Korean Job Discussion Forums

[napoleon8]

What about Saudi Arabia and Thailand? I might work there someday too. Will a cell phone I buy here work there? Anyone know?

[Emma Clare]

All depends on which handset you have. Best thing to do is to check the spec of your handset online.

You will need a dual band phone for SaudiArabia and Thailand (I checked!)
Dual band phones run on GSM 900MHZ and and 1800MHZ.

I finally found out that I can use my Triband handset out inSoKo if I get a UK Vodaphone chip. They connect up to Freetel and will provide me with coverage.

Only problem is that it will cost me �1.69 a minute to make a call! Even to someone across the road!!

I'm going to wait until I get to SoKo and get another phone on the CDMA system.

[jurassic5]

[rudyflyer]

OK here is my experience and this should help a lot of newbies.

We did the prepaid hand phone stuff for about a month and everything said here about them is true. The old phones are lousy then there is the constant recharging of the base card so you can call and recieve calls. Didn't know you had to recharge the "base" card every month. Not worth it because....

Now it has become much easier for foreigners to get phones in their own names without a big deposit. I just did it 3 weeks ago and it was a breeze. 2 Services LG (019) and SK both allow foreigners to do it. We decided to go with LG since they had phones with English menus at a reasonable price. It look like 30-45 minutes to get it done and you need your ARC and bankbook. People have complained about 019's service but we have had no problems. Whats funny is other teachers at our school have 019 service and can't get a signal in our office building and we can, we do though have an 010 number. LG charges an activation fee of 30,000 won which can be put on your first bill. Our monthly fee is 19,000/month for 2 #'s

Our phones are pretty decent, Cyons LG-LP 1950, color, English menus, games, text messaging, net access even a camera for 180,000 won (the used phone we bought in Itaewon was 120,000 won). Even had a minor problem with mine, the mirror on the cover cracked, took it to techno mart where LG has a service center on the 4th floor. Cost 5,000 won and took 10 minutes. You may be able to get last year's models which compared to the used ones are a steal considering they are brand new.

After we got our phones we discovered that SK is now allowing foreigners to get phones in their own names. Big difference is SK charges a 55,000 won activation fee and an additional 10,000 won for an "insurance policy" in case you skip out during the first year. Haven't heard any reports on how they doing in allowing foreigners to do this. We had no problem with LG at their office near our univ.

KTF as far as we know still hasn't changed its policies yet

HTH folks