Wifi Choices For New Apartment In Bkk

[ultramarine]

Hi All,

I'm looking to move into a new apartment in BKK for a 6-12 month stay and wanted some clarification about my internet choices. It seems that some apartments already offer wifi on a shared network while others don't and you have to set it up through a provider like True.

I'm wondering how much of a hassle it might be if I go this second route of getting my own account at True. I've read that there are significant early cancellation fees (if less than 12 months) and that extensive documentation is required. Is this still the case?

I'd really appreciate the input anybody who has been through this process recently.

Thanks!

[Rancid]

Essentially the alternatives for WiFi in a new apartment in Bangkok are exactly the same for an old apartment in Bangkok.

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Essentially the alternatives for WiFi in a new apartment in Bangkok are exactly the same for an old apartment in Bangkok.

Sorry if my wording was strange. The apartment would be new for me but not really new. My question was a more general one about wifi choices in an apartment.

[inthepink]

As far as I know, you'll be stuck with whatever WiFi the apartment block is offering, which is often rubbish. I had to move out of the last apartment I rented in bkk because they would not let me put my own line in and the girl who was running the server that split a 4MB True service in between about 40 apartments used to disappear for days on end. In the meantime, the server would crash and leave everybody without Internet access for 2 or 3 days.

This was a particularly bad service I'm sure but you may find it hard to get your own line in many apartment blocks. However, this was 4 or 5 years ago so maybe things have changed in the meantime. You could always try one of those True USB dongles they keep advertising these days if you are not planning to use a torrent client or download huge files in any other way (if you are, an apartment WiFi service is unlikely to be of much use to you anyway).

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Thanks for weighing in. I know that shared apt wifi can be an iffy proposition. It's probably gotten a bit better over time. Thanks for suggesting the dongle option from True. I'm not a big downloader so it's possible. But I think speeds are slow with the dongle. I just called True and the person quoted 128 kb. Not really sufficient.

They also told me that they require a 6 month advance for home internet service if you don't have a work permit. I don't have one, so that's probably off the table. But I do have a Thai friend who can probably have the service put in their name. No advance required. 10 Mbps for 599 a month. Not bad.