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hzink
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I decided to put some of the past advice I culled from this forum to good use, and get as wired as possible during my last visit to BKK - meaning getting my mobile phone configured as well as possible to support GPRS, sending of MMS, etc... using a local SIM card.
As a pre-amble: I use a Nokia 3650 during my trip (which, along with the Nokia 6600 are the best phones Nokia has made so far, IMO), and my local carrier in Los Angeles is T-Mobile (again, excelling by their service). I was also bringing along my trip-buddies' SonyEricsson T-610, and a Samsung e105.
The first thing you need to do is to make sure your phone is unlocked, to allow it to accept 'foreign' SIM cards. If you have a US phone, and US carrier, you will need to do this. If your carrier is T-Mobile, all it takes is a call to customer service, and 72-hours later, they send you an e-mail with the unlock code. If you are with AT&T, you're SOL (but you would be anyway if you use AT&T). Other carriers differ, but most are reluctant.
No matter, you are going to BKK, so the solution is only a short trip to MBK away. There's plenty of vendors that will happily unlock your phone within 30 minutes, and sell you anything else you could possibly need.
MBK vendors took care of unlocking the T-610, as well as the Samsung phone. While the T-610 is a tri-band world-phone, Samsung apparently believes that two bands are enough to cover the world - hint: they are not. Samsung phones absolutely suck for world travel. Stay away from them.
Back to my Nokia - I was able to continue using my SIM card from my prior trips, which, after a quick recharge of 500 Baht, was ready to serve. Essentially, just pop the local Thai SIM card (I recommend 1-2-call) in your phone, put your US SIM card in a safe place, and you're good to go.
One of the first things you want to do, is switch the phone voice system to English - you can do this easily enough by calling the 1-2-call operator (dial 1175), pressing '2' for English, and asking the friendly english-speaking operator to switch your voice menus to English. You will now actually know what the voice menus say to you.
As you deplete your calling minutes (it's usually 5 Baht per minute, 5 Baht per text message or MMS, 10 Baht per international MMS/text), you will need to recharge your phone. You can pick up a refill card at any 7-11, and they come in denominations of 300 Baht, 500 Baht, and 800 Baht.
You take the refill card out of its cellophane packaging, rub off the silver cover, and there is your refil, number. Now, on your phone, type in '*121*REFILL_NUMBER#' followed by the 'call' button. This will automatically recharge your phone with the refill code, without you having to go through voice menus to do the same. Quite a nifty way of doing this.
Now, you're ready to want to send MMS, pictures, or connect to the local internet with your phone, or via your laptop (if both support bluetooth).
Again, call the friendly operator (Dial 1175), explain that you would like GPRS service on your phone. Refreshingly, while US operators invariably have no idea what you are talking about, the frinedly Thai operator will know exactly what to do. She will ask you a few questions, and then confirm that it is GPRS service that you want, and then inform you that she will send you configuration uploads to your phone. Be patient. This can take between 1-4 hours. In my case, my phone switched from the 'TH AIS' operator indicator, to 'TH AIS GPRS' within 20 minutes.
This is only half the battle, though - you still will need proper MMS and WAP access points configured in your phone. Thanks to Nokia's worldwide support, this is easy.
Navigate to Nokia.com, click on 'support', select 'Asia Pacific', and then select 'operator settings'. Now, pick MMS and WAP settings links. Each will ask you a couple of questions (notably, your country, your carrier (*), your phone number), and within seconds of submitting it, your phone should receive a message. (*) in the case of 1-2-call, AIS is your carrier.
This is a configuration message, which when you read it, will add a new configuration point to your phone. Do this for both the MMS and WAP configurations. You will now have two new access points, one for WAP, one for MMS, in your phone.
You will next need to configure your phone to use these for the respective services.
On the Nokia 3650/Nokia 6600, if you go into your 'Messages' pane, hit 'options' and scroll down to 'settings', scroll down to 'multimedia message'.
Under 'preferred connection' select the 'AIS MMS GPRS' access point.
Hit 'Back' until you are back at the main menu.
Now, go to 'services'. Select 'options', and scroll down to 'settings'.
Again, set your 'Default Access Point' to 'AIS GPRS WAP'.
As you hit 'Back' you should see 'AIS GPRS WAP' as your new 'homepage'.
Voila.
You can now hold down the '0' (zero) and go online, or send MMS picture messages. I was able to use the Nokia's upload feature to send pictures I took on my mobile, instantly to my galley webpage back home. I was also able to use the phone as a modem for my bluetooth laptop in order to be reachable in out of the way places (will be handy next time in Udonthani).
This should be a good enough primer to get you hooked up. I'm sure there's lots of other nifty features, so feel free to add to this thread with other relevant information - particularly if you have information on other carriers.
(Note: this applies to my Nokia phones, as I happen to believe they are the best at what they do. This will certainly work with other phones as well, though I don't even venture to guess how to configure them, and I really don't care 
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:05 am on April 26, 2004
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fastmover
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I am a technot.
But I just brought my Alcatel
phone from China last trip,
did what Hzink told me and presto...
no problem.
Other answer I guess is to buy
a cheapy phone in MBK.
PS..I see Wilde finally got his 'e'.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 10:12 am on April 26, 2004
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osten
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Hzink,
As a fellow techie, I really appreciate your detailed explanation. I, too, have a Nokia 3650 and T-mobile service in the U.S. I have used my Nokia in Thailand, but with the U.S. sim card, it cost $1.49 per minute. I called T-mobile to ask about unlocking the phone before my last trip, but they said Nokia is not providing them with unlock codes for this particular model. Was there anything special you needed to do in order to convince them to give you the code? Interesting that I got a different story than you. I ended up buying a cheap unlocked phone of no brand name, but would love to use just my primary phone on next trip.
Thanks again for all the details on GPRS configuration.
osten
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:22 am on April 26, 2004
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DrLove
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You can pick up a refill card at any 7-11, and they come in denominations of 300 Baht, 500 Baht, and 800 Baht.
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And now also 40 and 50 baht! However, the trick is that unlike the refills starting at 300 baht, you get no additional time.
So, let's say you're expiration date is 050104, then you can topup with the 40 or 50 baht refill cards until that date.
Handy if you're leaving LOS in lets' say two days, have no deposit left but don't want to topup another 300 baht.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 10:28 am on April 26, 2004
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Oz
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A question on the phone cards, approximately how many minutes do you get on a 300 or 500 Baht card of local calls. I guess I means Mobile to Mobile as the TG's all use Mobiles?
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 10:39 am on April 26, 2004
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DrLove
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AIS->AIS 4 baht/minute
AIS->any other network 5 baht
SMS 3 baht local
Call for more than 25 baht, get 20% discount on all calls until 11.59pm the same day.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:57 am on April 26, 2004
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hzink
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Osten: All I did was call T-Mobile, told them that I needed my phone unlocked as I was travelling abroad, and wanted to use a local SIM card, and they had no problem with it. From what I understand, you do need to have had service with them for longer than 90 days, but that is all. This was 5 weeks ago.
Either way, there is no need to buy a new phone, when in fact you can also get your primary phone unlocked at many of the stalls in MBK. Cost around 300 Baht and takes 30 minutes.
Sanook269: AT&T simply sucks, there's no way around it. What you described works with T-Mobile as well (or any GSM carrier, for that matter). In fact, one of my buddies kept his US phone, and was reachable via local US number that way. No one ever knew he was gone, much less in Thailand. AT&T sucks, because their claims of 'worldwide text messaging support' is limited to three countries (UK, Spain, Canada), and most of Europe and Asia are not supported. Their excuse claims to be some crap about 'the technology is not there' when in fact every other GSM carrier supports international text messages.
I cannot recommend dropping AT&T strongly enough, and switching to T-Mobile. AT&T is simply a rip-off for inferior service and non-existent customer support.
Yes, I really dislike AT&T.
Fastmover : Glad my instructions worked for you.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 12:32 pm on April 26, 2004
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