Korean Sim CardPosted by Roger Keays, 24 August 2010 |
One of the most frustration things about staying in Korea was not being able to use my mobile phone. It's a Samsung phone - made in Korea, but it doesn't actually work on the Korean cell phone system because they don't use SIM cards. Instead their subscriber identity is hard coded into the handset and that phone is linked to a specific company for good (and I thought SIM-locking was a pain in the butt).
Since I didn't want to carry two phones with me everywhere, I went in search of the best travel / roaming SIM card which works on the Korean networks. The downside is you don't have a local number, so no one wants to call you, but you can still receive calls from home and make outgoing calls. I forward my home number to the SIM.
Here are the products I checked out. I went with the GoSIM card because your credit doesn't expire. It's been fine so far, and it's convenient when you change countries because you don't need to be too fussed about getting a local SIM.
Prices are in USD unless specified. Everything is billed per minute.
| Go SIM | OneSim | Passport | Passport Lite | TravelSIM | TruPhone | Yackie | |
| price | $31,20 | $29,95 | $29,00 | free | 49.95AUD | $25,00 | $59,00 |
| postage | $15,96 | $3,00 | $49,00 | ? | 15AUD | ||
| credit included | $16,00 | none | $10,00 | $5,00 | 5AUD | $15,00 | $25,00 |
| free number | estonia | estonia | UK | UK | estonia | US | none |
| US redirect | 35c | 35c | 19c | 30c | - | ||
| korea in | 0 | 0 | 0 | 89c | 0 | $1,29 | 18c |
| korea mobile | 48c | 45c | 84c | $1,49 | 52c | $5,28 | 19,5c |
| korea sms in | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| korea sms out | 58c | 40c | 69c | 79c | 47c | 56c | 54c |
| korea data | $3,36 | $3,42 | $2,50 | $2,50 | $3,42 | $1,04 | $3,00 |
| call type | callback | callback | callback | callback | callback | ||
| connection fee | 0c | 0c | 35c | ? | |||
| credit expiry | none | 10 months | 9 months | ||||
| recharge amt | $25,00 | $30,00 |
Just one thing - if you are going to forward your home number to your roaming SIM, check that your phone company will connect calls to Estonia. Some VoIP telecoms don't service Estonia because of the high amount of fraudulent activity relating to that country.
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