Korean Job Discussion Forums

[IncognitoHFX]

I'm moving to South Korea in June, I plan on talking to people back in Canada quite a bit.

How much would this cost? Not for a cell phone, just a land line. Would this even be practical?

Would I be better off just using Skype or something?

Thanks.

[Toon Army]

just a buy an Intl phone card, costs 10,000 won. You can get them from most vendors and you'll see the card advertised at the vendors shop

For me, to phone the UK (I guess Canada will be the same/similar ), i get something like 3 hours worth of calls to landlines for that price. For cell you'd get less minutes (I think half) but it's still cheap.

[IncognitoHFX]

That's not bad, I might even look into getting that on a cell phone.

[joeyjoejoe]

skype or something. no question.

i called my mum on her birthday for about 2-3 hours. cost about $1.40

[peacemaker]

Skype is great. I can call the US for 2.5 cents a minute. Also, for about $35 for a year, I was able to get a "SkypeIn" number. People back home in Minneapolis can make a local phone call free of change, and my computer rings. Basically, the system we have is that I call home, say hi to mom, then we hang up and she calls me back and there is no charge to talk as long as we want.

Also, if anyone has a computer to talk to you from at home, computer-to-computer calls on Skype are 100% free.

[happygirl]

Check my post on vonage. http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=86239&highlight=

I'll send you a referral if you want it. I talk for hours every week to people who don't want to be tied to their computers. It's worked out to be the best option for me.

I know there are lots of people here who like Skype. It didn't work for me. The quality was bad and I kept getting disconnected. Have NEVER had a complaint about Vonage.

[dogshed]

[krats1976]

I second happygirl's Vonage thing. It's great to be able to call home any time without worrying about who has their computer on or turning mine on. I don't want to be tied to the computer.

[dogshed]

Here are the yahoo rates for calling Korea with an American Yahoo account paid with an american credit or debit card. They really get you on the calls up north. The calls to US numbers are one penny per minute.
You can make a lot of outgoing phone calls to numbers in Korea before it equals your monthly landline phone bill.

It's not practical for your korean friends to call you if you get the call in because call in would be a US number. For that I would get a Korean cell phone. For some reason I can't find the call in prices on their web site.

http://voice.yahoo.com/phone_rates.php


Korea, North
$0.550

Korea, South
$0.020

Korea, South, Mobile
$0.059

Korea, South, Seoul
$0.022

[dogshed]

http://ca.messenger.yahoo.com/

The Canadian website does not have call out. I suppose you could
try getting the American version with a Canadian credit card.

Calls to Canada from a US account are also a penny per minute.

-Jeff

[seoulman1]

[dogshed]

This is Skypes international page. I had to use a little trick to it.
Before you have a cookie to tell it otherwise it gives you the Korean version based on your IP and it is not obvious where to change it.
http://www.skype.com/intl/

Here you can change your currency and language. They have canadian dollars and won listed but I don't know how that affects your rates.

-Jeff

[dogshed]

Here's what I found on skype.
To call Canada with a won account is a 49 won connection fee (Google says that's 7 Canadian pennies.) and

Korea Republic of ₩ 20.119 ₩ 23.137
Korea Republic of - Mobile ₩ 75.815 ₩ 87.187
Korea Republic of-Seoul ₩ 20.119 ₩ 23.137

Canada ₩ 21.845 ₩ 25.122

The second price is for VAT. Wikipedia says South Korea has a VAT system but I think Skype may only be talking about European countries.
I suppose you could sign up with your Canadian address.
Will they let you sign up with a Korean address and pay in won?