Anyone Connect To The Internet Via Their Cell? (gprs)

[poorfarang]

I just got a new cell phone yesterday (samsung D600) and I want to take advantage of its bluetooth features and use it to connect my laptop to the internet.

Has anyone tested this out yet? What kind of speeds are you able to get? How is coverage in places like Samui?

Im trying to set it up now. Im going to go with the 1 baht/min plan until I see how relaible the service and speed is before I commit to a monthly package.

I already have DSL at home but this would be great when I am out around town and on little trip around thailand.

[groo]

I just got a new cell phone yesterday (samsung D600) and I want to take advantage of its bluetooth features and use it to connect my laptop to the internet.

Has anyone tested this out yet? What kind of speeds are you able to get? How is coverage in places like Samui?

Im trying to set it up now. Im going to go with the 1 baht/min plan until I see how relaible the service and speed is before I commit to a monthly package.

I already have DSL at home but this would be great when I am out around town and on little trip around thailand.

u don't sound very poor to me .. ! .. D600. err i have tried using gprs and the whole setup is as bad as it can be!. Don't know about Bluetooth connections between your mobile and your laptop but i always get disconnected between the both. Hence i hate those bluetooth headsets.

nothing gets better than ADSL at this moment for internet browsing until 3G kicks in. And even when does kick in, you might just have to buy a nice new phone if your D600 is not a 3G phone.

3G is being use extensively in Malaysia and Singapore as alternatives to ADSL. GPRS? never had good experiences with it so you might wanna wait till some other post their views on it.

[joka]

hello,

i am using dtac gprs in khanom, and have very few problems. my cell phone only has a class 6 modem, so the maximum speed is only 4kbs. but i usually get that speed all day and night, with very few disconnects. (maybe 3 in one month).

dtac is charging me 999 baht for unlimited gprs, plus another 250 for something , i am not sure what. and if you want to actually use the phone for talking, it's expensive, i think 4 baht a minute with the plan i am on.

also, true mobile has started their own service(formally orange), with unlimited gprs for 500. don't know much else about it.

i am really hoping someone puts up a wimax service on koh samui, as i may be able to pick it up here.

[raro]

Forget about GPRS - if you live in Central Thailand get a Hutch! It's far faster and less complicated to use. Just a PCMCIA Card in your laptop and there you go. Downside.....doesn't work in Yasothorn and Nakhorn Nowhere.

[poorfarang]

I just bought a new laptop, its one of those tiny ones so it doesnt have a pcmcia slot.

I called dtac today and they were having trouble sms'ing me the setup file so I had to manually enter all the settings, but it is still not working.

I hope I get it figured out by tommorrow because im going to take a trip to Samui and Ko Tao this week and since internet is at least 1 baht a min there I might as well pay 1 baht a min to use my laptop wherver I am.

[billd766]

Forget about GPRS - if you live in Central Thailand get a Hutch! It's far faster and less complicated to use. Just a PCMCIA Card in your laptop and there you go. Downside.....doesn't work in Yasothorn and Nakhorn Nowhere.

Actually that is not strictly correct.

If you live in the city or big towns or close to the main highways then the answer is yes. If not or you are more than 10km from the highway or way off the antenna centre line then CDMA is of no use to you.

Also if you only have a CDMA mobile and go to another country without CDMA either rent or buy a GSM mobile.

3G is not available in Thailand yet and when it does arrive it will take a long time to reach the same coverage as 2 or 2.5G due to cost of re-equipping all of the operarors.

I use AIS on a Nokia 6260 with a GPRS package of 120 hours a month for 350 baht.

It works as long as not too many people are on my local site and if they are the service is very slow.

This is due solely to the small size of the site and the fact that AIS doesn't want to expand the site.

Edited March 25, 2006 by billd766

[raro]

I travel about 1,000 km per week throughout the Eastern Seaboard and Bangkok and have almost never a problem with my Hutch connection.

[Gary A]

I'm in the boonies of Loei province. We do have a full phone signal with both D-Tac and AIS. I tried Bluetooth, infrared and a Solomon modem with both AIS and D-Tac. With every combination they ALL sucked.

[Crushdepth]

I just bought a new laptop, its one of those tiny ones so it doesnt have a pcmcia slot.

I called dtac today and they were having trouble sms'ing me the setup file so I had to manually enter all the settings, but it is still not working.

I hope I get it figured out by tommorrow because im going to take a trip to Samui and Ko Tao this week and since internet is at least 1 baht a min there I might as well pay 1 baht a min to use my laptop wherver I am.

DTAC GPRS access point settings are here.

[billd766]

I travel about 1,000 km per week throughout the Eastern Seaboard and Bangkok and have almost never a problem with my Hutch connection.

I was working with Motorola and Hutch abck in 2001 to 2004 and we put a lot of work into that system.

Now Motorola has gone and it is Huai Wei (spelling?) and very few farangs.

You get what you pay for.

I KNOW the Eastern seaboard and Bangkok works but unfortunate they are not the whole country and as I said in an earlier post, off the main highways and out of the big towns and cities there are not enough customers to pay for it.

Edited March 26, 2006 by billd766

[poorfarang]

I got the GPRS internet working on the phone now, and I have the phone seeing the laptop and the laptop seeing the phone, but I cant seem to get online.

Im not sure what the number to dial out should be on the laptop for the D600. Any ideas?

[groo]

I got the GPRS internet working on the phone now, and I have the phone seeing the laptop and the laptop seeing the phone, but I cant seem to get online.

Im not sure what the number to dial out should be on the laptop for the D600. Any ideas?

Oh boy, this is going to be difficult. I am not very sure how it works with the mobile phone but you probably have to set up a networking going between the two, the phone as an internet gateway. Go to Network Connections, then Set up New Network. Then you gotta play with the IP settings. Just try something along those lines until someone else on this forum comes by with a better and more precise way of doing it.

[zzap]

The dial-in no has nothing to do with your phone model it should be done automatically by your modem according to the DTAC setup.

If I remember correctly, AIS initially sent me some very basic instructions on the connection setup, which didn't include a phoneno.

I have an earlier version of Samsung, which connects with a cable, and use AIS. Did you get an installation CD for the Samsung modem into your laptop?

If so, install it, all I do is open the Modem and click on connect.

It's slower than a dial-up connection, but it's all I've got at the moment.

[poorfarang]

Finally got it working!

My Dell X1 came with Toshiba bluetooth stack drivers. After some research I found out that these drivers are no good, so I swapped them out with M$ drivers and restarted and thigns are working.

Right now my cell phone is accross the room and I am connected to it via BT and surfing TV through it!

Not really fast but TRUE has been slow as mollasses lately so it seems"normal" to me.

Thanks everyone.

[kdvsn]

Finally got it working!

My Dell X1 came with Toshiba bluetooth stack drivers. After some research I found out that these drivers are no good, so I swapped them out with M$ drivers and restarted and thigns are working.

Right now my cell phone is accross the room and I am connected to it via BT and surfing TV through it!

Not really fast but TRUE has been slow as mollasses lately so it seems"normal" to me.

Thanks everyone.

Just out of curioisty, what type of numbers do you get when you run this speed test with therr "New York server:

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest

[poorfarang]

Bluetooth:

Download Speed: 97 kbps (12.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 35 kbps (4.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

TRUE DSL 2500 package:

Download Speed: 412 kbps (51.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 374 kbps (46.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

My dsl seems really slow though. Almost the same as the BT

[kdvsn]

Bluetooth:

Download Speed: 97 kbps (12.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 35 kbps (4.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

TRUE DSL 2500 package:

Download Speed: 412 kbps (51.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 374 kbps (46.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

My dsl seems really slow though. Almost the same as the BT

Thanks. Those seem like pretty good speeds for a cell phone connection, I think that I'll try doing the same on my Ericsson T39m phone.

BTW, using the above speed testing web site I can often get 1500 kps download speed using a wired broadband connection at one of the big hotels in Bangkok but it's common to get numbers not much better than your cell phone's GPRS results when connecting from cyber cafe's in Samui.

[tjo o tjim]

Since you are going, for Koh Tao, AIS is the only provider with gprs. Orange has no service and DTAC is voice only.

[kdvsn]

Since you are going, for Koh Tao, AIS is the only provider with gprs. Orange has no service and DTAC is voice only.

I was thinking of trying and AIS prepaid card. Apparently those cards can be enabled for GPRS. I previously tried an Orange prepaid card and was able to connnect with GSM (as opposed to GPRS) and while it did work it operated at only 9600 bps.

[poorfarang]

Bluetooth from Samui. Not fast but I can deal with it because im in the middle of nowhere.

Results:

Download Speed: 56 kbps (7 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 17 kbps (2.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Signed up for Dtac's package, 140 GPRS hours for 400 baht. Not bad I guess. At least when Im at starbucks in Bangkok I wont have to pay 150 baht an hour for wifi!

[Totster]

Since you are going, for Koh Tao, AIS is the only provider with gprs. Orange has no service and DTAC is voice only.

I was thinking of trying and AIS prepaid card. Apparently those cards can be enabled for GPRS. I previously tried an Orange prepaid card and was able to connnect with GSM (as opposed to GPRS) and while it did work it operated at only 9600 bps.

I've been using GPRS on 1-2 call for about 5 months now. The service is acceptable, but where I am is sometimes unreliable.

I use the 200hr package for bt500... but there are different packages available depending on your use.

I would suggest going into a Telewiz shop and get them to set it all up for you, no extra charge

totster

[goofy]

Last Result:

Download Speed: 4180 kbps (522.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 3304 kbps (413 KB/sec transfer rate)

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[kdvsn]

Last Result:

Download Speed: 4180 kbps (522.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload Speed: 3304 kbps (413 KB/sec transfer rate)

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Either those results were obtianed via something other than GPRS over a cell phone or something went wrong when you ran this test. Those speeds are are about 10X the advertised limits of Class 12 GPRS.