Some time ago in another thread, I asked if anyone was familiar with any of the local VoIP providers. Despite getting no answers, I decided to take the plunge and apply for an account with one of them. What follows is a summary of my experience, but first some introduction:
VoIP? The general idea how this works is that you get a way of making phone calls from anywhere in the world, as long as you’re connected to the Internet: there’s no SIM card or extra cables, you’re supposed to get online on your own.
SIP? Skype works very much this way, except it’s proprietary, so you’re bound to use only their own software or hardware, while SIP is an open-standard protocol supported by numerous computer programs and smartphone apps, as well as hardware VoIP phones and exchanges. SIP providers are also much cheaper than Skype. SIP is generally used by businesses to keep the cost of phone calls down, larger companies will have their in-house solutions based on this protocol.
In Taiwan? There are many such services all around the world available to the general public, but the advantage of applying for one here is being able to get a local Taiwanese phone number, so that other people can call you without incurring extra cost. While in most countries VoIP numbers are indistinguishable from regular landlines, in Taiwan they follow a special numbering scheme: 070 xxx xxxxx, although the calling rates seem to be the same as for landline phones.
Chief? One local company offering VoIP services is called Chief 070 (Chinese name: 是方), while FarEastOne (遠傳) also has something similar under their Seednet brand, but their terms don’t seem very competitive. I don’t know of any other VoIP services available to consumers beyond these two, so it was an easy choice to go for the Chief.
The application process, not really straightforward, is as follows:
[ol][li]Fill a form on the Internet, choose your phone number (070 101 xxxxx) and deposit 500元 into your account using a credit card (foreign cards accepted) or an ATM transfer. This is also how you top up later, so you don’t need to be physically present in Taiwan to use it.[/li]
[li]Print out the PDF application form that was sent to your e-mail address. For this I used FamilyMart’s FamiPort Cloud Printing (雲端列印) service, which comes handy if you don’t have a spare USB flash drive.[/li]
[li]Sign the contract and, due to the laws introduced in May this year, take it to the company’s office to apply in person. It seems until recently it was enough just to send it by post and in some places on their website the instructions still refer to this, but in fact now you really need to appear in the flesh: I guess the local telco oligopoly is delighted with these laws as each of the big three (four?) telecoms has a lot of branches; unfortunately Chief only has one office, which is in Neihu, about 10 minutes’ walk from MRT Gangqian, and that’s where I needed to go. Still, it’d generally be a pleasant walk for Taipei standards, had the pollution index not suddenly jumped to over 150 that very day; but I digress.[/li]
[li]The account becomes active immediately after they verify you (two forms of ID necessary). You will get an e-mail notification with an initial password. Log in to your account on the website and change the password; while you’re there, also allocate some of the funds you previously deposited towards your new phone number (one person can theoretically hoard up to 10 phone numbers). After that, voilà, you can start calling.[/li][/ol]
As for how to use it, there are numerous options. The most straightforward way is to get the dedicated Chief Android App (there’s also one for the iPhone). I’ve been using the app over 3G mobile data and it seems to work just fine (in some countries mobile-phone operators try to block it, as it deprives them of income streams from voice calls, which is exactly what I’m trying to do here 
).
Interestingly, as it’s a third-party app just customized for Chief, it’s actually all in (correct) English if your phone is set to that language. Still, my idea is to use the account with CSipSimple, which involves some setup quirks but seems to be working reliably now; this is useful if you also have other VoIP accounts. Besides, it’s also possible to use it on a computer or with a hardware VoIP phone (generally much cheaper than proprietary Skype phones, Gigaset is one brand). Finally, there are also “adapters” that allow using VoIP with any regular phone, so it’s really a world of possibilities.
This post ended much longer than I intended to… Hopefully one day someone will dig it up from the archives and find it useful. On a side note, if you hurry you can still get perhaps the most easily-memorized phone number available: xxx xxx 77414, or “去去死一死”.