Calling, texting, data for American traveler in Taiwan
January 3, 2013 5:09 PM Subscribe
I am traveling to Taiwan for about two weeks very soon. I will be there with about 20 fellow students from my university. Being able to communicate amongst us while about Taipei will be pretty important. What do you recommend to use around the city? Inexpensive and easy would be great.
I have an iPhone 5 with AT&T, an iPad, and laptop; also a Skype account and Google Voice. Payphones and calling cards are of course on the table. Calling each other in Taiwan would be top priority, followed by texting and data. Calling home is unimportant.
I have an iPhone 5 with AT&T, an iPad, and laptop; also a Skype account and Google Voice. Payphones and calling cards are of course on the table. Calling each other in Taiwan would be top priority, followed by texting and data. Calling home is unimportant.
Buy cheap prepaid quadband phones. This one is $10 and is easy to unlock.
posted by wongcorgi at 10:37 PM on January 3, 2013
posted by wongcorgi at 10:37 PM on January 3, 2013
There is an area in the front of the airport where all the major carriers sell SIM cards. At least one of the carriers offered a combined voice and data plan that's good for X days (as of September).
You could put the SIM card into another cheap phone as suggested by wongcorgi if you needed to make calls, and put it in the iPad when you need data. (I assume your iPhone 5 is locked.) I actually ended up using my iPad to do all my calling/texting (via Skype) after buying the SIM anyway because it was easier than constantly swapping devices.
posted by melvinwang at 10:24 PM on January 7, 2013
You could put the SIM card into another cheap phone as suggested by wongcorgi if you needed to make calls, and put it in the iPad when you need data. (I assume your iPhone 5 is locked.) I actually ended up using my iPad to do all my calling/texting (via Skype) after buying the SIM anyway because it was easier than constantly swapping devices.
posted by melvinwang at 10:24 PM on January 7, 2013
Response by poster: Here's what ended up happening:
I was able to have my iPhone 5 unlocked using an online service (not AT&T). I purchased a prepaid nano SIM card from myFone, aka Taiwan Mobile—it cost NT$500. Two forms of ID are required; my California driver's license and passport sufficed. Five days of unlimited data was NT$350 and in order to activate data I had to dial a number printed on the inside front cover.
posted by Korou at 2:32 AM on February 14, 2013
I was able to have my iPhone 5 unlocked using an online service (not AT&T). I purchased a prepaid nano SIM card from myFone, aka Taiwan Mobile—it cost NT$500. Two forms of ID are required; my California driver's license and passport sufficed. Five days of unlimited data was NT$350 and in order to activate data I had to dial a number printed on the inside front cover.
posted by Korou at 2:32 AM on February 14, 2013
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posted by mattoxic at 6:31 PM on January 3, 2013