Reporting Back on Getting Internet into a new house

[Pilotman]

I asked for advice on this forum on getting internet connected in my new house, with no land lines or fibre in the village.  Here is my report back.

 

TOT were most unhelpful,  but AIS  and the people in the IT supermarket on Pattaya Tai were very helpful.  We finally purchased from the IT  place a mobile 4G modem router, cost 3,800.  The AIS sim, which was a, additional sim to my phone, so same number, is  1,500 per month, that is unlimited downward and the fastest service they can offer.  That amount includes unlimited download on both the router and my phone and allows connection to up to 10 devices. Today I connected it all up in the new house and it works a treat.  I checked that I can stream video, which I can, including Netflix. We also checked that I could stream video on my  laptop, i pad and phone, all at the same time and the  system never missed a beat.  So far, I am really pleased and it helps that I am paying half of what I was paying in the UK for the same level of access to the internet.  So far so good, but time will  tell of course . 

 

Hope that's useful for i others in a similar position.   

[wpcoe]

That sounds almost too good to be true!  I was ready to challenge that such a plan was not possible in Thailand, but I found:

 

source:  http://www.ais.co.th/postpaid/4gmaxspeedunlimited/en/

 

The only potential "gotcha" is that only 4G data is unlimited.  3G data is limited to the plan to which you subscribe and then drops to 384k for the rest of the month.  Do you get a reliable 4G signal at your house?  If so, you're golden!

 

[Pilotman]

42 minutes ago, wpcoe said:

That sounds almost too good to be true!  I was ready to challenge that such a plan was not possible in Thailand, but I found:

 

source:  http://www.ais.co.th/postpaid/4gmaxspeedunlimited/en/

 

The only potential "gotcha" is that only 4G data is unlimited.  3G data is limited to the plan to which you subscribe and then drops to 384k for the rest of the month.  Do you get a reliable 4G signal at your house?  If so, you're golden!

 

Full 5 bars on the 4G signal, so fingers crossed.  Only time will tell. . 

[mtls2005]

That appears to be a new sort of post-paid offer; I hadn't seen anything like that here before. It is obviously targeted for video streaming.

 

Uncapped 4G is good for the first 12 months, according to the "conditions".

 

As long as their network can handle it - and it should be able to - this seems like a better solution than AIS AirNET, and it is only about twice the cost of AIS Fiber.

 

When you factor in the bundled calling minutes it looks even better.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2017 by mtls2005

[Pilotman]

12 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

That appears to be a new sort of post-paid offer; I hadn't seen anything like that here before. It is obviously targeted for video streaming.

 

Uncapped 4G is good for the first 12 months, according to the "conditions".

 

As long as their network can handle it - and it should be able to - this seems like a better solution than AIS AirNET, and it is only about twice the cost of AIS Fiber.

 

When you factor in the bundled calling minutes it looks even better.

 

 

It does, but I still remain cautious until I have tested it out for a few months. 

[KittenKong]

15 hours ago, Pilotman said:

The AIS sim, which was a, additional sim to my phone, so same number, is  1,500 per month, that is unlimited downward and the fastest service they can offer.  That amount includes unlimited download on both the router and my phone and allows connection to up to 10 devices.

 

I dont see how they can possibly provide that indefinitely at full speed. Eventually they will have to cap it in some way or another.

[Pilotman]

Agreed. I guess it needs to be rationed in some way, at some point, we will see. 

[mtls2005]

4 hours ago, Pilotman said:

It does, but I still remain cautious until I have tested it out for a few months. 

Like most things here, it will work until it doesn't.

[Pilotman]

6 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

Like most things here, it will work until it doesn't.

Still better than the UK, where things don;t  work and never will. 

[johng]

Still better than the UK, where things don;t  work and never will. 

I found the water,electricity,gas worked very well in the UK.
Internet worked quite well too,
not down when it rained or there was a thunderstorm...maybe a bit more expensive but 100% more reliable.

[Pib]

What kind of domestic and international speeds are you getting?   

[maxpower]

52 minutes ago, Pilotman said:

Still better than the UK, where things don;t  work and never will. 

I worked in the UK for a year and remember the services as being very reliable. I don't remember seeing thousands of cables hanging in the UK streets or poor electrical connections glowing in the dark.

Edited August 9, 2017 by maxpower
451

[Pilotman]

14 hours ago, Pib said:

What kind of domestic and international speeds are you getting?   

No idea, I just know what I can do with it, which is stream video. 

[Pilotman]

14 hours ago, maxpower said:

I worked in the UK for a year and remember the services as being very reliable. I don't remember seeing thousands of cables hanging in the UK streets or poor electrical connections glowing in the dark.

I I don't want to get into a long exchange of opinions on the relative  merits of the UK against LOS, that's why I left the UK in the first place and that was not my intention with this post.  Suffice it to say, the frustrations I felt of living in a supposed first world country, where the roads are inadequate and too congested, where tradesmen are hard to find and when you do, they turn out to be crooks, incompetent and unreliable, where pubic services are disintegrating, where the NHS is a lottery, where utility prices are ridiculously expensive, where the electricity and gas cartels are ripping everyone off, where the airports are a nightmare; where the rail system is broken; to list but a few.  I can put up with much more in a country that is developing and that is not my native country,  and therefore where I have little emotional investment, than I can a country which markets itself as one of the best in the world.  It is far from that.   I served my country  in the Military for 26 years, that doesn't mean that I like it above all others, or that I have to live there for the rest of my natural.  End of rant.

[Bangkok Barry]

In Thailand, unlimited does not mean unlimited as we know it. It means unlimited until you reach the limit imposed. Good luck though.

[mtls2005]

29 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

In Thailand, unlimited does not mean unlimited as we know it. It means unlimited until you reach the limit imposed. Good luck though.

 

According to the terms and conditions, 3G is capped with a FUP of 384 Kbps, while 4G is uncapped (for the first 12 months).

 

It's just local access, just as their FTTh is uncapped, and it costs twice as much (roughly); so not really such a big deal.

 

 

[maxpower]

1 hour ago, Pilotman said:

I I don't want to get into a long exchange of opinions on the relative  merits of the UK against LOS, that's why I left the UK in the first place and that was not my intention with this post.  Suffice it to say, the frustrations I felt of living in a supposed first world country, where the roads are inadequate and too congested, where tradesmen are hard to find and when you do, they turn out to be crooks, incompetent and unreliable, where pubic services are disintegrating, where the NHS is a lottery, where utility prices are ridiculously expensive, where the electricity and gas cartels are ripping everyone off, where the airports are a nightmare; where the rail system is broken; to list but a few.  I can put up with much more in a country that is developing and that is not my native country,  and therefore where I have little emotional investment, than I can a country which markets itself as one of the best in the world.  It is far from that.   I served my country  in the Military for 26 years, that doesn't mean that I like it above all others, or that I have to live there for the rest of my natural.  End of rant.

Thanks for the explanation to why you jumped from the frying pan into the fire or was it frying pan to honey pot.

[johng]

 
According to the terms and conditions, 3G is capped with a FUP of 384 Kbps, while 4G is uncapped (for the first 12 months)

I still find myself unable to believe they are offering 4G at full speed with no download limits at all. [emoji54]
How can their cell towers and network cope with huge bandwidth demand ?


Sent from my ASUS_Z00LD using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Pib]

8 minutes ago, johng said:

 

I still find myself unable to believe they are offering 4G at full speed with no download limits at all.
How can their cell towers and network cope with huge bandwidth demand ?


Sent from my ASUS_Z00LD using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

 

Maybe because the great majority of subscribers do not have 4G capable devices.  Heck, non of my smartphones/tablets have 4G capability....they are only 3G capable.   Ditto for all of my immediate Thai extended family but they are kinda on the poor side.

 

I notice in the plan there is a 3G limit/FUP...expect that is because AIS doesn't have a lot of extra capacity since the majority of their customers are probably using 3G only.  But maybe right now they have plenty of unused 4G capacity.

 

The latest and fastest doesn't mean the majority have it.

Edited August 10, 2017 by Pib

[johng]

Maybe because the great majority of subscribers do not have 4G capable devices.
 
 But maybe right now they have plenty of unused 4G capacity.
 

Yes that could be the explanation [emoji106]


Sent from my ASUS_Z00LD using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[mtls2005]

3 hours ago, johng said:

 

I still find myself unable to believe they are offering 4G at full speed with no download limits at all.
How can their cell towers and network cope with huge bandwidth demand ?


Sent from my ASUS_Z00LD using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

 

 

Well, the back-haul will likely have some limits in some locations, especially as voice (VoLTE) has priority.

 

Net-net, just not a lot of people using this, especially given the pricing, in any one cell so not really an issue. Once it's on the backbone it's just bits and bytes.

[Pilotman]

This is interesting, for those who are convinced that its always better in the UK

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4776904/The-pay-broadband-worse-is.html

[Grumpy Duck]

In the mansion I live I understand the internet is connected to a fibre optic network. The mansion network is extremely slow due to using an ancient server and 150 people sharing the same connection. I got my own account and the speed is only limited by the router. My connections are fast at home on my iPhone wifi ping is 7ms, download is 30.59mbps upload is 35.10mbps using Ookla speedtest (speedtest.net)

on laptop with LAN

Ping 7ms, down 82.77, up 35.74

with Lan +VPN New York

Ping 538, down 14.8mbps, up 5.51

Lan +VPN Italy 

Ping 677, down 14.17, up 3.75

My network LAN has internet TV (android), Laptop, Desktop. TRUE cable TV is not on Lan. 

WIFI only iPhone & Android cell (OPPO piece of junk). 

I also use a TRUE aircard which costs me ฿1700 month severely limited 4g connection 3g at other times. I need for  laptop away from home and my USA Locked iPhone.  Can anyone recommend another internet provider for my aircard? (It is not locked by true)