A friend of mine is here for 6 months and wants to get a sim card that doesn't need to be renewed monthly. IE. He just wants to put 1000 baht on it and charge it up again when it runs out with no monthly expiry. For example, previously I was with True and had my credit expire each month whether I'd used it up or not which was a bit of a pain.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

true now do 12mth periods...

http://www.truemove.com/en/Chaiyo-SIM.rails

Cheers, thanks for that.

One to Call. Have used for over 10 years and never had any problems. Use it with my Blackberry now and it is great.

Almost all the service providers have some form of long-term expiration; it may even be a sort of consumer-protection requirement. You may have to call the service provider to request this, and there may be a small fee involved. There have been quite a few threads on this, but I can't recall the details. Note that almost all long-term expiration (maximum: 365 days) terms require "activity" (top-up, call out) every 90 days.

You can also create an extended expiration by multiple top-ups, so with a 1,000 baht I think you should be able to get at least six months with most providers.

I use the following SIM, not because of expiry capabilities, but it basically lasts forever. It gets extended 1,000 hours (~ 43 days) each day you use it, and it's got a decent call/sms rate.

http://www.happy.co.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=452&Itemid=495〈=th

DTAC or AIS (`1, 2 Call) may be better for a tourist -- if they will be touring all over. True has poor coverage except in the cities. Both AIS and DTAC have a variety of prepaid cards available. Any of them are good for a month.

With 1-2 call, as little as 300 baht gives you 1 year validity depending on your plan. Make sure it is 300 baht at once, not 100 x 3. same if you do 500 or 1000. 7-11, eservice CC, or bank atm/internet should work. Or ais/ telewiz shop

"2nd best time to plant a tree is today." Sent from ThaiVisa app.

With 1-2 call, as little as 300 baht gives you 1 year validity depending on your plan. Make sure it is 300 baht at once, not 100 x 3. same if you do 500 or 1000. 7-11, eservice CC, or bank atm/internet should work. Or ais/ telewiz shop

"2nd best time to plant a tree is today." Sent from ThaiVisa app.

I just topped up 300 baht with 12 Call, and got 4 weeks validity. So would like to know what plan gives you 365 days.

As long as you have credit on your 12 Call sim, validity is charged at 1 baht per day

you can also use MaoMao 30, which for 30 baht gives you 30 days validity, and 30 mins of 'free' calls valid for 5 days, so just top up every 5 days (x6) to get 6 months validity

I just topped up 300 baht with 12 Call, and got 4 weeks validity. So would like to know what plan gives you 365 days.

As long as you have credit on your 12 Call sim, validity is charged at 1 baht per day

you can also use MaoMao 30, which for 30 baht gives you 30 days validity, and 30 mins of 'free' calls valid for 5 days, so just top up every 5 days (x6) to get 6 months validity

300 baht with One-2-Call generally gets you 45 days across a number of their SIMs.

One-2-Call has a Tesco SIM which gives 60 days for as little as a 50 baht top-up. http://www.ais.co.th/12call/en/simcard-Tescolotus.html

Again, I think each service provider has an option to apply for 365 days validity, for a small fee, but you have to call to request it.

I just topped up 300 baht with 12 Call, and got 4 weeks validity. So would like to know what plan gives you 365 days.

As long as you have credit on your 12 Call sim, validity is charged at 1 baht per day

you can also use MaoMao 30, which for 30 baht gives you 30 days validity, and 30 mins of 'free' calls valid for 5 days, so just top up every 5 days (x6) to get 6 months validity

300 baht with One-2-Call generally gets you 45 days across a number of their SIMs.

One-2-Call has a Tesco SIM which gives 60 days for as little as a 50 baht top-up. http://www.ais.co.th...Tescolotus.html

http://www.thaivisa..../#entry1289678/

http://www.thaivisa....__fromsearch__1

Again, I think each service provider has an option to apply for 365 days validity, for a small fee, but you have to call to request it.

Indeed, and your call charges will be much higher, nothing on 12 call website, so a phonecall it would be

Indeed, and your call charges will be much higher, nothing on 12 call website, so a phonecall it would be

Yes, on some of the longer expiration options the per minute charges tend towards the 1.50 baht/min. and higher range, so you have to make the trade-off decisions based on your individual requirements.

The call/sms rates on the Tesco SIM seem pretty reasonable?

I chose the Happy "Invulnerable" SIM because of the 99 satang/min call/sms rate, 7x24 to all networks. The fact that it never expires, as long as you use it, was a side-benefit of little use to me. I've layered a 1 GB 3G data plan on it as well.

I just topped up 300 baht with 12 Call, and got 4 weeks validity. So would like to know what plan gives you 365 days.

As long as you have credit on your 12 Call sim, validity is charged at 1 baht per day

you can also use MaoMao 30, which for 30 baht gives you 30 days validity, and 30 mins of 'free' calls valid for 5 days, so just top up every 5 days (x6) to get 6 months validity

300 baht with One-2-Call generally gets you 45 days across a number of their SIMs.

One-2-Call has a Tesco SIM which gives 60 days for as little as a 50 baht top-up. http://www.ais.co.th...Tescolotus.html

http://www.thaivisa..../#entry1289678/

http://www.thaivisa....__fromsearch__1

Again, I think each service provider has an option to apply for 365 days validity, for a small fee, but you have to call to request it.

This was a while ago when I first had the Freedom Sim (2bt first min, 0.5bt each additional min. It could have been 500 baht instead of 300 baht, but I do remember a jump to 1 year validity somehow. I switched to smartphone plan and wondered if I was going to lose the validity time. I remember losing some of my validity, but it went right back up to 1 year with a large topup (500 baht or so) I'm still at 333 day validity as of today.

If you do a bunch of 100 baht topups, wouldn't that give you 30 days validity each time anyway? or is it only 30 days from the date of topup?

You can call 1-2 call 1175 (press 2-1-0) for english representative and ask how to get 1 year validity to be sure.

BTW, if your sim card is new, you can get the plan that is 0.97 baht/min 24 hours. But once you switch plans after that, you cannot revert back to that until another promotion comes along.

If you do a bunch of 100 baht topups, wouldn't that give you 30 days validity each time anyway? or is it only 30 days from the date of topup?

The default (Freedom SIM) with One-2-Call is 15 days for a 100 baht top-up, 30 days for 200 baht, up to 1,500 baht for 365 days. Top-ups add to existing validity, up to a maximum of 365 days.

Yup, go with AIS. I bought a 1-2-Call prepaid SIM from a US supplier about 5 years ago before I relocated back here. Never missed much wherever I went in LOS. I also have the 799 baht unlimited monthly 3G package as well as the 3BB Hotspot bundling tacked on. Last top up gave me an expiration sometime way, way, way after I will! I usually top up 1500/month via Bangkok Bank ATM's.

Oh yes... AIS's English speaking help desk operators are bloody good too.

Yup, go with AIS. I bought a 1-2-Call prepaid SIM from a US supplier about 5 years ago before I relocated back here. Never missed much wherever I went in LOS. I also have the 799 baht unlimited monthly 3G package as well as the 3BB Hotspot bundling tacked on. Last top up gave me an expiration sometime way, way, way after I will! I usually top up 1500/month via Bangkok Bank ATM's.

Oh yes... AIS's English speaking help desk operators are bloody good too.

Do they still do the 799b deal????

Yup, go with AIS. I bought a 1-2-Call prepaid SIM from a US supplier about 5 years ago before I relocated back here. Never missed much wherever I went in LOS. I also have the 799 baht unlimited monthly 3G package as well as the 3BB Hotspot bundling tacked on. Last top up gave me an expiration sometime way, way, way after I will! I usually top up 1500/month via Bangkok Bank ATM's.

Oh yes... AIS's English speaking help desk operators are bloody good too.

Do they still do the 799b deal????

As far as know yes. It's 799 baht + tax so 800-odd in reality. Bung 1000 baht on your SIM, call them on 1175 and ask for the unlimited monthly and they will enable it within a few minutes. Make sure you observe the sms they send when the monthly renewal falls due and have enough in the top-up for the next automatic charging, Otherwise you may end with your data service eating up what's left in your account overnight!

You may be better off with one of the new AIS/One-2-Call volume-based data plans?

You can get Unlimited 2 GB for 550 baht/month, so 3G up to 2 GB then 384 Kbps after, and unlimited WiFi.

http://www.ais.co.th/mobileinternet/en/internet-package/#2

DTAC's new pricing includes unlimited even on the 399 baht, 1 GB plan.