Thailand telephone · Telephone in Thailand
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Telephone in Thailand
Telephone in Thailand
To place an international call, you can buy a prepaid card (available for 300 baht at many convenience stores and guesthouses) to use with one of the bright yellow Lenso payphones. You should rarely have trouble finding either of these unless you're way out in the countryside. The international access code is 001.
For mobile phone users, Thailand has three GSM mobile service providers - AIS , DTAC and Truemove ) - which may be useful if you have (or can afford!) a mobile phone that will work on either one or both of the GSM 900 or 1800 frequency bands (consult your phone's technical specifications). If you have one, you can buy a prepaid SIM card for any of the Thai carriers in any convenience store for as little as 50-200 baht and charge it up as you go. The Bangkok airport is a good place to buy a SIM card, since the people working at the counters there speak relatively good English.
Most phones sold by major carriers are "locked" to the carrier. That means that the phone won't work with a SIM card on another network, unless you get it unlocked. Unlocking a phone involves entering a special code into the phone. The procedure for entering this code depends on the specific phone. Most carriers will give you the unlock code, and instructions on how to unlock it, if you have been a subscriber in good standing (bills paid) for a certain period (about 3 months, but depends on the carrier). Contact your carrier's customer service department, and tell them you plan to use your phone overseas. They will usually give you the unlock code. Once unlocked, you can use any SIM card in the phone. Alternatively, the wizards at Bangkok's MBK shopping mall can unlock most phones for less than 500 baht. If you need to buy a mobile phone, you can pick those up at MBK as well, as a huge selection of cheap secondhand mobiles can be found on the 4th floor.
International rates from a Thai carriers are surprisingly good - DTAC, for example, charges 10 baht/minute to call America. Moreover, you can reduce rates even further - from 1,5 times and up to 5-6x for some countries like Russia - by predialing 009 or 008 instead of + before the international country code. For instance, 009 1(xxx)xxx-xxxx for America will give you 5 baht/minute rate, at the expense of slight voice quality decrease (which is often unnoticeable, though).
TrueMove offers very good international call rates from 1 baht per minute to destinations including the USA, Canada, Australia, UK, France and Germany with its Inter SIM promotion . You may find the SIM cards handed out for free at some airports, branded as an AOT SIM and including 5 minutes of free calls back home. Note that you should also use prefixes (006 for better quailty, 00600 for cheaper rate, however, for some countries, the rate is same for both promotions) to get those cheap rates, but this, as well as rates for selected countries, is clearly listed on SIM card packages.
Coverage is very good throughout the country, all cities and tourist destinations (including resort islands) are well covered, and even in the countryside it's more likely you'll get the network signal than not, especially with AIS or DTAC SIM. However, if you plan extended stays in remote non-tourist areas, AIS (their prepaid service name is '1-2-call') is a better choice, at the expense of more pricey local calls than DTAC. But the difference, once very significant, becomes less and less with time, both in call rates and coverage. TrueMove coverage is considered the worst, with phones occasionally losing signal even in towns. Nevertheless, if you plan to stay only in major cities/islands, and/or don't need you phone available all the time when outside of those - True SIM is OK too. As a benefit - now they have 3G (850 MHz only - not all, especially older, handsets do support this band) coverage in Bangkok (center, airport and some other areas), Chiang Mai (entire city, as of June 2010), Phuket and Pattaya.
If you plan to visit Thailand at least once a year but not for too long time, consider buying the SIM with minimal validity restrictions (usually one year from the last top up, even if it was 10 baht). By doing this, you can re-use this SIM on the next trips, thus avoiding hassle of buying new one every time, keeping your Thai number the same, as well as saving a bit. For example, DTAC offers Simple SIM plan for that, and before 7-elevens sold this one by default, but now they seem to offer cheaper (but with limited validity) Happy SIM instead. Just ask for the former one. Local calls will be a bit more pricey (international are not affected), but usually this is not of much concern for a short time visitor. AIS (One-Two-Call) has similar (but more expensive) offer too, as well as True . If you already got Thai SIM and want to switch plan, it is also possible for free or with small charge - consult respective operator's website for details.
For short term visitors, international roaming onto Thailand's GSM networks is possible, subject to agreements between operators. There is also some CDMA service in Bangkok and some other cities which allows expensive roaming for customers of some North American CDMA networks.
Thailand SIM cards - Pre-paid Thailand nationwide SIM cards for use with your mobile phone.
Thai Prepaid Card - Online top up credit for Thai pre-paid SIM cards.
GSM World - Thailand - list of networks, coverage maps, and frequency bands
CAT Telecom 009 IP Telephony service rates - see how much you'll save on international calls if using 009 instead of +
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Thailand
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Thailand Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.