Ive just come over to Thailand after two years away, when I was last here I was able to buy an aircard dongle to provide wireless internet access for my laptop. It was one of those usb dongles that I plugged into my laptop using a dtac sim card. Most hotels now seem to have reasonable wifi but I just want to have internet whilst on away from the hotel. I went to Pantip Plaza this morning and none of the stalls seemed to have a dongle like this available.

 

Am I missing something here ? Are they not sold anymore ? I was able to buy the dtac sim cards without any problem.

i think the dongle system has now been replaced with a new system by dialing an ais  number   something like *777 ---#   and the internet can be purchased   for 1 day1 month etc   i think the minimum card is 3 g

I thought it was something like that i.e. things had changed .. but if you need to buy internet access how can it be done when you are  travelling with a laptop ?  I mean my laptop has a wireless card but that doesnt help me when I am away from hotels or at the beach and there is no wifi service. Hence the reason that the wifi dongles used to be so good.

It's not a wireless dongle, it's a 3g or 4g one. I bought one at it mall for 900 baht and it even came with a free sim card.

Where are you looking?

Edit. Worst case scenario AIS will sell you one, but you'll be stuck with their service.

27 minutes ago, issan2 said:

I thought it was something like that i.e. things had changed .. but if you need to buy internet access how can it be done when you are  travelling with a laptop ?  I mean my laptop has a wireless card but that doesnt help me when I am away from hotels or at the beach and there is no wifi service. Hence the reason that the wifi dongles used to be so good.

you access the internet on your phone then  bluetooth/tether/   make it a hotspot   and open your laptop   with your own hotspot

Thats a good idea Lamkyong .. Im going to try that - Thanks

theguyfromanotherfor... : I bought my sims at the dtac shop on the first floor in pantip plaza .. when I asked about dongles they sent me to the ground floor and all of thestall holders said they didnt have dongles. I was asking for aircard though so the daft foreigner probably just confused them :)

Dongles can still be bought at the True shop. More sophisticated these days are the portable wifi's. These can serve up to 9 devices. Around the same price as a dongle.

Hi Halfaboy : Where is the True Shop ? Is that at Pantip Plaza ?

Sorry, bought my aircard upcountry in a True shop. If I remember it correctly it was in Lam Plai Mat (not too far from Buriram). But there are True shops everywhere I believe.

Dongles sales pretty much went way, way down since much everyone has a smartphone with a mobile data plan.  Just turn on the HotSpot setting in your phone, your laptop makes a Wifi connection to your smartphone's hotspot, and you do  your laptop interneting.  Even with the HotSpot function turned on you can still make and receive calls with the phone.

Look up ' Mifi '  or portable routers,  they more or less replaced dongles.