this works more often than it should, but glad it’s there. Until they don’t call the police (mostly at banks though or some gov office), but yeah, the mafan they get is a good deterrent
I used to do that in Taiwan , not so much these days as I ask my wife to talk to them if I’m busy , saves me hassle and they find it harder to refuse her. Also Taiwan became more systematic these days.
I do this sometimes, one particular time I was in a stubon mood and they decided to phone the police. To their credit they came, listens to both sides of the story, told them to give me my refund.
You can as long as you connect your phone to Wi-Fi and have voice over WiFi activated.
Another option too, if you have dual sims with an active local sim, the CHT prepaid one will piggyback off the data of the local one.
I signed up for a 199NT plan at Taiwan mobile for 6GB today (postpaid). Should do me.
and you guys have it so good about cellfone servie, the average cell service here with unlimited text and calls within the USA is 40 to 60 dollars per month depending on the carrier , this is before you add any installment plans for financing a phone or extra services.
there are so many pencil pushers and the govt needs to provide work for them to do and of course they should not be interdepartment cuz each department has to have work for them. So of course if you think along these lines you will get it (or maybe not unless you do x and y in reverse order).
haha probably because they called the police for this trivial matter
I’m still not sure about whether this is universally true. I tried again a couple of weeks ago in Vietnam and it didn’t work whatever settings I chose (and I tried all of them).
I don’t see a “voice over Wifi” option on my Android phone. I just looked again using the instructions here and there still isn’t one. In case it’s carrier-dependent, I have a Viettel SIM in at the moment, but I’m pretty sure I’d have seen it the last couple of times when I had the Chunghwa SIM in given that I was trying everything.
Is that a special promotion? Might need to take a look…
No, it seems to be their standard offering (it’s 4G only though, not 5G).
Here is the link. I have a feeling it might not open properly since it takes you to a comparison page. Here’s the info you can show the clerk if you go for it:
FarEastTone have a similar deal for the same price, and it’s 12 months, so a shorter term:
Makes sense!!!
Yes, it’s carrier dependetnt. If the carrier supports it and the line is active, you will see the option for that specific SIM card (when multi sim)
Just back from Europe in Taiwan. Not sure if it’s related to this, but this time, my TWM SIM didn’t work at all while abroad:
Last year, it kept getting signal / receiving text messages as normal - both in Europe and in Japan. Every time my phone switched between network service providers, I received a very long (and very detailed) text messages telling me about roaming charges and such. I even received and accepted a call while being abroad in Japan with no issues (they charged a couple of NT$ roaming charges, of course).
This time?
No service all the time. Nothing. Just “No Service”.
The only thing that still worked was Wifi-Calling. As my phone was constantly looking for service, the battery kept draining really fast, though, I had to switch off the line…
I went back to Europe via BKK with my new CHT sim, and it was SUPER slow in connecting to any network, I remember I bought Thailand roaming, but it didn’t work (or couldn’t connect).
Esim it’s the way, and tbh I kept the CHT sim on but without connection, VOLTE/VOWIFI worked to receive SMS/calls.
But, security…!
Taiwan telecom warns of travel eSIM use
Chunghwa Telecom chair warns travel eSIM use can aid China eavesdropping
Chien acknowledged that roaming with a user’s original phone number is generally more expensive than purchasing a travel eSIM but said it offers greater security and service reliability. “If there are any problems, you can contact customer service,” he said.
If you chose a cheap eSIM over your expensive CHT SIM with roaming, you won’t be able to enjoy conversing with the CHT support from abroad 
At this point I’m kinda wondering whether to drop all TW telecom and simply use an international eSIM plus WiFi.
What are the points to consider then?
More expensive and no local number, which is pretty hard to survive without.
They r shit, but cheap shit and network coverage is stupidly good with fast and stable speeds (besides remote mountain areas).
Having unlimited data plans is mind-blowing for me coming first from HK where, coverage and speeds are as good, but data is considerably more expensive. only Italy is comparably cheap, but coverage is much wonkier (bigger country with lots of mountains).
So, netting the crappy bureaucracy, telcos here are pretty good with the service offered (I.e. connection and reliability of that).
But is there an essential need for a LOCAL number?