I have a cell phone with zhanghua or whatever it is in Taiwan, and upon bringing the cell phone back to the states I discovered that it actually works. The question is - how much am I paying for these calls?? I’m doubting it just counts as my normal minutes… Anyone know?
Never mind - I just found the answer for myself - looks like $.79 per minute plus fees. Not too bad for emergency one minute calls here and there.
You know it would be much cheaper if you got yourself a Pay-As-You-Go (pre-paid) SIM card from any of the cell phone providers in the states. (cingular, at&t, tmobile, etc.) It would be alot cheaper than using your phone for those short “emergency” calls. Just an idea.
cdnmagic
sorry to go OT, but do these prepaid cards now exist for canada as well? last time i went, all i could find was telus, who wanted me to sign up for some package even though i was staying all of three weeks …
If you have an “unlocked” tri-band or quad-band cell phone, you’ll be able to use it in Canada with either ROGERS or FIDO (same company now). Those are the only companies that use the SIM Card in Canada…the same system as Taiwan. You can sign up for a pre-paid SIM…but even though it’s pre-paid, they still do a credit check and there’s lots of paper work to fill out…but it might be worth it if you’re back for a while…you can even sell the SIM to someone when you’re done with it or give it to someone who has a SIM enabled phone.
Now, you can even buy a disposable pre-paid phone from PetroCanada…it’s a cheap Nokia phone that does the trick for short stints when you’re back in canuckland.
cdnmagic
im using T-mobiles pay as you go plan here in the usa. And its one of the 3 best pay as you go plans.
here are your options:
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t-mobile 25 dollars for a sim card and you can buy minutes in 25/50 / 100 dollars increments. get the details at www.t-mobile.com
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cingular has 2 excellent plans for pay as you go too. One basically you pay a 1 dollar a day charge whenver you use the fone , and zero a day if you dont make any calls that day. But you can talk to anyone else who has a Cingular cell fone for FREE 24/7. Or you can pay a flat 25cents/minute charge for fone use .
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Virgin has great plans too and they even sell Cell fones that work with them at the supermarket . The fones are as cheap as 25 dollars US.
all three of these companies you can make a call from anywhere in the USA to anywhere in the USA for the same rate per minute.
check em out online for details
or when you get here simply visit one of their stores and there you can make sure your cell fone will work with their sim cards (it should if you bought it in taiwan as they dont lock fones in taiwan).
one word of advice tho. Dont buy any fones from the american fone companies as they are programmed to be used only with their own networks. For example a t-mobile fone cant be used with a cingular sim card, etc. They got these fones cheap from the makers and are set for use only with their network.
Even if they advertise “world fone” that still only means they will work only within their network in those countries. You would have a hard time (with few exceptions) using a taiwan sim card with one of their fones (at least it hasnt worked for me).
One of those expections would be to get the phone UNLOCKED. For most phones it’s only a $20 job, but finding a place or someone to do that job is the hard part. If you need to get a phone “unlocked” in your area…you might be able to find someone on this site: www.craigslist.org Pick your location on the right side of the page and choose ‘electronics’ in the For Sale category…search ‘phone unlocking’…and you should get something.
Canada also has similar plans, but I gotta admit, the prepaid and monthly plans in the USA are much better. More people, more demand, more competition.
cdnmagic
just so you know, my friend brought a motorola v188 fone back to taiwan and used the directions that t-mobile gave to unlock the fone. And her and everyone at the store tried and tried and it simply wont work. She had to buy a fone on the spot and send that one back to me, which im using now.
so even if the fone is so called UNLOCKED , i would not 100pct say for sure that it WILL work in Taiwan.
The fone companies in the US have worked out something with the fone makers so that their fones can only ever be used with their own companies i believe. Anyone ever gotten a fone back to Taiwan from the US that was able to be unlocked and worked??
So I want to understand something, why is it that in the west like USA and Canada have credit checks for everything, even for stuff you’re paying for (like not borrowing money or anything)? So if you just landed in Canada with no credit how are you going to rent house or anything?
I think Taiwan’s system is better as far as credit goes because in Taiwan, no credit is good credit.
If you have an “unlocked” tri-band or quad-band cell phone, you’ll be able to use it in Canada with either ROGERS or FIDO (same company now). Those are the only companies that use the SIM Card in Canada…the same system as Taiwan. You can sign up for a pre-paid SIM…but even though it’s pre-paid, they still do a credit check and there’s lots of paper work to fill out…but it might be worth it if you’re back for a while…you can even sell the SIM to someone when you’re done with it or give it to someone who has a SIM enabled phone.
Now, you can even buy a disposable pre-paid phone from PetroCanada…it’s a cheap Nokia phone that does the trick for short stints when you’re back in canuckland.
cdnmagic[/quote]
I didn’t know Petro-Canada had ‘disposable pre-paid phones.’
I have a Rogers Pay As You Go (because I don’t like being tied down to cellular contracts) and it costs $0.20/minute for incoming/outgoing calls and outgoing SMSes. I was in the US for a week last month and roaming there cost me $2.25/minute.
Fyi, with Rogers Pay As You Go you can only add $40 maximum each time, with a maximum of three top-ups in a one month period. So if you’re like me, that’s $120/month. They won’t let you top-up more than that.
[quote=“tommy525”]just so you know, my friend brought a motorola v188 fone back to Taiwan and used the directions that t-mobile gave to unlock the fone. And her and everyone at the store tried and tried and it simply wont work. She had to buy a fone on the spot and send that one back to me, which im using now.
so even if the fone is so called UNLOCKED , i would not 100pct say for sure that it WILL work in Taiwan.
The fone companies in the US have worked out something with the fone makers so that their fones can only ever be used with their own companies i believe. Anyone ever gotten a fone back to Taiwan from the US that was able to be unlocked and worked??[/quote]
Yeah, I had a motorola from T-mobile. I had to have a contract with them for 1 year before they would unlock it. After a year (before I came to Taiwan) they gave me the unlock code. It works fine here in Taiwan. But I have since ditched it and gone with a local phone. The phones here are better and have more bells and whistles. I think the phones in the US are behind a few years and very limited in selection.
Alot of phones from the US do not have the ability to display chinese charachters - usefull for text messaging here. You get lost, need directions…text a taiwanese friend and they can text you the street address in Chinese - show it to a cab driver … bingo bango - you are in business my friend. That is why I ditched my US phone.
[quote=“Quarters”][quote=“tommy525”]just so you know, my friend brought a motorola v188 fone back to Taiwan and used the directions that t-mobile gave to unlock the fone. And her and everyone at the store tried and tried and it simply wont work. She had to buy a fone on the spot and send that one back to me, which im using now.
so even if the fone is so called UNLOCKED , i would not 100pct say for sure that it WILL work in Taiwan.
The fone companies in the US have worked out something with the fone makers so that their fones can only ever be used with their own companies i believe. Anyone ever gotten a fone back to Taiwan from the US that was able to be unlocked and worked??[/quote]
Yeah, I had a motorola from T-mobile. I had to have a contract with them for 1 year before they would unlock it. After a year (before I came to Taiwan) they gave me the unlock code. It works fine here in Taiwan. But I have since ditched it and gone with a local phone. The phones here are better and have more bells and whistles. I think the phones in the US are behind a few years and very limited in selection.
Alot of phones from the US do not have the ability to display chinese charachters - usefull for text messaging here. You get lost, need directions…text a Taiwanese friend and they can text you the street address in Chinese - show it to a cab driver … bingo bango - you are in business my friend. That is why I ditched my US phone.[/quote]
wow good points for going with a local fone anyway