New 3G And 4G Services Get Mixed Reactions

[sumrit]

Yeh thats what I thought. But not according to my AIS assistant before she upgraded it. Says phone wont work in China or UK.

Anyway went ahead with the upgrade now active. Cant see i notice any difference in call quality, internet speed....

As far as I'm aware all 3G services in the UK were on 900Mhz but are now on 2100Mhz. So if your phone supports 2100Mhz put a UK sim in it and you'll get 3G.

Edited June 2, 2013 by sumrit

[lomatopo]

Maybe this new subsidiary, AWN, doesn't have whatever internal procedures in place to handle International Roaming?

http://www.ais.co.th/roaming/en/index.html

This PDF shows China Unicom in China, but nothing for the U.K. (Britain, England, et al.) that I can

see.

http://www.ais.co.th/roaming/en/pdf/Postpaid_Rates.pdf

Maybe they're getting new IR partners presently?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

As I said above, I couldn't quite follow what the AIS CSR was talking about in terms of trying to explain why they weren't just automatically upgrading farang accounts that had specifically pre-registered to the new 2100 Mhz 3G service, the same way they're doing for Thais.

But as best as I could follow, the guy seemed to be talking about some situation where a farang AIS customer here might want to go abroad and use international roaming and not be able to (though I'm not sure how that scenario would be any different for someone who used to be on AIS 900 Mhz vs. someone now who might be on the new 2100 Mhz service.)

But as I pointed out to the CSR, I didn't have international roaming on my AIS account at present and hadn't ever had international roaming with them in the past.... so why would they think I cared anything on that subject. Or maybe the guy was just blowing smoke out of his ***.

Edited June 2, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Dork]

But whats the international roaming difficulties with this 2100MHZ service as I believe not all countries support it.

Once switched over to 2100mhz on AIS, is it necessary to have Data Roaming enabled so that the device can roam to 900mhz?

It's just occurred to me that if that's the case, it's a big problem and that could be why AIS are reluctant to switch some subscribers over. In fact if it is the case, I will cancel my application for 2100 immediately.

I have to travel to neighbouring countries frequently and if I forget to switch off Data Roaming (which I will) then I'm going to have some huge data roaming bills. The roaming charges on data can be literally outlandish.

Can anyone confirm whether this is the case?

[dharmabm]

But whats the international roaming difficulties with this 2100MHZ service as I believe not all countries support it.

Once switched over to 2100mhz on AIS, is it necessary to have Data Roaming enabled so that the device can roam to 900mhz?

It's just occurred to me that if that's the case, it's a big problem and that could be why AIS are reluctant to switch some subscribers over. In fact if it is the case, I will cancel my application for 2100 immediately.

I have to travel to neighbouring countries frequently and if I forget to switch off Data Roaming (which I will) then I'm going to have some huge data roaming bills. The roaming charges on data can be literally outlandish.

Can anyone confirm whether this is the case?

this does seem to be the case, and also in one particular place where i had trouble with the old 3g and had to select '2g only' (because my devices saw the 3g signal but there was not enough strength to get data), i now have to enable roaming, select 2g only and manually connect to TH GSM. apparently there is no 2g available on the 52003 network and it does not switch automatically, at least for me.

i should add though that aside from this i have been relatively satisfied with the new service.

Edited June 3, 2013 by dharmabm

[bkkguy1970]

3G speeds vary a lot depending on a number of factors -- how many people are using that network, your distance from the antenna, what's between you and the antenna, who's between you and the antenna, your machine's ability...

yes, this is the usual litany you hear from AIS and the other mobile operators here - and to be fair in most other countries as well, but it misses the point

apart from "your machine's ability" all of these "factors" are just excuses the mobile operators use to justify over-subscribing their inadequate network infrastructure - if there are too many people using the network or too few base stations to provide adequate coverage in certain areas the operators should be improving the infrastructure rather than blaming the customer for trying to use the service they have been (over)sold!

though again to be fair, internationally services advertised as 3G are required to meet IMT-2000 technical standards and are required to provide peak data rates of at least 200 kb/s or 0.2 Mb/s, or according to some interpretations 384 kb/s - so I suppose bitching about struggling to achieve speeds of 1 Mb/s let alone 5 Mb/s are just unrealistic consumer expectations!

that fact that these consumer expectations are fueled by mobile operator ads offering "next generation" "high speed" connections at speeds "up to" some number at the upper limit of the 3G spec that their network is not capable of delivering is usually conveniently ignored by mobile operators, regulatory bodies and consumer protection agencies in Thailand and most other countries!

but having just come back from a week in Singapore using a SingTel pre-paid 3G SIM in a flagship Android phone I don't think I will be complaining about the AIS 3G quite as vociferously as I used to.

bkkguy

Edited June 5, 2013 by bkkguy1970