The search for internet access is finally over .. I think .. and you can get what you need :-)
The major players in the mobile Thai space are True and AIS with Dtac in third spot. I was originally with True which was great in the village but not so great in Bangkok when it came to the internet rush hours of 5 pm on wards and the weekend. It was often very slow as True's capacity was oversold. I then moved to AIS and I found it to be very stable and fast in both the village and Bangkok at all times of the day.
The only problem I have with AIS is that there is a download cap of 75 gigs which is very easy for me to go above because of Windows 10 ongoing upgrades and any sort of video watching for a couple of hours a day.
So about October 1st I started the search for a landline connection of some sort with fibre being the preferred medium. The major players in this area are TOT (the government telephone company), True, AIS, and 3BB. I started off working through the building management team as they speak Thai but I quickly decided that this was moving at a snail's pace so I researched online. True seemed to have the greatest coverage but trying to get an answer out of them was nigh impossible. Ditto for TOT.
Then, one day while walking down Soi 22 I noticed that 3BB was stringing fibre and I went online to their site and started talking to a sales rep via LINE (the Asian WhatsApp) and after a couple of days it appears I could have either vdsl (advanced adsl, via telephone line) or fibre, if I could get the building management to agree to a hole being drilled in the wall of the building, which they agreed to because we are such wonderful tenants (actually they all love Jaidan).
So quiet when he is sleeping ..
The 3BB team showed up today (on Sunday) and Thavorn signed the contract as she only needs to pay a month in advance, whereas your truly, farang needs to pay 6 months in advance. The cost was a 3,000 deposit on the optical modem/router, and 1200 baht a month for 200/50 download/upload speeds and short pings. Now before we get too excited, those are speeds in Thailand and if I want to access anything outside of Thailand then the network traffic goes through one of 2 gateways which have government filters and sniffers on them which slows everything down, but at least it will be more stable and quicker than what I currently have, without a download cap.
Apparently True throttles some internet traffic such as voip and torrents so it was good that I did not go with them, although they have the second route out of Thailand, but who knows what capacity it has compared to the TOT (government telephone) exit gateway route.
The end result is I will keep my mobile plan for when I am out and about or in the village, as well as a backup for my business needs if I lose the landline. All my computers and virtual machines, my voip, and my smart TV will use the 3BB fibre connection.
The total cost is 1,800 (mobile AIS) + 1,200 (3BB fibre) or 3,000 baht, or about $110 CDN which is still cheaper than a mobile data plan and cable access in Canada, which would be about $150, last time I looked.
Getting things done in Thailand is so much easier when Thavorn is involved because the level of English that is understood and spoken by the average Thai person is really bad. Thavorn's English is much better and of course her Thai is excellent!
TTYL
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