If you are likely to rely on the Internet for whatever reason you need to bare in mind that rural internet connections can be very poor in the Udon Thani area and probably just about any rural location in Thailand. If you live in an really remote location this is something that could potentially make you want to reconsider your choice of location to live.
Before I moved away from the inner City of Udon Thani, the internet service provided was pretty good and it was typically only a loss in electricity during one of the many tropical storms between May and October each year that would result in not being able to access the Worldwide Web. Had you asked me at that time my opinion of the service, I would have been happy enough to state that is was certainly good enough and reliable.
Now that we have moved in to a slightly more rural location, in a small village just a few kilometres from the Udon Thani ring road it is a very different story. We are now at the stage where every slightest bit of rainfall results in a loss of the internet connection. There is clearly a problem with the telephone lines that dangle between posts between Udon Thani and our village. I would not be at all surprised if all the cables used were sub-standard, hence the outer protective PVC part is bare in places, letting moisture and large water droplets on to the exposed wiring running through its core, causing it to "short-out" and become erratic at best, completely lost at worst.
In addition to the cabling being exposed to high temperatures throughout the year you will find many telecoms cable in rural areas that are either very close to trees or in many cases, passing through the branches of trees. As soon as a storm whips up, the high winds that almost always accompany the storm naturally blows the tree branches which can snap, fall on the cable and either damage the outer layers or take the line down completely.
I am on the phone to the Internet Service Provider (3BB) just about every week to tell them of the problems and every week an engineer checks the line and makes repair, only for the same problem to occur within days when the next rainfall descends.
What I find hard to believe is that here in Udon Thani everything is reactive and not pro-active. There is no maintenance done on the telephone network (the same applies to the electricity it seems) and the only works carried out are in response to notification of a fault. With the money the various ISP's are making I really don't think it is asking too much of them to join forces to provide a more reliable service as all a phone call to report a problem nearly every week is beyond a joke and something I never had to do in some 18 years back in England.
Even the installation of telemetry would be a good starting point so the various ISP's are able to remotely monitor the current passing through the cables and identify problems as they arise but this being Thailand these companies seem very reluctant to spend money on improving their infrastructure or service. That said, at least when you phone the help desk (which you can do in English), the agent you talk to is normally very pleasant.
Before I moved away from the inner City of Udon Thani, the internet service provided was pretty good and it was typically only a loss in electricity during one of the many tropical storms between May and October each year that would result in not being able to access the Worldwide Web. Had you asked me at that time my opinion of the service, I would have been happy enough to state that is was certainly good enough and reliable.
Now that we have moved in to a slightly more rural location, in a small village just a few kilometres from the Udon Thani ring road it is a very different story. We are now at the stage where every slightest bit of rainfall results in a loss of the internet connection. There is clearly a problem with the telephone lines that dangle between posts between Udon Thani and our village. I would not be at all surprised if all the cables used were sub-standard, hence the outer protective PVC part is bare in places, letting moisture and large water droplets on to the exposed wiring running through its core, causing it to "short-out" and become erratic at best, completely lost at worst.
In addition to the cabling being exposed to high temperatures throughout the year you will find many telecoms cable in rural areas that are either very close to trees or in many cases, passing through the branches of trees. As soon as a storm whips up, the high winds that almost always accompany the storm naturally blows the tree branches which can snap, fall on the cable and either damage the outer layers or take the line down completely.
I am on the phone to the Internet Service Provider (3BB) just about every week to tell them of the problems and every week an engineer checks the line and makes repair, only for the same problem to occur within days when the next rainfall descends.
What I find hard to believe is that here in Udon Thani everything is reactive and not pro-active. There is no maintenance done on the telephone network (the same applies to the electricity it seems) and the only works carried out are in response to notification of a fault. With the money the various ISP's are making I really don't think it is asking too much of them to join forces to provide a more reliable service as all a phone call to report a problem nearly every week is beyond a joke and something I never had to do in some 18 years back in England.
Even the installation of telemetry would be a good starting point so the various ISP's are able to remotely monitor the current passing through the cables and identify problems as they arise but this being Thailand these companies seem very reluctant to spend money on improving their infrastructure or service. That said, at least when you phone the help desk (which you can do in English), the agent you talk to is normally very pleasant.