Why does my cell phone lose service?

Cell phone service for a year?

• OK - in 38 days I will be arriving in Chiang Mai (God willing and the creek don't rise). I already have a cell phone from previous trips to Thailand. I was thinking of purchasing a sim card at a 7-11 for 1-2 Call service for 12 months, but I understand that you can't buy service for that long. What's the best way to get cell phone service for a year? What's most important is that I get a cell phone number and can keep it for as long as I keep the service active. I don't text or do anything else with a cell phone except send and receive calls.

• Answer:

  You can buy service for a year with a pre-paid 1 2 Call Sim Card, just buy enough top up cards to extend the validity for a year. Each time you buy a top up card, it extends the validity period by a certain number of days depending on the value of the top up card. For example; a 300 Baht top up card normally extends your service period by 30 days and each card will extend the validity of your sim card by 30 days, but you cannot extend your service further out than 1 year from the date that you last entered a top up card number. It's not necessary to do that though, as long as you don't let your sim card expire by not topping up, you keep the same phone number for as long as you want. I've had the same pre-paid 1 2 Call number for 5-6 years now and only buy a top up card when my minutes get low as my validity is already about 6 months out. You can always check your minutes and validity by calling *121# and 1 2 Call will send you a message if your balance or validity gets low or your sim card is about to expire. It's also a good idea to check the 1 2 Call website once in awhile, they always have different calling plans that you can change to depedning on the sim card, some of which can save you quite a bit of money depending on how much and how you use your phone. Good luck. http://www.ais.co.th/12call/en/sim-card.html