Korean Job Discussion Forums

[chungbukdo]

I want to be able to get a smartphone, I only make 1.5 a month so I'm short on money and was thinking of doing this:

Getting rid of my cable internet (40000w)

Getting a smart phone with an unlimited 3G data plan (65000???)

Getting rid of my current phone and plan (25000)

In theory that gets me a smartphone for free.

Are there any potential catches to this?

The big hitch is that I definitely want to be able to wifi tether the smartphone to my laptop for internet browsing, Youtube use, etc.

[nick70100]

It will work, just maybe not as well as you would like it to work. It will certainly be slower and less reliable than your cable connection.

[chungbukdo]

Well my cable internet for some reason has quite poor speeds so we'll see.

Bout the fastest thing I would like to do is watch Youtube videos by pressing play and not having to pause it a few times in the middle to load. I don't do any major downloading stuff except a few podcasts from iTunes.

[Swampfox10mm]

I lived like this for 2 weeks once, as we were moving and had to turn off our internet on a certain date before we moved out.

It will work, but I have a Galaxy S and have found the AP/wifi mode works far better than tethering to do the same thing, for what it's worth. I get dropped connections a lot with tethering. Must be a software issue.

It all depends on the signal in your house, too. In my old home, reception was poor. Here, it's far better. The difference between 3G signals was huge. It also matters how many people in your area might be on the system.

Currently, I get terrible overseas connections on my land-line from SK Telecom. I get bullet-fast local connections, though. With the 3G phone, my internet speed is far slower in town, but USA connections are actually faster (since the Japan quake problem). When I say "faster" I mean usable. My SK overseas connection is barely 56k right now. Can't even skype over it without turning video off. My phone can allow 2-way video over its AP connection to my computer via wifi. I think SK is squelching many home-based users at the moment, but leaving more bandwidth on overseas connections for 3G users. This is probably because they would really be up a creek competitively if the word got out that their phone surfing was pure crap compared to their competitors.

If I were you, I'd see if you can find a friend who has a 3G phone, try it out at your house, and see if the internet works fast enough for you.

Also, it can make a difference where you place the phone in the house, too. In my old home, I got a far better signal if I put the phone by the window and was still within a room or so for the wifi output to reach my computer.

On a side note, we feel we get all the channels we need, between HD channels and a few other freebees. Cable TV isn't what it once was, and they want you to pay a premium for anything good. The only thing I will miss is Discovery channel, but I can see all of that on Youtube, anyway. Ditch your cable TV. We're happy we did.

[chungbukdo]

Thank you for your informative reply.

I am also with SK broadband internet and my Skype calls back home, along with everything else, has been horribly slow the last couple weeks.

A friend of mine downstairs has an iPhone so I'll ask him about how the speeds are.

And I don't have cable TV. Just the basic KBS and stuff. My internet package is just kind of expensive for this apartment.

I was actually thinking about a Galaxy S. Sorry, I didn't know the word for making your phone into a Wifi hotspot, I call that Wifi Tethering but I guess that's an oxymoron isn't it? Is that what you mean by "AP/Wifi mode"? That's actually what I was intending to do. I'd rather be wireless.

I guess I could go look this up but does your Galaxy S support BT keyboards? How about plugging into a TV?

[Caffeinated]

I tether my Mac to my iPhone at school and plain internet browsing is OK. I haven't used Youtube and Skype on that setup, tho, as I just stick to using the iPhone.

If you have a contract for your current phone watch out for the cancellation charge. It wasn't much for my LG phone.

[crossmr]

It's not really made to be a 24/7 replacement.

Your speed will vary wildly, and even your best speeds won't be that great compared to your home internet.

I've run speed tests on 3G on my phone in a few places and rarely get more than 5-7Mb/s. I've also had it be nearly unusable at times. Perhaps if you're out in the middle of nowhere and the company just put in a shiny new tower and you're the only user it would be great.

Even during peak times I still pull 30-40Mb/s off SK, around 85-90 off peak.
Overseas, nothing you can do about that.

Just did a 3G test at 8:30 in the morning near my window, top floor of my little building.
1.14 Mbps down. I certainly wouldn't want to be running on that all the time.

[nstick13]

Not to mention ollehKT has data caps. It's unlimited data to a certain point. I asked about this while signing up, and the limit is daily (they didn't say what it was) and after you reach it they slow your speed, though I'm not sure how much.

[chungbukdo]

I'm not extremely concerned about the data cap unless it is super low.

I don't do any online gaming, I don't pirate movies or music. I do however download podcasts from iTunes, use Youtube, Skype calls, and webcam chatting.

It would be kind of upsetting if they limited someone's data after all they had done is a few hours of video chatting. That's basically a big purpose of smart phones to me.

Another question, doesn't Korea have a 4G network called WiBro? Why isn't this included in smartphones?

[crossmr]

[Swampfox10mm]

If you're not downloading a bunch of crap, then I wouldn't worry about the cap.

And yes, I mean Wifi AP hotspot before. That's the way to go, IMHO. "Tethering" is hooking the phone up to computer via USB and sending the signal through that. I have problems making that work consistently on my Galaxy S. Signal keeps dropping. The AP/wifi hotspot mode is pretty good -- just not overly fast compared to landlines.

From my phone right now, I can see download speeds of 2922 kps and upload of 1030kps to a server here in Seoul. Ping is 129ms.

Dump that cable TV! It's all but a worthless expense these days.

[UknowsI]

Put in another man won and go for the cheapest phone subscription and keep your cable internet (35k + 40k). If you call a lot this might not be worth it, but in my experience you can find wireless internet pretty much every where and the 100 MB limit is enough for the rest. This depends on your use of course. If you use a lot of internet on the bus, don't have internet at work and so on it will be different. For my use this is the best option because I don't find the 3G to be adequate and I don't call a lot.