I am planning to spend almost a month in Taiwan and I am wondering if I should buy a Taiwanese SIM-card for my mobile phone, or just try to use public phones? I’ll have to make a call to my home country everyday. Could anyone tell me what are the options, and what are the costs?..
Many thanks.
I would definitely get a prepaid card. You can get it in 10 minutes in a cellphone shop and it is not that expensive. I’m not sure about the individual prices, though.
What is your home country? There may be less expensive alternatives to cell phones, like prepaid calling cards for example, or any number of VoIP services.
[quote=“coralia”]I am planning to spend almost a month in Taiwan and I am wondering if I should buy a Taiwanese SIM-card for my mobile phone, or just try to use public phones? I’ll have to make a call to my home country everyday. Could anyone tell me what are the options, and what are the costs?..
Many thanks.[/quote]
Making international calls with cell phones is generally expensive, but it also depends on which country you are calling.
If you own, or have access to, a computer, it would make sense to do what CraigTPE suggested and register with with a VoIP service provider like SipGate and use freely available software, such as XLite or SJPhone to call home whenever you like. Skype is another service that you can use the same way. It will be much cheaper than using SIM cards and probably even cheaper than using public phones (public phones are also often in rather noisy public areas which makes using them often unpleasant and at times difficult).
If you don’t have a computer or convenient access to one, you may want to consider buying a netbook - there are some that cost less than 10,000 NT$; on the same level as the amount you will be spending over a month using the phone…
Calling internationally with a pre-paid SIM card is going to be a very expensive option compared to what else is available. But you should definitely get a SIM card for your mobile while you are here so you have a phone. You can get a SIM at the airport with two forms of ID or at any phone store. The minimum load I think is 500NT.
The simplest solution available right now for very inexpensive international calling is Skype. It works on any PC, iPhone, most Androids running 2.2+, iPad or iPod Touch. So if you will have have any of these, I would recommend Skype.
If you won’t have any thing else available, the cheapest and simplest way to get portable Skype is iPod Touch. This will let you make both phone and video calls wherever there is WiFi and it is the size of a thick credit card (literally). I would consider this over a netbook for simplicity and portability. I believe they are selling for around 7000 or 8000NT.
In a few weeks, there is supposed to be free WiFi throughout all of Taipei. If that works well, I would DEFINITELY recommend an iPod Touch as the cheapest and best way to do this scenario. If the network is very good, the iPod Touch would basically become a phone that runs on Skype. The only think you need is a forwarding number (which you can buy from Skype) so people can call you on a Taiwan phone number and it will ring Skype on the iPod.
Prepaid SIM cards still bill international calls at the standard direct-dialing rates, don’t they? Although if you got one that wasn’t Chunghwa Telecom then you might be restricted to 002 (6-sec intervals) instead of 009 (minute intervals, generally cheaper) calls.
You only get charged for making calls, not for receiving them. Same rule for international calls. International text messages are not that expensive either. So if your friends/family back home are cooperative, an easy solution is to simply send them a text message when you want to talk on the phone, and ask them to call you back.
My prepaid SIMs actually last a very long time once I got in the habit of never calling people and just waiting for other people to call me. But then I don’t have a lot of friends either – might be a connection. 
don’t forget to take your passport when you get your simcard from the cellphone store. The prepaid card is referred to as an “if” card. I wouldn’t recommend the one that 7-11 (called OPEN) can give you because it’s very expensive, however quite convenient.
If you will be using a smart phone, the only company to get is Taiwan Da Ge Da. because they are the only company that offers internet in their If card.
thank You
Don’t forget to take your passport when you get your simcard from the cellphone store. The prepaid card is referred to as an “if” card. I wouldn’t recommend the one that 7-11 (called OPEN) can give you because it’s very expensive, however quite convenient. You’ll still need your passport and one other form of ID (as a foreigner and yes its discriminatory , but that’s how it is).
If you will be using a smart phone, the only company to get is Taiwan Da Ge Da. because they are the only company that offers internet in their If card.
thank You
Skype for calling internationally and you’ll still want a local SIM regardless. At some point during that month you will have to make a phone call (probably several times) and it’s really convenient to have your own SIM. And it only costs like $10 USD. I currently have a collection of SIM cards from the countries I’ve visited recently.
store needs 2 ID to active the pre-paid sim and I only have passport…do they have pre-paid sim that doesn’t need IDs to active them? in best buy you don’t need any ID to buy them 
It’s not a matter of activating them, it’s a matter of you having to give them two proofs of ID as it’s a government requirement. It’s supposedly some kind of anti-terrorist measure and it’s by law, so no way for the network operators to get around it.
How many minutes do you generally get on a $10 pre-paid SIM? And is it valid for a certain amount of months, or do you use it until it’s out?
What happened to the OP? He should be out of the country again by now…
But (just curious) why you would have a problem like that - have you not been in the country for a long time already? Still, it sounds like you don’t have a visa…
This happened to me last fall, when i came to visit for a short time (without a visa): i wanted to buy a phone and a SIM card to get a phone number and use that phone, but the DaGeDa shop would only accept my passport, since my health insurance card has my name but no picture, my “remote islands resident card” (mostly used to get an air ticket discount) has my picture but is issued by City Hall (and the shop staff had never seen such a thing, so wouldn’t accept it), and (as i said) i had not visa (since i don’t need one to just visit Taiwan). So i went to the immigration office and asked for advice how a visa-free person could prove their right to be in the country, and one of the ladies there gave me her office phone number and told me to have the phone shop call her so she could explain to them that the “Entry” stamp in my passport was all a visa-free person would get. And i went back to the shop and had them call immigration and then got my SIM card and phone number. 
Sorry, uh, I am the OP, and I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t made it to Taiwan yet (hopefully later this year…), so I’ve been keeping a low profile…
I have to say that I am rather discouraged by the answers I got on this thread… I had no idea I had to show two pieces of ID to buy a SIM-card (?!?) - all I can show is two passports from two different countries, with no visas in them - I have a feeling they’re not going to like that in Taiwan…
Being a frequent visitor to Thailand, I have gotten used to the situation in that country (so I was hoping it would be similar in Taiwan…) - where you don’t need any ID to buy a SIM-card, and in fact you hardly need to buy a SIM-card as some companies will give it to you for free!.. Last year I got a free SIM-card from the airline I was travelling with (not even a Thai airline), along with my boarding card… And the tariff for many countries is 1 Baht (=1 NTD)/minute…
Well, there’s no place like Thailand… Still, I wonder how they make a profit?!..
In theory the SIM card is free here as well, as for what you pay for it can all be used for making calls.
But yeah, you need to types of ID, but they generally don’t care too much what they are as long as they have your name and picture on it…
We will never know until you try that… Why should they (the usually young staff at the phone shops) not like that?
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]In theory the SIM card is free here as well, as for what you pay for it can all be used for making calls.
But yeah, you need to types of ID, but they generally don’t care too much what they are as long as they have your name and picture on it…[/quote]
Exactly: two sufficiently official IDs with a picture are the best, and with a bit of negotiation one with a picture and one without may be enough…
I have always used my drivers license and passport.
On occasion also Seamen’s book + passport.
Will return in a couple of months, must figure out before then which one will give me decent 3G/4G.
If all you need is a phone (no wireless internet) and you’ll be in urban areas, even 2G will be fine! (It’s cheap now.)
If you also need wireless internet with your phone i’d recommend Taiwan Mobile (DaGeDa) (unless you are going to be in remote areas, where Chunghwa seems to have an edge)
Well, I’m going to Taiwan at last (only one year later than originally planned 
…), so I’m back with my silly questions about SIM cards…
Is there any place at the airport where I can buy a SIM card upon arrival?
And do I still need two IDs to buy a SIM card?.. All I have is two passports from two different countries, and obviously only one of them is going to have an entry stamp in it (now I don’t even need a visa anymore, which is great by the way), so the other one may prove to be useless as an ID…
Thanks for any advice.