Phone Line in Pattaya
Nowadays it is not longer difficult to get a phone line in Pattaya or Jomtien, even if it is on the East side of Sukhumvit Road, i.e. at Maprachan or Chaknork Reservoir.
Connection Fee is around 3,000 Baht and the monthly fee is approx. 100 Baht. Fee for a call within Thailand is 1 to 3 Baht per minute, depending on the distance and on the service provider.
Overseas calls are around 35 Baht per minute, but if you use 007,009, or 008 instead of the 001 the costs for one minute are down for most countries to less than 10 Baht per minute.
Use the prefix, than country code, city code and local number, i.e.
007 - 44 - 81 - ...........
Internet in Pattaya
Once you have a phone line, you can easily apply for A-DSL Internet starting from around 500 Baht per month as a flat rate.
Providers often promise 5 Mbit or even more, but you should know, that this speed very often works only within Thailand. If you connect to a Website hosted in Europe or the US you will realize, that the speed available is may be less than 0.5 MBit.
The reasons are the international connectors. On a cheap Internet you get only a slow international connector.
So, i.e. there was an off from 3BB, 599 Baht per month, 5 Mbit. ......slow international connections. At the same time they offer premium packages, which are i.e. 1,200 Baht per month, speed is only 2 Mbit, but you get a high speed international connection. So that means that with such a package your international connections might be four times faster compared with that 5 Mbit offer.
Modern mobile phones offer the option, that you connect your laptop through your mobile phone, meaning that your mobile phone is used like an internet modem. If you use this option often, you should agree an internet flat rate (GPRS -Edge) for your mobile phone, which is currently i.e. around 600 Baht per month with AIS (not available for prepaid cards). If not most providers charge 1 Baht per minute.
3G (UMTS) is on the way in Thailand, but in most areas it is still not available.
Mobile Phones
In Pattaya you can buy mobile phones nearly everywhere, but the best selection is probably at Tukcom on the second floor at South Pattaya Road, located between Second Road and Friendship Supermarket, same side of the road.
You can have prepaid numbers with different promotions of the different providers. If you like to travel to the country side we recommend One2Call from AIS, because AIS probably has the best coverage in Thailand.
However may be it is better to make a contract with monthly bills for your phone. The providers offer different promotions for calls, text messages and internet and the advantage is, if your phone get lost or stolen, you can get a new sim card with your old number. That is not possible with prepaid cards.
With most promotions a call is not more that 1 Baht per minute, without any promotions it is often 3 Baht per minute.
Overseas calls from a mobile are NOT more expensive than from a land line. You can use the same prefix codes as mentioned above.