Video.

3. A Sattelite connection.

Has any kind soul any suggestions?

Thank You

[CharlieH]

In my experience of living in a rural area, if the house is more than 100 metres from the main road you can forget any conventional "landline" type solution.If you go to "wireless" type solutions such as Edge etc the general quality and speed is not good even on good days and probably wont be good enough for any type of decent skype calls. In my experience the better "wireless" version is CAT cdma, available from Cat Telecom, it certainly is in my area and its stronger and more reliable. You would need to get your friend to check out coverage for that area.

The Internet generally outside of the cities is awful in comparison and the more rural you get the more problems you will have. The speeds here are slow, intermittant and if it rains you can just forget it altogether.If communication is important, stick to telephone calls, they would be better and there are many cheap options available for long distance calling.

Skype is very doubtful for the more rural places,I suggest it would probably be very annoying and frustrating.If you want to test the type of skype you would get then ask your friend to go to a local Internet cafe and try it ? atleast you can see what could be achieved.

Edited July 31, 2011 by CharlieH

[DanR]

I sometimes have to connect using edge. It's just about possible to send an email or look at the latest headlines but that's about it. 3g is on its way but I wouldn't hold your breath.

[billd766]

I have been living out in the sticks for 7 years now and when we built the place 8 years ago we asked for a phone line.

By this month TOT have finally crept up to 750 metres away from our place and told my wife that if we can get 15 consumers they will run the lines for us.

They can't tell us if we got to this stage whether we can actually get an ADSL line or not and as each line is only 100 baht per month, with 4 of us taking lines it would be cheap enough.

However if we took the lines and didn't get ADSL we will be stuck with 400 baht a month for at least a year with nothing to show for it.

On the other hand I do use EDGE on DTAC and have a card for AIS as well as a backup.

It works fairly well but Skype is not that good at the best of times.

[kokesaat]

My experience 18km outside the city center of Udon in a village that survives on weaving thatch roofs:

In the past year/two, TOT has installed network stations in front of all the schools that run along the highway outside the city. We live 1100meters off of the highway and 1200meters away from the nearest network station. Our ADSL line has been fine and actually seems to be improving over the past year. I've seen TOT installing fiber optic cable along the highway......so I'm guessing (not a geek) that fiber optic will be connected to the schools (network boxes) and then copper to the homes.

If there are TOT lines in your village, there may be hope. TOT may have a line available, or you may be able to convince a neighbor to cash in his line for you.

Every village is different....really no matter how far you live from the city.

Good luck

[afarang]

I have used both satellite ( for 4 years)and CDMA ( for 2 years) CDMA is better than satellite. Landline ? I live in a quite large town(Ban Kruat) ,now. NO landline possible .Please ,do not believe the bullshit TOT tell you. They would have to be the biggest l---- b------ of c----this world has ever seen.Rain? (very heavy) yes Satellite lost the signal. CDMA? no loss of signal.We have had some outages with CDMA, technical faults. For sure ,not too many ,but very annoying when they happen. No such problems with satellite. My satellite dish DID get struck by lightning AND blew my monitor to smithereens, to boot.Overall ,I much prefer CDMA to Satellite

[Chivas]

I sometimes have to connect using edge. It's just about possible to send an email or look at the latest headlines but that's about it. 3g is on its way but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Sorry buts thats utter rubbish !!

Edge is perfectly usable for everyday browsing emails news banking listening to BBC 2 (in my case) etc

It wont obviously play Youtube or stream TV but it runs my financial trading platform with no delay on executing orders.

[JAG]

Gentlemen, thank you for your replies.

CAT CDMA looks to be the way forward.

JAG