I have a motorola phone here in Korea and want to know if there is anything that can be done so I can use this phone when I come to live in Taiwan. Anyone tried this? It has a slot for a sim card but here in Korea they just put a fake plastic sim in but I was thinking that surely it could be adjusted to take a normal sim.
I would doubt it, since the networks are different. Just yesterday, I asked if a tri-band phone will work in Korea, and the answer was no. Korea and Japan are the only two countries (that I know of) with completely proprietary cell phone networks. Basically I think the guts of your cell have been designed for use in Korea and Korea alone.
I wish it weren’t the case, since I love being able to swap local SIM cards in my tri-band for local (and cheap) cell phone use around the world (sans Korea and Japan).
The easiest thing to do would be to go to a phone dealer in Korea and ask if your phone can be used elsewhere.
[quote=“Jefferson”]I would doubt it, since the networks are different. Just yesterday, I asked if a tri-band phone will work in Korea, and the answer was no. Korea and Japan are the only two countries (that I know of) with completely proprietary cell phone networks. Basically I think the guts of your cell have been designed for use in Korea and Korea alone.
I wish it weren’t the case, since I love being able to swap local SIM cards in my tri-band for local (and cheap) cell phone use around the world (sans Korea and Japan).
The easiest thing to do would be to go to a phone dealer in Korea and ask if your phone can be used elsewhere.[/quote]
The USA is also proprietary. In fact, it’s so proprietary that you can’t even swap phones between phone companies. Some are CDMA, some are GSM, and there are a couple of other standards which I forgot.
Sometimes a “free market” can make you less free.
cheers,
DB
Actually, some US companies, such as Cingular, are starting to use SIM cards, so tri-band phones from Taiwan will work there. You can either use a SIM from a local carrier or roam on your phone from Taiwan (though prices will be high). I’ve been looking into this recently so my findings are up to the minute.
However, you are correct that some carriers such as T-Mobile and Verizon continue to issue phones with proprietary settings, without SIm cards, a practice I find ludicrous, which is why I’m going with Cingular for US coverage (and it has extremely reasonably plans (called Go Phone) that do not require contracts).