Using a Huawei high-speed packet access (HSPA) USB stick is a cheap way to connect your notebook to the Internet on TOT's 3G network.
Bt2,500.
If you buy it from TOT, you will also get a TOT 3G SIM card for subscribing to a TOT post-paid package.But if you buy it from Samart i-Mobile, you will need to buy a prepaid SIM card for Bt99 with an airtime value of Bt50.
I tested the Huawei E1750 on TOT's 3G network in Pattanakarn Soi 65 in Prawet district. The 3G network covers the area with a good signal.
The Huawei E1750 is easy to set up.Once I plugged it into my notebook computer,its driver and interface application installed, and when the notebook was restarted, it was ready to
fly.
TOT's 3G network uses HSPA 2100-megahertz technology. Technical data accompanying the Huawei E1750 said it could achieve a download speed of up to 5.76 megabits per seconds.
However, my test found that the download speed ranged from 2Mbps to 2.8Mbps.
This speed was very fast for downloading video or music files. For example, at 2.71Mbps you can download a 5MB MP3 file in 15 seconds, or a 35MB video clip in 2 minutes. But since the speed varied, so did the downloading time.
The uploading speed of the Huwei E1750 on TOT's 3G network was not acceptable for those who might have big files to send to the office on the go - like reporters or photographers in the field.
The test found that the uploading speed was less than 128Kbps - much slower than the normal 512Kbps uploading speed of a line-based ADSL connection. In fact, during one speed test I found the uploading speed dropped to only 29Kbps, but for most of the time it was 105Kbps.
At this speed, you could find it annoying to upload a big picture to your Facebook page, so I
really hope TOT and Samart work to improve the uploading speed.
I conducted the speed test on Speedtest.net. I was happy to find that a speed test to a server in Thailand achieved similar results to speed tests to servers outside the country. This shows TOT has not limited the Internet connection speed to servers outside the country.
This is good for those who like to watch videos from Youtube.com, for example.
The test was done on an i-Mobile 3GX prepaid SIM from Samart. Samart has
four airtime-refilling rates of Bt50, Bt100, Bt300 and Bt500 for 30MB, 100MB, 500MB and 1,000MB of data usage.
If you are online most of the time or watch a lot of video clips, you should go for the biggest package because you will reach your quota very rapidly.
During the test, I found that I used about 50MB of data in just half an hour.
The Huawei E1750 also serves as a microSD card reader, with a slot for inserting the card.
