Why not get an unlimited data plan and use skype from your phone?
I think CHT has one for a little over $800NT a month, but you’ll need a local cosigner or have to pay a deposit.
Far East Tone’s unlimited data is a little more expensive I think a little over $900, but unlike CHT you don’t need a co-signer and you can double up the internet plan with a regular cell phone plan, too. You’ll only have a contract if you buy a phone from them.
If you decide to do it, just make sure you get the “real” internet. They have a cheaper option through their local provider or something (I’m not too clear on it)…I think CHT’s one is emone or something. So, you’ll have unlimited data just through that network, or something to that effect.
I just went through this process so perhaps I can shed a bit of light on the issue.
I ended up going with 中華電信 primarily because most of my friends and fam are on that network. Calling within the same network as the majority of the people you call can save you a surprising amount of money.
Secondly, it will be a major help to you if you have a local Taiwanese person that is willing to cosign for you. I inquired about how I, as an American, could open one myself, and it quickly became clear that it would be a major hassle. Far easier for me to have an auntie sign off on the application with her info and I give her the money. The prices for plans vary widely, depending on if you are including internet, etc, but I am paying about US$10 for my plan. Of course, it is that cheap because I will be pretty careful about how I use my 383NT, but it’s FAR cheaper than what I was paying back in the states.
As for your question about whether you can use it in multiple countries, I have told that I need to to buy a new sim card for a local network if I were to go to say, China, as Zhonghua dianxin won’t work there. To be honest, I don’t know if any of the networks will work abroad. Someone else may be able to answer that for you.
A couple more things: If you can’t get someone to cosign for you, one alternative to this is 7/11’s proprietary (at least I think it is) network called OPEN. Be aware that this is a really expensive alternative though, with egregiously expensive per-minute rates. I also don’t know how plans work in Australia, but in the US you pay a certain amount of money per month for X minutes and perhaps X SMS messages. In Taiwan it seems to be you pay a certain amount of money from which calls (with varying rates depending on if you are dialing within or between cell and city networks) and text messages are deducted.
Good luck though. This, like many things, are a bit flummoxing.
Taiwan’s mobile rates are actually not much cheaper than the States if you look at how much it costs per minute. At CHT’s most expensive plan (which has the lowest per-minute rates), in-network calls cost USD$0.05/min, out of network calls are USD$0.19/min, and landline calls are $0.17/minute. In contract, AT&T’s cheapest individual plan is USD$40/month for 450 minutes, or USD$0.08/min, PLUS free in-network calls and 5000 nights and weekend minutes.
The nice thing though is that incoming calls and texts are free and if you’re a light user you do end up paying less than how much you would pay overseas a month.
7-11’s OPEN prepaid card runs off Fareastone’s network.
Thanks guys that is really helpful. I like the sounds of the skype phone.
Over here we have CAPS so for example you pay say $59 you get $350 (calls are 37c per 30 seconds) worth of credit free sms/mms to any network 1gb of data and free calls to people on the same network, most of the time international calls are cheaper then local calls.
I have someone who can co sign for me. One more question though, if i use a skype phone… does that mean i pay $900/700 NT for unlimited data, but then have to put money in my skype account to actually make the calls…??? so i pay the telco for the data and skype for the calls…
I was worried about the hassle thing for CHT but the office on Dun Hua S was awesome. I walked in, Told the woman what I wanted, she told me to get a number and wait, nobody else there so I came right back to her, gave her 2900 deposit, picked number, signed on line out the door.
I’m pretty sure that with skype on your phone it works just like skype on a computer, so if you call someone’s computer (or skype service on their phone) it’ll be free, but to call a landline or cell number you’ll have to pay through skype too (I think for most countries the amount you’d pay through skype is cheaper than an international call though).
A lot of my friends on the data plan have set up Fring for texting free between their phone, so that might be something you could use too. I believe you can set up your facebook, msn, and yahoo through it.
Which provider offers the best coverage for rural areas at the east coast? Intuitively it would seem that going with the Chungwa-associated provider would be best in this case - is that correct?
Are there are any cell phones that don’t use SIM cards, i.e., they are hardcoded to the owner and thus known to be worthless to anybody who steals them? (That is the big advantage of Japanese cell phones - nobody here worries about their phones lying around in public places.)
I’d like to have a phone that’s slim (length doesn’t matter), has keys (not a touch screen), and is closed by folding one half over the other (not flat like, for example, the iPhone) - are there any phones of that kind available? (Of course, in any case with hanyu pinyin capability for e-mail, as mentioned above.)
What is the lowest-cost no frills plan for phone and plain e-mail? I don’t need any other of the uncountable services some people have with their portable phones.
How can one get a phone plan (and, for that matter, an internet connection at home) without a guarantor? I don’t mind a reasonable “security deposit” if necessary, but i don’t want to bother anybody to have to sign anything on my behalf.
I think only Asia Pacific Telecom (A+, aptg.com.tw/aptg2/index.html) is the only non-GSM carrier in Taiwan. CHT (Zhonghwa Telecom) has the highest market penetration and coverage, followed by Taiwan Mobile so you should look into those two first. A lot of my colleagues also carry a second Vibo phone to chat with their wives or girlfriends because in-network calls are free on certain plans.
So you’re looking for a flip or clamshell phone? There are tons of free phones available with any carrier if you signed away two years of your life. I personally prefer Nokia phones, but they don’t make too many clamshells these days. I used to have a 6125 or 6126 and that wasn’t too bad.
OK. They show on their website that they have stores in Hualian and Luodong, so i could check them out next time i go that way…
But after looking at some web pages it occurred to me that my theft prevention plan might perhaps be unworkable, since i realized that there is such a huge number of different types of phones on the market that a potential thief might not be able to tell at a glance whether a phone (s)he was about to take was a GSM phone or a non-GSM phone. Or is there some easily recognisable feature to distinguish between GSM and non-GSM?
If not, is there any other system in place to reduce or prevent phone theft? Like, do phones have serial numbers in their chips that will allow a provider to recognize a phone as stolen as soon as someone puts a SIM card into them? I am asking about this because i know a bit about the thriving market for stolen cell phones in the Phillipines, where there seems (or at least, a few years back, seemed) to be no effective protection in place.
(As an aside, APT’s chair of the board of directors, 邱純枝, has an interesting educational history for someone in that position: aptg.com.tw/aptg2/about/about2.shtml - and according to Wikipedia she is also on the board of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation.)
OK, if i go with a GSM phone after all, that would be the way to go…
Do you mean this company: vibo.com.tw/ ?
Willcom (here in Okinawa) has a similar system with free calls in place…
Is there anything about Vibo that makes people not want to get their first phone from them? Are their phones PHS?
Right…
From what i have heard, since i want Hanyu Pinyin input capability, i should look for Nokia, Sanyo, or Eriksson phones.
Ok… and no problem. I don’t need “smart” or “office” stuff.
Is there some easily recognisable feature to distinguish between GSM and non-GSM?
[/quote]
Not really, I don’t think I can recognize a guy talking on his PHS (A+'s system) phone from another guy who’s on a GSM phone if I am just walking around on the street. 3G phones though typically have a front camera for video calls, but people these days are still using 2G phones and some 3G models like the iPhone have no front cameras either.
Yes and no. Yes, GSM phones have serial numbers known as IMEI and can be theoretically blacklisted by a provider and disallowed on a network. And no, no providers keep this list themselves or talk to other providers to help maintain it, so there is little recourse if you lost your phone. The best thing you can do is to call your carrier and report it stolen and maybe they’ll key it in to their system to find out where the phone is if the thief happens to be on the same network. However, once the phone leaves your possession and goes overseas it’s pretty much lost forever as there’s no way for countries to collectively blacklist and stop service on those stolen phones.
The best way for you to prevent your phone from being stolen is to be mindful of your surroundings and never let your phone leave your sight.
[quote=“yuli”]Do you mean this company: vibo.com.tw/ ?
Willcom (here in Okinawa) has a similar system with free calls in place…
Is there anything about Vibo that makes people not want to get their first phone from them? Are their phones PHS?[/quote]
Yes, that’s Vibo. They’re a 3G only provider and do also have a smaller footprint here in Taiwan because they have been established fairly recently. Because in Taiwan out-of-network calls are very expensive, sometimes costing twice as much as in-network calls it’s a safer bet to go with a provider most people in your social circle use. With Vibo, their coverage may be poorer than the other providers and they also have fewer subscribers, so a lot of people don’t get them. Although in Taipei I think they’re ok. Also, because they are 3G only you will need a GSM/UMTS phone that supports UMTS 2100MHz.
[quote=“catfish13”]I don’t think I can recognize a guy talking on his PHS (A+'s system) phone from another guy who’s on a GSM phone if I am just walking around on the street. 3G phones though typically have a front camera for video calls, but people these days are still using 2G phones and some 3G models like the iPhone have no front cameras either.
[…] once the phone leaves your possession and goes overseas it’s pretty much lost forever as there’s no way for countries to collectively blacklist and stop service on those stolen phones.
The best way for you to prevent your phone from being stolen is to be mindful of your surroundings and never let your phone leave your sight.[/quote]
OK, i understand now that there is little protection against phone theft in Taiwan, but since i am spoiled by Japanese safety and am also not the type of person to carry valuables around, i don’t want to get into the habit of worrying about thieves, so i’ll try to get some 2G model that is well-known as “old” (and perhaps even “unpopular”) and hope that any would-be thief will be deterred by that.
[quote=“catfish13”][quote=“yuli”]Do you mean this company: vibo.com.tw/ ?
Willcom (here in Okinawa) has a similar system with free calls in place…
Is there anything about Vibo that makes people not want to get their first phone from them? Are their phones PHS?[/quote]
Yes, that’s Vibo. They’re a 3G only provider and do also have a smaller footprint here in Taiwan because they have been established fairly recently. Because in Taiwan out-of-network calls are very expensive, sometimes costing twice as much as in-network calls it’s a safer bet to go with a provider most people in your social circle use.[/quote]
Understand. As regards out-of-network calls, i don’t have a habit of using a phone for my social life- i’ll need it for work. (I am the type who socialises face-to-face, and that works well for me since i could be described as “time-rich, money-poor”. And at times when face-to-face is not possible i use e-mail.) By the way, in Taiwan PHS supposedly only covers a few major urban areas and nothing at the east coast.
So all signs point toward getting an old 2G phone and signing up with Chungwa or Taiwan Mobile.
Not that i expect to need to go to the top of Yushan, but i’ll definitely go to other remote areas from time to time. So, yes, it looks like it will be Chungwa…
(It’s also my “default” mode of operation to go with national carriers - that’s based on my good experience with NTT and Deutsche Telecom - but i do check with the competition, even if only to look for info i might use when negotiating a contract).
[quote=“dan2006”]you guys have been lucky… In Kaohsiung, the phone companies here are useless. They wouldnt even look at me unless I had an ARC… my student visa didnt even matter…
I pointed to it and said… why would the government let me in the country and give me extensions if I was illegal. they just kept saying you need an arc (like a parrot)
I tried a few stores, and got one to hook it up for me, but I think it was because they didnt know the regulations.[/quote]
You cannot get a contract phone without an ARC, I assume that’s what you mean. All larger branches of Taiwan Mobile, FarEastTone and ChungHwa Telecom along with Carrefour etc. will sell prepaid cards without an ARC.
In Kaohsiung I got a FET 3G pre-paid card as well (with some help from a local of course, since I don’t speak the language yet). They needed 2 types of photo ID, as mentioned earlier. Unfortunately one of my IDs (drivers license) was in the possession of a guard at the company where I work, as collateral for a company ID card. Fortunately I had a color copy of the drivers license. This + the actual passport also sufficed for them.
The rates are ridiculously low, compared to the Netherlands or even Thailand. Quality of the network is good (HSDPA often available and stable), as far as I’ve seen, internet access works great but took some figuring out to set up. The automatic settings didn’t work, the info for manual configuration was only found in the Chinese part of the manual, not the English part (!!).
What are the approx rates for the pay as you go phones? I bought a phone and a 250NT sim card (Carrefour) in November and am still using it. And this was in Kaohsiung so it’s not difficult at all to get a pay as you go phone if you only have a passport/DL.
Also there has been some disagreement on whether or not I would have to go to Carrefour to buy additional minutes or if I could do it at 7-11. Does anyone know if you can only buy Carrefour minutes at Carrefour?
So …I take it, if you are here for the long term it is cheaper to sign up to some sort of contract?
Do you need to purchase a handset as well? I bought mine here, although my work gave me a mobile, a very, very old one. I would like to start using the cell phone (Sony Ericsson Z550i) I bought over here with me.
Any advice on carriers, plans etc…I’m not a heavy user, I usually text more…
