Communications While you are in Thailand you can call back to your country either by using public phone, internet phone and your cell phone or you can buy Thai sim-card if you working here, they charge quite cheap also.

Phonebooks	International Calls	Internet Phone
Domestic Calls	Mobile phones in Thailand

Phonebooks
In all Thai telephone directories, Thais are listed in alphabetical order by first name, whereas foreigners are listed by last name.  You can find phone number from this site www.yellowpages.co.th Everyone who uses a phone often should have yellow pages.  The phone book is published in both English and Thai.  You get one free copy per phone line of both white and yellow pages, and can purchase more copies.

They provide bilingual, Thai and English or contact them at:
25th- 28th Fl., Vanit Bldg. 2, 1126/2 New Phetchaburi Road, Khwaeng Makkasan, Ratchathewi, Bankok 10400
Tel: 66 2 2628888
Fax: 66 2 2628899

 

Dialing Rules
All telephone numbers in Thailand are now 9-digit.

Before 2001, all local phone numbers in Bangkok were 7-digit, XXX-XXXX, whereas most province phones were six-digit, usually in the format XXX-XXX.  The Bangkok area code was 02, the provincial ones were 3-digit 0XX.  Starting in 2001, all numbers must be dialed with their area code in front, which means all numbers are 9-digit. (Mobiles were already 9-digit.) That's all that happened.  You can still tell where someone is located, and whether landline or mobile, by the phone number.  (Mobiles start with 01, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 09 - important to know if you are conscious of your phone bill.)

As of 2005, all domestic phone numbers still start with a zero.  It seems rather redundant, but it's just the way it is...

... except some special emergency 3-digit numbers, and some commercial 4-digit numbers like when dialing for food delivery.

International calls are dialed using 001-country code or 009-country code.  For example, to Australia, country code 65, it's 001-65-[city]-[local] and for the US it's 001-1-[areacode]-[number] ... or, more recently, you may need to dial 009-65-[city]-[local] for Australia, and for the US 009-1-[areacode]-[number]

To get an international operator for assistance, dial 110.

In Bangkok, you are charged 3 baht per call to a local landline number, and allowed unlimited time for that flat fee.  (Sometimes you are charged more by apartment buildings.) In the provinces, you pay by the minute, so don't be inconsiderate when you use the phone of a friend in the provinces.  Calling some major Internet service providers in the province is an exception, whereby they just charge you for one 3 baht call.

Calling a mobile phone from a landline typically costs 3 baht per minute regardless of your location, and the minimum is 3 baht.

The lowest rates for domestic long distance landline calls you can get by dialing 1234+ number, for example if you stay in Chiang Mai and want to call to Bangkok just dial 1234
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International Calls
How to dial an international number is explained in the section above. International calls are significantly more expensive when originated from Thailand than when originated from most industrialized countries.  Off-peak schedules vary by country, and are not the same as off-peak domestically.  Thailand is in the +7 GMT time zone.

You make an international call by dialing 001-countrycode-etc.  For example, to call Australia, country code 61, you would dial 001-61-phonenumber, and to call Washington, D.C., country code 1, area code 202, you dial 001-1-202-xxx-xxxx.

If you cannot make an international call, then you may need to acquire access to international dialing, after putting down a sizeable deposit.  To do so, contact the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT), or better yet, get a calling card.

In general, the Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) and TT&T handle local calls and the CAT handles international calls. In between, it gets complicated, and you should consult the phone books for details. 

The best way to make international calls, in my opinion, is to buy phone cards, which you can get at 7-11 stores, bookstores and many other places.  You scrape off the coating on the back which hides your secret code until after purchase.  You can use this card from anyone's landline or mobile phone.  It's good for the amount bought.  For example, if you buy a 500 baht card, then you can continue to make calls until the 500 baht credit is used up. Rates vary by country and there is usually a rate sheet that comes with the card.

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Internet Phone

Internet phone is the cheapest for international calls, but it is technically illegal in Thailand.  It's something people install themselves onto their computer, something called "Voice Over Internet Protocol", or VOIP.  It's been openly advertised at internet cafes for years.  For people who don't have a computer, some companies sell a VOIP box which goes in-between the telephone and the wall receptacle.  There are all kinds of behind-the-scenes deals going on between VOIP businesspeople, internet service providers, and government officials, racing for this imminently huge market.

How can I get my own ordinary landline telephone or mobile phone?

In Thailand, there are only two companies that bring landlines to your home: The Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) (www.tot.co.th) is a quasi-governmental, "privately owned" company that generally installs landline telephones and infrastructure in Bangkok and the provinces.  It was the one and only telephone company in Thailand until the early 1990s when TT&T (www.ttt.co.th) was granted a concession.  (Rumor has it that poor service from TOT led to the government introducing competition.)

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Some people have said that if you want a new phone line, then to go with TT&T because they are better.  NEW phone lines brought out by either company are practically the same. Because TOT has been around for tens of years longer than TT&T, the existing phone lines of TOT are on average older and thus not as modern. That does not mean that new phone lines of either company are better than the other.  If you move into an old place and need a new phone line, you can order from either entity. 

 

When a guy named Thaksin Shinawatra started a mobile phone company called AIS in the early 1990s, and it was the solution for so many of us.  "Forget landlines, get a mobile phone, it works well!" Mobile phones were big back then, and you had to wear them on your belt like guns because no way would they fit in a pocket.  As mobile phones were not yet trendy, some of us looked like we were out of a SciFi movie. Thaksin was appreciated as Mr. Solutions.  A decade later, he is Prime Minister.
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Domestic Calls

In Bangkok, the cost of making a local phone call is 3 baht per call.  There is no per minute charge. Outside of Bangkok, there is a charge per minute, except when calling some provincial Internet service providers.  Calling a mobile phone costs more, as discussed in another section above.

In provinces call to local landline is 3 baht per call and outside area charge per minute depends on distance.

The wireless industry (mobile phones and pagers) is operated separately from the above landline organizations (except that they are all given concessions by the CAT to operate in Thailand).






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Mobile phones in Thailand
Mobile Phones

There are three mobile phone companies which can operate in Thailand (i.e., have been granted a "concession" by the Communications Authority of Thailand):

Each mobile phone network has its own antennas and systems, but are interconnected so that you can use, for example, an AIS phone to call a DTAC phone, i.e., you can use any phone to call any other phone.

Which one's better? It depends on what is important for you.  If you want cheaper and don't mind inconveniences, then consider Orange or DTAC. 

AIS gives the best English support, is easiest to figure out, is easiest to use, and has features important (like verification that SMS is Delivered successfully).  The others are cheaper in their rates.

Calls getting thru vs. "Network Busy":
In mid-2005, DTAC's service became unacceptable. DTAC has run some specials for cheaper prices, and the result has been an overload on their network. Even though use DTAC-to-DTAC and usually within the same cell region, with errors like "Network busy", or recordings saying the phone number is unreachable.  Then, some time later, we get a message from DTAC saying we got a lot of missed calls.  Same for customers and new numbers.  Being unable to reach someone in business can mean loss of business (and money).  Personally, it can sometimes be a major inconvenience and frustration to not be able to reach your beloved or a close associate urgently.  Who has time to waste, and who needs frustrations and a changed mindset?

SMS:
AIS, Orange (Truemove) and Dtac phones, always get notified whether an SMS is delivered or failed.  On Dtac, Orange and AIS also get spam SMSes (advertisements), and calling customer service, they have been unable to turn them off.  Since they are in Thai, not English.  Sometimes, phone rings and it's a recorded message ... in Thai, this is what SMS is for!

English support, and ease of use:
The AIS SIM card came pre-loaded with a number to request billing information by SMS, *121#.  You just dial the number and you get an SMS message back with account balance and due date, in English (as per your settings).  You can also call voice Customer Service at *122 and it is in English (as per your settings).

With DTAC, they provided only a billing numbers to call ... and get some verbal message in Thai and they provides sms preload option as well but most of the time does not work!

For Orange or Truemove provides preload option as well.

Cost:
AIS is slightly more expensive, but if your time and state of mind are worth anything, then keep in mind that "There is no free lunch".

In mid-2005, the mobile phone companies have started ramping up promotions for calls inside their networks, i.e., for DTAC user to DTAC user calls and messaging, or AIS user to AIS user connections.  For example, DTAC has its "Hey Ha" promotion in June 2005. AIS is countering with its own promotion under a more fitting name: "Sure Sure". Orange has chimed in with its "Just Talk" pro-rated fractional-minute billing.  All companies will offer you promotions it depends on you which promotions you prefer, the promotions above just for example at that time only!

History:
AIS was the first mobile phone company.  It was started back in the early 1990s, as one of Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra's companies, long before he entered politics (he is now the Prime Minister and head of the main political party, Thai Rak Thai).  AIS was started long before mobile phones became trendy, and was an expensive and major financial risk at the time. Dr. Shinawatra was ahead of his time, as usual.  After mobile phones caught on and became a trend, DTAC entered the market.

DTAC complains about government favoritism because AIS doesn't pay as much of a tariff to the government, due to its pre-existing contracts negotiated with the two government monopolies -- the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) and the Telephone Organization of Thailand (ToT).  These were negotiated long before Dr. Thaksin entered politics. In a well known court case, this tariff descrepancy was upheld, partly because it was negotiated before DTAC entered the scene.

The networks are connected, so DTAC initially benefited from AIS's expensively established nationwide antenna system, to place and receive calls from AIS users.

Orange broke out after the year 2000, initially in a joint venture with Telecom Asia (TA). (Notably, I consulted with an engineering operation involved in deciding upon antenna sites and designing the antennas to be built.) Later, out of parts of the TA Orange group, a new company called True has emerged, which is well known for its broadband services and rapid growth.  This is an interesting combination of capabilities heading into the future and now they changed to Truemove!

Hutchison has been around since the 1990s when pagers were an economical alternative to mobile phones, and Hutchison has some unique and cool features for their mobiles, so Hutchison, too, should be watched as regards any potential wireless mobile device breakouts in the future. Hutchison is hanging in there for the Thai market's future.

The wireless industry is beyond the scope of this article on telephones, and is constantly changing and convoluted, so I can't really go into it here.

Thailand is different from some other countries like the U.S. (but Thailand is similar to many other countries) due to efforts to quasi-monopolize the industry by certain powers in Thailand.

As of July 2005, the carriers have:

What about international roaming service in Thailand?

If you already have a mobile phone with international roaming service, it will usually work here, but for other people to reach you, they may have to make an international call to your mobile phone number in the country in which you bought the phone. This varies from phone service to phone service, and over time as different mobile service companies negotiate with each other.

Buying a phone and a SIM card, billing, and paying:

In both Thailand and other countries, when you buy a mobile phone, you buy two things: the phone and a phone number. The phone number is embedded on a "SIM card" which is slid into the phone. The phone may be made by Nokia or Ericsson or Motorola or Siemens... but if you buy the phone in Thailand then the phone number is provided by a company in Thailand that provides wireless transmission/reception service as per the SIM card. They are generally sold together, though you can change phones later if you want another brand or model and just move the SIM card over to the new phone, or you can change phone numbers by buying a new SIM card.

Before May 2005, you did not need to register your telephone number. You could just buy a SIM card off the street, and buy prepaid cards as you go.  Of course, many criminals did this ... and then terrorists in the south Thailand provinces.  Due to the latter, new laws and procedures were passed requiring all new phone numbers to be registered, and all old unregistered phone numbers must be registered by November 2005.  You can still buy prepaid cards, but someone must take responsibility for use of the phone number.

Foreigners who run their own company and use the phone for company business should register the phone in the company's name so that the expenses can be tax deducted.

You can pay your bill at your bank or at various places around town, such as in major shopping malls.  Always get a stamped receipt, because occasionally there has been a mistake in the computer. There are convenience stores such as 7-11s which also accept bills, as noted in our section on paying bills but they don't take all bills.  They also cannot accept bills past the due date.

Anyone can pay the bill.
In order to make international calls and be billed (and tax deduct the business calls), you must register your phone properly.  Alternatively, you can buy prepaid international calling cards from convenience stores.

If you do the billing route for international calls, then check your bill for false calls. There are people who crack the codes and are able to make long distance phone calls look like they came from your phone.

The charges for placing a domestic call to or from a mobile phone varies according to which calling plan you bought into.  It is usually around 3 baht per minute.

In Thailand, the caller pays all the fees, not the recipient.

Signal quality and coverage:
As noted above, the 4 mobile operators each have their own networks of antennas (transponders), but these 4 networks are interconnected so that you call any mobile phone from any other.  If a call fails, you don't know for sure which network failed.

You may find that the signal quality varies considerably from place to place and from time to time in Bangkok and in Thailand.  During "prime time", the bandwidth gets saturated in some places, and you may have difficulty establishing a connection to a friend or associate, or the connection may be lost or have dropouts. This is getting worse as some mobile phone companies have sales offering free service for a given period in exchange for the purchase of a phone.  There are also cellular areas in Bangkok where the service is poor due to a faulty or chronically overloaded cellular transponder station. Around major crowd events such as concerts, carnivals, etc., expect jammed bandwidth. Finally, there are some naturally bad reception spots due to the layout of buildings and streets relative to the local transponder station.

When voice calls don't go thru, SMSes usually do. Coverage along provincial highways is pretty good, but once you get off the beaten track, the signal might not go very far.

Stolen phones:
Mobile phone theft is common in Thailand, especially the newer models.  If you lose your mobile phone or have it stolen, you should call your mobile phone company immediately before the thief runs up a phone bill. Remember who your mobile service company is.  Theoretically, you should be able to find your stolen phone if it's pressed into use by someone else with a different SIM card.  Every mobile phone handset has a unique serial number.  You can find it by keying in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 #. You will get a 15-digit code on your screen.  Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. It's been reported that the mobile service company can deny the use of handsets brought into Thailand by a non-monopoly importer due to its serial number, as noted above. It's also been reported that the mobile service company can block use of a stolen phone by blocking the reported serial number (thus both discouraging theft and increasing sales of legitimate phones).  By implementing these procedures, they should be able to find out which SIM card is being used with the serial number of your phone, and thus you could go to the billing address of that SIM card to find your handphone ... and require that the user give your phone back and go buy a legitimate handphone, noting that the phone will be disabled otherwise, you'll call the police, etc. Some big men and a little bit of money might help resolve the issue. You might be able to find your SIM card, too, instead of having to buy a new one. 

Bring a phone in from outside Thailand:
In the 1990s and early 2000s, if you brought a mobile phone into Thailand from outside Thailand, the phone usually would not work in Thailand.  That has changed with newer models. The reason is that the mobile phone companies were sole distributors of phones, and the phones were "locked" so that they would work only with the service provider it was bought from (AIS or DTAC).  Also, the same model of phone in Thailand cost significantly more in Thailand than if you bought it outside the country and carried it in. However, this policy changed a few years ago, and the mobile phone companies opened up their networks to all phones, so that all you needed to buy was the SIM card.

Nevertheless, you might experience a problem if you buy a phone separately from the SIM card, especially a cheap secondhand phone.  You will know immediately because it will give you an error message or just won't connect. This can be fixed quickly and easily by bringing it to a shop which can connect a data cable and "unlock" it.  These shops are easy to find and all over.

(In past years, phones brought into the country which worked with Thai SIM cards could be sold for a handsome profit, and many people funded their vacations in Thailand by bringing in phones from Europe in their suitcase and selling them here at the Thailand monopoly prices. This is no longer the situation.)

Internet SMS: SMS is very popular because:

The big drawback of SMS is typing messages on a mobile device. You can send SMS messages to mobile handphones from the internet, typing from a keyboard.

The problem is billing. In Thailand, the caller pays all the fees, not the recipient.

Some people recommend www.ipipi.com for sending SMSes worldwide via internet. From browsing their website, they charge 6 baht (US$ 0.15) per message with volume discounts down to 4 baht. It also offers email gateways for sending and receiving.

DTAC has offered SMS by internet for many years now at www.dtac.co.th/en/customer/OnlineServices/indexOnlineservices.aspx

There are also some "free" and cheap pay-per-SMS websites which scam people, by collecting personal information (identity theft) as well as collecting email addresses for spam targeted at mobile device users. They might even make you billable for spam SMSes. As usual, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

How to Use Public Payphones

There are several kinds of public phones, and it can be a little confusing. In general, you cannot place an international call from a public telephone with coins in hand, only domestic calls. However, with an international calling card, you can place international calls. (In the mid-1990s, to call internationally, you had to go to a phone that was specifically marked for international calls, either an international cardphone booth or a CAT international calling office.  You still see some of those around, but don't know if they work.  They seem obsolete, and were a really bad idea at considerable expense in a time of rapid change.)

The phone booths which take coins will allow you to put in as little as one baht to make a call, and will take the 5 and 10 baht coins, too. However, the amount of time you have to talk is measured by how much money you put in. A beep denotes one more minute, and a flashing zero means your time is less than a minute. If you drop in more coins, you can keep talking for longer. If you drop in a 5 or 10 baht coin but use only one minute, you don't get change back.

(In the old days, public phone booths came in two colors. The red ones could only make local calls within the city. The blue ones could make both local calls and long distance domestic calls. No international calls from those phone booths. They're still around, but newer phone booths give you more options.)

There are private 5-baht phones, usually little red ones sitting on someone's table or chair. You drop in the 5 baht coin, dial the number and wait. When the other person answers, you push the red button on the phone which makes the phone accept your 5 baht coin and then allows you to speak. If you don't press the 5 baht coin then the other party cannot hear you though you can hear them, and when you hang up you get your 5 baht coin returned. The people who put out these telephones make 2 baht profit per call. The calls are also limited in duration.

(Finally, there are some old card phones.  You plug in a card with a magnetic strip, make a call, and the amount is deducted from your card. These cards could be bought from various convenience stores.  In the old days, it was a good idea to pick up one or two for possible use. This was because the phone booths were often broken or there were waiting lines at a pay phone, and sometimes the only public phone available within view is a card phone.)

International Calls from Third Party Vendors

When you first come to Bangkok, if you don't have your own landline or a mobile phone with international service, then you may need to call home using a third party vendor.

Hotels will generally add about 30% to your phone charges.

The most economical way to make an international phone call is to go to a CAT public international calling center. There are CAT international calling sites at most public post offices in Bangkok and in the provinces.

Phone Rates
The cost varies by country, but it costs you considerably more to call your friends and associates the USA and other countries from Thailand, than for them to call you. When you call someone, you are charged a minimum of 1 minute. After that, you're charged in 6 second increments.

How To Make Free Calls Via Internet

At many Internet cafes, they can assist you in making "free" voice calls via Internet to certain countries and cities, even if the receiver does not have a computer. You just put on a headset (or have a separate mic and speakers) and type in the phone number to call, as a good Internet cafe employee can show you (good luck...). By "free", you are charged only the 20 baht per hour (U.S. 50 cents per hour) or so that you pay the Internet cafe.

If you have your own computer and Internet account, then you may want to set up this capability at your home or office. These applications are sensitive to the speed and stability of your Internet connection. If you have one weak link in the chain, then irritating dropouts, delays and freezeups of your conversation will occur. Thus, you will need not only good software or a good website interface service, but you will also need a good Internet service provider, a good modem, and a good phone line connection. In Thailand phone lines and phone company switching stations often cause problems.

There are two ways to set up Internet phone calls:

The first is whereby both you and the remote user use your PCs and Internet phone software (there are several shareware packages to try). This works best. Just two parties, you and your remote associates.

The second is to use a third party provider, which is a website interface. You log into the website, usually download and install their software interface, and then you can call people in certain countries ... even if they don't have a computer! The catch is that you get a lot of advertisements going across your screen while you talk. These ads take up bandwidth. If you don't have a stable high speed connection with a good Internet service provider, then there's a high chance you will suffer dropouts when each new ad comes across. Generally, the only way to get around the bandwidth consumption of ads is to go to option #1. Some Internet cafes are already set up well by a professional so that bandwidth is not a problem, but the vast majority of homes and businesses that I've seen are set up poorly. You lose privacy at Internet cafes, as they tend to be quiet with just typing, and everyone can overhear you. It's also inconvenient for business.

Paying Bills
If you live in a condominium, then you'll probably pay at the front desk. (Often, you'll pay more per unit than the utility company charges them...)

If you live in a house, then you're looking at ways to pay electricity, water and telephone.

The best place to pay bills is at 7-11 stores, counter services, banks and post offices.

You just walk in and give your bills to the counter attendant. After you give them your money and your bills, they will go to a computer, type in the information, then give you your bills back with receipts stapled to them. They don't need to keep any of your paper documentation. They charged me a 10 baht service fee per bill.

The only catch is that you must pay them before the expiration date on the bill. If you miss the expiration date, then they simply cannot process the bill. You must go to the phone company or electric company or water company, however far away that is -- and good luck finding out where. In the past, it needed to be the right district branch, too. Then, you must wait in line a long time. If your electricity is ever turned off for nonpayment, then you could have a real headache, depending on the district.

Just don't let the bill expire!

Tip: If you are moving into a rented property, then you are strongly advised to check the status of the bills by requiring that you see the payment receipts (even though you can't read them if you can't read Thai).  Sometimes, a previous tenant will not pay the bills for the last two months, intending to have the cost deducted from their deposit (which is the wrong thing to do, but many people play hardball).  This creates a situation where the electricity could be cut off.  I've seen this happen several times to new tenants, including on a Friday afternoon, which meant no electricity until well into Monday.
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