Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Korea Calling Cards, Prepaid Phonecards, Telephone Cards or How to Make Phonecalls from Korea?

I was searching for info from the web before my trip to Korea to find out how I can make inexpensive phonecalls from Korea to Singapore and to Korea itself. 

Mobile Phone Rental by SK Telecom Korea

Using my Singapore mobile phone at $1.85/min calls to Singapore (Singtel rates) and even more expensive calls to Korea, I was weighing the odds of either renting a cellphone from Incheon Airport or to just use my mobile phone.


Click on the picture below to enlarge it and you can see that it cost 1,098KRW per min (excluding 10% VAT, daily phone rental charges, 10KRW per sec) to make a phonecall back to Singapore. It may be even cheaper to use your own mobile phone to call back home.

Charges for Renting Mobile Phone In Korea

But if you need to make a lot of calls to Korea itself, renting a Korean mobile phone from the airport may be a good idea. 
Locations To Rent Mobile Phone In Korea

In the end, I settled for public phones when calling my Korean friends and my favourite Kik to keep in touch for non-urgent matters.

Afterall, free wi-fi is widely available in Seoul. It's unreliable though; signal can be weak when on the streets. It's best to chill in a cafe when you need to use the internet or Kik someone. ;)

12 comments:

Sharnie Hung said...

Hi there! Sorry to bother you but I was just wondering if it is easy to use the public phones in Korea? I can't speak or understand the language. :) And are the phones easy to locate? Where do you buy the phonecards? And how much do they cost? Sorry for the questions... Thank you so much for your help. I'm debating between renting a phone or just using the public phones. :)

Mei said...

Hi there,

It's pretty easy to locate public phones on the street. At least in the main streets like Dongdeamum, Myeon-dong etc.

You can use those with coins and they cost about 100 KRW each time so at most I use only about 200-300KRW for each local Korean phone call.

You just need to find out exactly what no. to dial when you're in Korea (check with your Korean friends) and it should be fine.

I didn't try calling back to Singapore though. Only made local Korean calls .

Hope this helps! =)

Sharnie Hung said...

Thanks for the fast reply! :D I'm only going to make calls within Seoul. So glad to find your blog. It really helps a lot. Braving the city for the first time. :)

Mei said...

Hi there,

I'n glad to be of help. As long as you do your research, you should be able to get around fine.

Have fun! =)

Karen :) said...

Hi Mei,

Like to ask is there any prepaid data plan sim card (Iphone 4) available in Korea? Is there any micro size available?
As we are traveling F&E, data plan in phone is badly needed.

For your kind advice.

Tks
Karen

Mei said...

Hi Karen,

From what I know, they don't have.

It'll be easier to make local phone calls from the public phone available at all subway.

As for international calls, just get into a cafe or hotel and skype with the free wifi.

Hope this helps! =)

Mei said...

Hi, you mean to call to Korea?

I don't know actually. What about skpye? ;)

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Gexton said...

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Gexton said...


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Mei said...

Hi Gexton, I don't know what is good...