Best Wi-Fi Hot-Spot Coverage

[NanLaew]

I have been a tried and tested AIS one-2-call customer since I bought a SIM for Thai travel in the US back in 2005. I am Serenade Platinum by way of the years service and my average monthly spending. I enjoy the coverage while I am in Bangkok, home in Udon and also notice that their international roaming is getting easier. I have their unlimited monthly 799 baht +tax 3G data enabled as well as a couple of other services.

The one aspect that I have found less than stellar is their wifi hot-spot accessibility either standalone or via the 3bb co-service. The hot spots seem few and far between and the ones that do show as available, usually have a very low signal strength and either logging on fails or they suddenly disconnect. I have noticed that in most instances True hot spots seem much more prolific and invariably seem to have stronger signals.

I am pondering paying the 300 baht/month and register for the TrueMove wifi access so that I have better connectivity when AIS/3bb falls over or doesn't show up. Does anyone else have an opinion on the best-value hot-spot service for a frequent traveler?

[GrahamF]

Excellent question! I am new to the 3BB hotspots and I have found, so far, your conclusions about the service to be correct. I have been diligently checking my wifi as I travel around and have not been very happy with the 3BB connections or its availability. Purely my own conclusion, but as I have been checking wifi, I have certainly noticed more and stronger signals with True.A friend of mine is looking for a wifi only package to use with his tablet as he is out and about and it seems that True has this with their 300 baht/mth package, is that correct?

[monty]

Wifi hotspots by their very nature are not very good coverage wise. They have very limited range, you almost have to be able to visually see the thing to have a good connection!

And when you put too many in a close area they start to interfere with each other.

But yes, True wifi seems to have the most installed, they have been putting them up for many years, long before AIS/3BB started installing theirs.

Never really used one, but from many reports I have read/heard on True wifi they seem to be overloaded, and many mobile users after a few minutes simply revert back to their 3G connection as the wifi is dead slow, even with full signal!

I think 3BB seems to put them up wherever they install a DSLAM.

And then it's utterly confusing as well, as I see so many wifi AP's with either Truewifi or 3BB in their SSID, with the majority being simply home/business users who never bothered to change the default SSID the ISP put in the wifi router...

[lomatopo]

AIS claims 50,000 hotspots while True claims 30,000.

in Thai:

http://hotspot.3bb.co.th/wifi/location.php

http://www.truewifi.net/2011/findhotspot.htm

I have pretty good luck with True but rarely switch over now as I just use 3G. Until recently 3G coverage in some indoor locations was unavailable, while WiFi was, and I'd switch over in those instances. Now it seems like 3G is available pretty much everywhere I go so I hardly bother with the WiFi anymore.

TrueMove have a lot of different WiFI packages, but yes, there is a 300 baht/month package: http://www.truewifi.net/2011/buy_wifi.htm

[Deke]

I have both. I get the True WiFi as part of my ADSL package and buy the AIS (3BB) connection separately. True does seem to have better coverage; in Bangkok at least, but the 3BB access points seem to be more reliable in terms of ability to connect.

Just my experience.