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manimal
Joined: 02 May 2010
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 8:27 pm Post subject: Foreign cell phone trickery! |
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Hey, so I'm desperate to take my smart phone with me (he wouldn't leave me behind!), and I'm wondering if this little trick will do it. Could I just buy a cheap crap phone, rip out it's SIM card or whatever it has for entrails, and put that in my iPhone? Would that keep me from having to have the phone certified/registered/whatever? Would that be illegal and get me tossed in the clink? How would they treat a pretty boy like me in the big house?
I realize that if that plan would work, you would probably doing it and posting about it, and that if you aren't doing it, it probably won't work. But you have to understand--I'm like a hysterical woman in an old western--being torn away from my baby as it is placed in an ant hill. So I had to ask. |
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jomiro
Joined: 10 Jan 2010
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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as far as i know you cant do that.
simple reason: phones here dont have sim cards.
phones here are registered to a network provider with their number.
and european as well as american phones dont support the korean phone system.
im sorry for that i cant give you the systems name. im just a girl. maybe it was gtms.. if its not gtms then its the other system koreas cellphones are operating on.
the only thing you can do is get an international roaming card from your home provider. but that would mean that youd have super high phone bills every month. |
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ttompatz

Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:04 pm Post subject: Re: Foreign cell phone trickery! |
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manimal wrote: |
Hey, so I'm desperate to take my smart phone with me (he wouldn't leave me behind!), and I'm wondering if this little trick will do it. Could I just buy a cheap crap phone, rip out it's SIM card or whatever it has for entrails, and put that in my iPhone? Would that keep me from having to have the phone certified/registered/whatever? Would that be illegal and get me tossed in the clink? How would they treat a pretty boy like me in the big house?
I realize that if that plan would work, you would probably doing it and posting about it, and that if you aren't doing it, it probably won't work. But you have to understand--I'm like a hysterical woman in an old western--being torn away from my baby as it is placed in an ant hill. So I had to ask. |
Not going to happen in Korea.
You have 2 choices:
1) pick a different country to work in
2) pick a different phone to use in this country. |
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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:24 pm Post subject: Re: Foreign cell phone trickery! |
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manimal wrote: |
Hey, so I'm desperate to take my smart phone with me (he wouldn't leave me behind!), and I'm wondering if this little trick will do it. Could I just buy a cheap crap phone, rip out it's SIM card or whatever it has for entrails, and put that in my iPhone? Would that keep me from having to have the phone certified/registered/whatever? Would that be illegal and get me tossed in the clink? How would they treat a pretty boy like me in the big house?
I realize that if that plan would work, you would probably doing it and posting about it, and that if you aren't doing it, it probably won't work. But you have to understand--I'm like a hysterical woman in an old western--being torn away from my baby as it is placed in an ant hill. So I had to ask. |
I seriously doubt you would get thrown in the clink full of other manimals should you redesign your Korean cell phone, but it would be really hard to engineer another phones inards into the case of your iPhone. We don't know how pretty you are so we can't say how they would treat you in the big house. LOL There are many sacrifices to make in trading one lifestyle for another. You can get Korean market iPhone, but may have to pay like $400 for it. I understand the cellular radio frequency bandwidth is different so Korean and foreign phones are not interchangeable except some Korean contract cell phones may work in other countries that support Korea's operating frequency range. As far as I know, you can't just bring your own phone, pop in a SIM chip, and start talking before you leave the airport like in many other countries. You need a highly specialized Korean made phone to work in Korea. It will take time and effort to put on your phone as even a prepaid shop told me I need my Alien Card and most phone shops won't give contract phones to us, but I finally found one that does if guaranteed by your school or coordinator. |
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phatrick
Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Location: Busan
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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There are about a million threads regarding this but if you bring your iphone from the states you have to get it certified and it will cost you 300-400k won. It will have to be unlocked and there's not another way to get it working here. Sorry to lazy to find the specifics but look in the dozen or so other iphone threads  |
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pkang0202

Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:05 pm Post subject: Re: Foreign cell phone trickery! |
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manimal wrote: |
Hey, so I'm desperate to take my smart phone with me (he wouldn't leave me behind!), and I'm wondering if this little trick will do it. Could I just buy a cheap crap phone, rip out it's SIM card or whatever it has for entrails, and put that in my iPhone? |
No. |
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orosee

Joined: 07 Mar 2008 Location: Hannam-dong, Seoul
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Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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Just want to add that (some) Korean phones do have SIM cards and there are dual band phones that also support GSM (hence the need for a SIM).
Everything else is correct, I tried the SIM swapping and while there is a signal from the network, I was unable to make or take any calls through it. |
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crossmr

Joined: 22 Nov 2008 Location: Hwayangdong, Seoul
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Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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orosee wrote: |
Just want to add that (some) Korean phones do have SIM cards and there are dual band phones that also support GSM (hence the need for a SIM).
Everything else is correct, I tried the SIM swapping and while there is a signal from the network, I was unable to make or take any calls through it. |
That's because the SIM card is only used for when you are abroad in countries that use it to make roaming easier. Its only used in Korea if you want to back up contacts to it, that's it. |
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