jplee3

Hey all,

I wanted to find out what you guys would recommend for cellphone plan(s) while in Korea and Taiwan.

I have an unlocked Droid 2 Global that I think should work OK if I just get a sim card for it. I'll need to pickup probably 2-3 phones (preferably dumb flip phones) for my in-laws and wife too. Actually, my wife has a Droid Pro with a sim card slot but it's not unlocked I'm pretty sure - I don't think any international SIM would work on it unless we have it unlocked somehow.

Is it better to wait and just get the SIM cards there? Or should we do something like get a Tmobile family plan just for the month we're there? My co-worker was saying that he was able to get free local calls (within Korea, I think) and unlimited data while there via his Tmobile plan. Not sure if what he said was completely accurate.

What would you guys recommend doing? My in-laws haven't been back in over 30 years and this is our first time too so we have no clue pretty much.

BTW: we're currently using Page Plus (Verizon MVNO) for all our phones.

jplee3

Looks like Page Plus offers a $9 Global Calling card that you can use in conjunction with whatever current plan you have:
https://www.pagepluscellular.com/pla...-calling-card/

NM - that's literally just a calling card for if you want to call other countries.

I'm chatting with a PP rep now:

"We only have international roaming agreements for the following areas as long as you're able to connect to a tower. Bermuda is $1.10 per minute, Canada is 60c per minute, Mexico is $1.10 per minute, Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands would be .60c per minute. For all 4 of the countries I just mentioned, it'll be .50c per outgoing text, .25c per incoming text. Any other country is not guaranteed and there's not an international roaming agreement, so if it does work, we don't have a set rate. I'm sorry for any inconvenience."

jackal

As I've discovered, it's not super easy to get a SIM here in Korea.

There's a waiting period after you arrive (3 days?) before you can legally obtain one, and even then, you're supposed to apply for some sort of foreign registration card within the first 90 days and transfer your mobile account to that once you get it. Obviously you won't be getting one as a short-term tourist, so you can ignore that part, but it's still hard to get one before the 3 day waiting period.

I saw some references to ways around that--maybe Evergreen will sell you one upon arrival if you pre-reserve it? I did a bunch of reading but ultimately opted to forgo one as wifi is ubiquitous (some areas of Seoul even have free municipal wifi on the streets, and most subway stations have free wifi if you have a Boingo account). I'm on my phone now so can't pull up links, but do some digging on Google and you'll probably find as much as I did.

jplee3

Thanks for the information! So I wonder if it might be worth while then just to get a Tmobile plan for a month or something... hmm. What about getting Tmobile prepaid here and then using it over there?

I guess we'll look into pre-reserving something. My in-laws will definitely need dumbphones and service of some sort - for my wife and I, we probably could get by on wifi alone but data/voice would be nice too.

Need

I just came back from Seoul, and I took others suggestions here and rented a WiFi egg from Olleh booth at the airport. It is about $8 US per day and the battery last the whole day. When we were out, all our devices, iPhone, Android, iPads, are connected to internet. We don't really have to ever make a real phone call... it won't do us any good anyway as we don't speak Korean!

mikesaidyes

I wholeheartedly recommend the Olleh egg from KT. You can make a reservation online at http://roaming.kt.com/renewal/eng/main.asp?channel= There is a deposit of $150, but you get that back when you return the device.

nme7

Before you get the Egg upon arriving at ICN, I've had no problems getting a SIM card at the cell phone/electronics shop downstairs in the basement of ICN airport. The place is located near the ice skating ring and theater. Try checking there because they sell prepaid sim cards there and will help you with the setup before you leave. If that doesn't work, then perhaps renting the egg will be a better option.

jackal

I've seen a lot of recommendations for renting the Egg, but when I looked, it wasn't particularly cheap--5 days of an Egg costs as much as I'd spend on a prepaid SIM for a month.

SirJman

I think it's more a leftover habit from the days when they didn't offer prepaid SIM cards for tourists at all (only 2-3 years ago)

Need

How much is a SIM card rental? Does it have unlimited data and would it let you put the phone in Wifi hotspot mode? I agree that 8000 won a day was expansive if you need it for a month, but for a week it wasn't bad. If I get a Sim card, I would need to get 3.. one for my phone, one for my wife's ipad and one for my son's ipad. I need internet to get us around the town, and they need it to feed their chickens on Hay Day! LOL.

jackal

I'm seeing prices of about 30,000 won for a SIM with 1GB of data. That's cheaper than an Egg as long as you are going to be in Korea for at least 4 days. 1GB isn't unlimited, but it's easily enough for a week or two's worth of fairly heavy browsing (as long as you're not YouTubing, and of course most US Netflix et al. accounts don't work overseas, so that's not an issue).

In the probably 20 prepaid SIM cards I've used outside the U.S., each and every one of them has the "Personal Hotspot" option enabled. I have no reason to believe this one would be any different. This would avoid you having to purchase three cards.

Need

That's pretty good price. I think we used about 2GB total for the week we stayed in Seoul. When I was in Italy, the personal hotspot was disabled for the prepaid SIM card. It will let me use it for like a few kB and after that I get a TXT from the carrier saying that my plan does not allow tethering.

jplee3

Thanks again guys. I started looking into the Evergreen/EG sim cards as well as the wifi-korea hotspots. The EG sims look good except we'll have to pay extra and have them delivered to our hotel in Jeju since our flight to Incheon arrives at 4:40am and the collection service isn't open that early. Unless we're somehow able to procure a card at that time elsewhere like GS25 or something (but we're all US citizens and I keep hearing there's a 3 day wait period to buy a SIM once you get there). My in-laws just need something to make and receive phone calls (no data and no texting); the EG sim seems like it'll work but it'll cost around $35US based on what I'm looking at.

For my wife and I, I'm debating whether to get an EG sim for us or if we should do the Wifi-Korea thing or Olleh. Not sure if we'll really need a mobile wifi hotspot if all the places we're staying at already have wifi... also, if we depended solely on the portable mifi hotspot, we'd have to figure out a solution for making/receiving phone calls as well (not sure this will work out too well when our parents have to call us and likely end up calling a US-based phone number). The only other option I can think of right now is buying a Tmobile simple choice plan the month we leave and then cancel it when we get back haha - is that possible without ETF? Has anybody tried doing this?

Also, if I have CDMA-only/supported phones, is there any service in South Korea (and Taiwan) that I could leverage using these phones over? And without any hassles of 3-day waiting periods, etc?

jackal

If you just need occasional access to data cheaply, you might be better off buying a daily pass from one of the super-ubiquitous wifi services that have hotspots literally everywhere in Seoul. Seriously, you can't pull your phone out anywhere in Seoul, above or underground, without seeing an Olleh wifi spot (or the other network, which I can't recall the name of off the top of my head). I think a day pass is about $3/day.

For phone calls, use Google Voice and download the Hangouts app on your phone. It's free to/from the US, and cheap local calls to Korea are possible if you add a little bit of credit. You can also do Skype with a SkypeIn number, but that costs money. Google Voice is free and can't be beat, IMHO.

Oh, and Korea, like Japan (and unlike most of the rest of the world outside the US/Canada), has a heritage of CDMA, so yes, there are CDMA networks there. CDMA wasn't engineered with the simple ability to switch services with a SIM card, though, so you might not have an easy time getting your US CDMA phone signed up with a provider there (unless you want to pay the exorbitant roaming charges through your provider back home).

jplee3

We might be kind of depending on maps and translate... seems like a decent alternative though.

As far as Google Voice - wouldn't it cost my in-laws quite a bit to be calling the US-Based GV number from their EG-sim loaded phones? I guess incoming calls would be free for them but what if they wanted to call us - I thought rates were quite a bit more, not to mention the hassle of dialing extra digits (we'll probably have to setup speed-dial in either case)

BTW: I'm looking at the Hangouts app and does it really have the ability to call a straight phone number? I see my Google contacts on there and if I try to enter a number to dial I have to sent an invite to them before this can happen. I also heard that Google Voice calls are only available within the US - wouldn't I be prevented from making/receiving calls while in SK and TW? I'm on an Android phone btw - I think iphones can make/receive calls via Hangouts but I don't know about Android phones. I'm downloading the Google Voice app to check it out.