Same for the voice plans too. If you sign up for a 383 plan, for example, you’d pay a minimum of 383 NT every month regardless of how much you talk. If you talk zero minutes, your bill is still 383 NT. If you make a hundred minutes (6000 seconds) worth of calls to another Chunghwa Telecom user at peak hours (rate of 0.07 NT/second), your bill for that month would be (6000 sec * .07 NT/sec + 383 NT) = 803 NT. The benefit of the higher tariff plans (e.g. 583, 983, 1683) is that the rates go down.
Uhm… are you guys 100% sure about that being the same for voice plans? My phone right now is at a Chunghua NT$588 2G plan, and definitely these NT$588 are deducted from any normal calls (same network, other TWese mobile networks, TWese land lines).
So if I have 6.000 sec * .07 NT/sec = 420NT, I pay just the NT$588 base fee. If I have 12.000 sec * .07 NT/sec = 840NT, I pay 840NT.
I’m pretty sure about this, since I am using this same plan since 2008. Also this is how I understood the Chunghua Telecom people at the Nangang shop (talking about 2G and 3G voice plans). Also several people assured me that with ALL telephone company voice plans generally the base fee is deducted from the calls.
This may all be different for combined voice + data plans, that’s why I’m asking 
Hmm… actually you could be right. As I do not have a voice-only plan I probably should just keep my mouth shut 
I can say for certain that they are not giving you 383 NT worth of voice calls with the 850 dataplan. But then again you aren’t paying the 383 in the first place, so maybe that’s actually better.
The Taiwanese carriers have a bunch of really complicated pricing schemes. There are plans where you are obligated to pay a minimum fee regardless of how little you use, and calls are calculated based on the plan rate and your base rate can deduct the first $x worth of calls. Both CHT’s $588 and $383 plans are this way.
CHT also has some other weird plans where you pay a base service fee which cannot deduct calls from it, but you are given a bucket of free minutes every month (but do not roll over). Those are the new voice plans they’re offering with bundle deals like the iPhone 1349.
Morever, CHT’s $850/mo plan is a little different. Think of it as a “data only” plan which happens to charge for voice on a pay-per-use basis and it just so happens that the calls happen to be the same price as the 383 plan. This is why they don’t include a monthly service fee for the voice part.
Now I’m wondering if the data SIM card that comes with the dongle will work without the dongle.
Tried to use my friends dongle and SIM card on my Macbook, but it wanted to load software onto my computer. I wonder if I can use the data SIM card without the dongle and without loading software onto my computer.
Eh? Your MacBook doesn’t have a built in 3G modem, so how is that supposed to work? You need to have a dongle and install the software for it to work, a SIM card alone wouldn’t be much good.
Actually, I’m trying to think out of the box, or in this case, out of the Macbook
I plan to use a Taiwan 3G SIM card on the iPad with a 3G data plan.
Since the iPad is not in Taiwan yet, I’m wondering if the 3G SIM card will work after I insert into the iPad, or if some type of software is needed like that which normally comes in a dongle from the provider and must be added to the computer.
Basically, wondering if the dongle and associated software is required when using the 3G data plan, or if the SIM alone is sufficient.
Normally I don’t really take interest in the apple stuff, but I am kind of recalling that you need a special form factor (smaller) SIM card for the iPad. SO I guess you’d have to cut down the SIM you get…
What kind of USB modem did you have? If it’s a Huawei modem, you only need to install the driver package (which is like a few hundred kilobytes), and OSX has 3G connectivity options in Network Preferences so you won’t need an app like you would in Windows to connect to the UMTS WLAN.