Originally Posted by
glennaa11
Is this guidance still correct re SIMs?
I will spend about 10 days in Taiwan and have a phone that is unlocked and takes a microSIM (Nexus4). I think getting a SIM makes more sense than trying to rely on free internet service. I'll arrive late in the evening so I figure I will go out the next day and get things set up. I'll be staying in the Nanjing E Rd area.
I went to Taiwan Mobile's website to get some more info but was a little bit confused by the various options.
Don't suppose you speak/read Mandarin?
You can get a SIM card with passport and US driver's license. I did it at Chunghwa Telecom office July 2012 and FarEasTone office Sept 2013. I made sure to go to their corporate stores, as opposed to an authorized store, plus I communicated with the store employee in Mandarin, so not sure how much longer if would have taken in English.
FarEasTone took probably 10 minutes from walking in the door to walking out with activated SIM. Prepaid only has mini-sim and they cut it to micro-sim for me.
Chunghwa Telecom has micro sims for prepaid (I had a mini-sim that I went and swapped out this last trip, Sept 2013).
There is both a FarEastTone and Chunghwa Telecom corporate office very close to the Regent hotel in Taipei, so might be worth a trip there. I am sure there are other ones closer to where you are staying, but it's kind of a pain to figure out which ones are corporate vs authorized stores.
All three companies have (I believe corporate) stores in TPE airport. My flights never seem to land when they are open (around 7 or 8AM till 7 or 8 PM I think) so I had to resort to the stores in the city which are presumably less familiar with working with tourists.