Internet access in village

[Ray.Charles]

I am now spoiled by ADSL access giving me multi-megabits/second for B600/mo. Sadly, I will have to give that up when we move to our village home. The first advice was to look for CDMA service from CAT. Unfortunately, the village I will be at is too “low” to be seen by their tower. The next choice was IPstar, but that is on the expensive side. Just yesterday, at the Telewiz store at the 3rd level of the Central Plaza, I saw a flyer for GPRS by AIS: unlimited for B999/month, B500 for 250 hours/month. I asked the lady about the speed. Her answer, not written in the brochure, was 460kbps. Of course, the actual rate will vary significantly depending on the location of your phone relative to the tower. I primarily need downloading; uploading is just for e-mails and forum-postings like this.
Any experience and/or opinions to share?

[sp12]

Hi Ray

I have experience of using GPRS from AIS in the village, We are located about 100 metres from a tower so we have very good speeds and reliability. Not sure on actual figures but we can watch videos on youtube etc. If you are fairly close to a tower I would recommend this option.

[Ray.Charles]

Thanks for the quick response.

[Bandung_Dero]

She knows Jack Shlt! 460kbs relates to the transfer speed between your phone or modem and PC. GPRS will give you about 48Kbs on a good day and no connection on a bad one. Connection speed relates directly to the time of day where normal phone services get priority bandwidth over GPRS and other packet srevices. Still in saying that it works OK for me! I have been using it in the village for 6 years now.

[cookie]

and 3G from AIS?????
an option????

[parrot]

When I was using CDMA off the Loei/Nongbualamphu Highway, I used a 12meterish bamboo pole and a CAT antenna (800 baht) that gave me 4 bars on the strength meter. Inside the house, without the antenna, no bars. I could have easily used a taller bamboo pole if I needed to.

[douglas]

Hi.
GPRS is via a wireless aircard. It will work all over LOS., you have a SIM card in it. My one a Sierra Wireless AirCard 750 does. I got this in 2005 and still going strong.I travel a bit and it is a godsend, if a Mobil will work, aircard will work. Only fault is, speed is slow. Bandung is correct, when he said 48Kbs. I've had it working in the U.K., but you have to put a UK.sim card in it and set it up.