Mobile Internet Settings for South East Asia

Thailand

Service Provider: True Mobile

Cost of Sim Card: THB49

Cost per day: THB39 will allow you to use GPRS/Edge/3G (where available). Must be activated daily and runs from the time of activation until midnight.

Activation

Initial Activation:

I am not sure if we had to do anything specific to activate GPRS/Edge for True before following the daily activation steps below <link here>. If so, then the lady at the True counter at Bangkok airport did it for us.

To activate daily subscription:

Note that there is not longer a monthly subscription package! For this reason, we really don’t recommend using True in Thailand.

1. Dial *9000 (yes include the * or it does not work)
2. Select 9 for English
3. Select 1 for Add Package
4. Select 2 for Daily Package
5. Select 1 for Edge/GPRS daily package at THB39 per day
6. Select 1 to confirm (Note that you have to wait until she has finished talking before clicking 1 here)

Sim Settings for your iPhone

These settings usually load up automatically when you insert the sim card, but once or twice they have disappeared for us:

1. Go to: Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network
2. Fill in the following under Cellular Data:

• APN: internet
• Username: true
• Password: true

Coverage:

Data coverage is not fantastic. We had coverage in all big towns, but nothing at all (not even phone coverage) on the small islands or out of the way places. 3G in Bangkok and central Chiang Mai, otherwise Edge or GPRS. Often we only had a GPRS connection.

To Check Balance:

Dial #123#

To Check own Number:

Dial *933#

To Top Up:

Dial *123*<pin number from top up card>#

To change to English:

Dial 9304 and follow instructions

Summary

The True Move packages have not worked at all well with our iPhones as there does not seem to be anyway to automate a daily subscription. As the subscription ends at midnight, money often seems to get used up overnight even though we’ve turned off all push notifications & automated mail fetches.

We definitely wouldn’t recommend True Mobile’s Pay-As-You-Go Mobile Internet. DTAC seems to be a good alternative, but we haven’t tried them ourselves.

Laos

Service Provider: Lao Telecom

Sim Card Type: Ah Lo 3G

Cost of Sim: LAK10,000 (but this included LAK10,000 worth top up credit)

Cost of data: We are struggling a bit to remember the exact figure here, but we think it was LAK1000(USD0.10) per Mb. Regardless, it was very cheap – we used LAK70,000 over 20 days.

Activation:

The Lao Telecom Service Centre in Vientiane where they were very helpful and set it up for us. I believe that you have to call the call centre on 101 to get it initially activated, but not sure how easy it is to get English service.

Sim Settings for your iPhone

1. Go to: Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network
2. Fill in the following under Cellular Data:

• APN: ltcnet
• Username: <blank>
• Password: <blank>

Coverage: We had some form data coverage just about everywhere we went – 3G in Vientiane, Edge or GPRS elsewhere.

Check Balance

Dial 122. Push 2 for English

To Check Own Number:

Not sure

Customer Service Number:

Call 101

Problems Encountered

• None – only one that I could imagine is if you couldn’t go to the service center to set it up initially.

Summary

We were generally very impressed with the data service in Laos. It was much cheaper and more reliable than what we had in Thailand. We had coverage in most places that we went and the cost was low.

Cambodia

Service Provider: Metfone

Cost of Sim Card: $3 (including $2 of top up credit)

Cost per day: USD0.70 which is automatically deducted as long as you have enough credit.

Subscription Activation:

1. Send the following text to 111: On3
2. Send the following reply to 111: Yes

Sim Settings for your iPhone

I am a little unsure of the exact settings that we used in Cambodia. The password was definitely 1111. Either the APN or the Username or both were metfone – I seem to remember that it was both. Try the various combinations until it works!

1. Go to: Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network
2. Fill in the following under Cellular Data:

• APN: metfone or <blank> (see note above)
• Username: metfone or <blank> (see note above)
• Password: 1111

Coverage:

Coverage was truly amazing! We went to tiny villages in the middle of nowhere and had still had data (GPRS) coverage. Note that when we were there, Metfone only supported Edge or GPRS, so no 3G.

To Check Balance:

Dial *097#

To check own number:

Dial: *99#

Customer Service Number:

1777 (if this didnt work, then try 1770). We found it very easy to find an english speaking support person.

Problems Encountered

• The only slight hassle that we encountered was getting APN/username settings correct in the beginning. This took a few calls to the customer service centre to get correct.
• One strange service problem that we encountered was that no Twitter client worked during the week (it did work on weekends). Odd!

Summary

Highly recommended. Brilliant and cheap. Excellent coverage. The only slight hassle was getting the APN/username right, but once we had this, it worked perfectly.

Vietnam

Service Provider: Vinaphone

Cost of Sim Card: VND150,000 including VND60,000 top up credit.

Cost per day: VND5000 per day which is automatically deducted as long as you have enough credit.

Subscription Activation:

1. Text the following to 333 for a daily subscription: GPRS on

Sim Settings for your iPhone

I am a little unsure of the exact settings that we used in Vietnam. The password was definitely 1111. Either the APN or the Username or both were m3-world – I seem to remember that APN was m3-world and username was blank. Try the various combinations until it works! We found this out by searching on Google.

1. Go to: Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network
2. Fill in the following under Cellular Data:

• APN: m3-world or <blank> (see note above)
• Username: m3-world or <blank> (see note above)
• Password: 1111

Coverage:

Coverage was generally good, but we had significant problems in HCMC where there was none at all for hours at a time (not sure if there was a local problem at the time). Edge or GPRS everywhere except for HCMC where 3G was very unreliable.

To Check Balance:

Not sure

To check own number:

Not sure

Customer Service Number:

Dial 900. Not sure whether it is possible to find an English speaker as we asked the lady at the Vinaphone counter at Hanoi airport to call for us.

Problems

Everything worked perfectly until we got to HCMC where we’d lose any data service for hours at a time. It seemed to work better if we turned 3G off, but still not very reliable. Possibly just a problem that they were having at the time, but we were there long enough to find out.

Also, when we ran out of credit (so the automated debit did not come off), it seemed to revert to charging by usage rather than a daily charge. I think that we needed to re-apply the daily package as described above again.

Summary

Despite the issues in HCMC, we were happy with Vinaphone.