Korean Mentors' Guide for ITTP course in KAIST, Korea. This one tries to help foreign students to get comfortable with Korean life.

1. Cellphone Chris Lee (이영석), ITTP MENTOR, ITTP@KAIST posergy@live.co.kr | Posergy@kaist.ac.kr Cell: 010-9401-1435

2. contents ■ Preface ■ Korean Cellphone market ■ Prepaid vs. Post-paid ■ How to purchase Cellphones ■ How to pay monthly bills ■ Contact service center ■ How to unsubscribe the service when you finish ■ Cautions & Warnings

3. preface Before I step into details, I would like to mention a few things. First, this guide was created for internal use in ITTP, KAIST. Any usage without the author’s permission is violation of intellectual property rights, especially when used for commercially. Second, one of the most frequently asked question regarding cellphone issue is whether you can use your phone that you’ve been using in your countries or not, and the other way around. Currently in July 2010, most of the phones in Korea including iPhone 4G has country locks, and therefore you cannot use it elsewhere than Korea. The trend is changing however, and in near future using it in Korea as well as outside Korea might become possible. Contact your mentor for more info. (During 2010, I am skeptical, though)

4. Korean Cellphone market Currently, there are three wireless telecom providers in Korea. SK Telecom (SKT), Korea Telecom (KT), and LG U+ (former LGT). What you pay is joining fee (SKT: 39,600 KT 24,000 LGT 30,000) + monthly fee. In most of the cases, joining fee will be added to your monthly fee for the first three months. In example, if you use 20,000 KRW every months for monthly fee and are using LG U+, you will pay total 30,000 for the first three months. First three months: 10,000 joining fee + 20,000 monthly fee After that : 20,000 monthly fee

5. Korean Cellphone market As Foreigners, you can subscribe the service in two ways. ■ First, you can join the regular, post-paid service. You pay what you used during prior month. This is what most of the Koreans use, and can get cellphones with subsidy under contracts. ■ Second, you can choose the pre-paid service. This way, you can only use what you have already paid. You have to recharge your credits before it runs out. Since you can’t have any contracts in this method, you will not be given a cellphone with subsidy, and you need to take a phone with you to the nearby store to be able to use it.

6. Pre-paid vs. post-paid ※ Since most of the foreign students don’t make lots of domestic calls and have tendency to save communication bills, I recommend using post-paid. You may get a phone for free under contracts by receiving subsidy, whereas for pre-paid you have to get a phone for yourself, and the new phones are usually expensive, more than at least $100. Pre-paid is safer in terms of bills, since you can only use what you have paid. If you use services like mobile internet when using post-paid, you might get a huge amount of bills, and I strongly recommend to be careful when using other services rather than calls and SMS.

7. How to buy ※For those who wish to subscribe pre-paid, you need to get your phone personally in order to join. You can buy new one in local stores, but its quite expensive. You might find a used one from the students who are leaving after graduation, or buy an used one. Contact your mentor for more details. After the process of your Alien Registration Cards are done, mentors will take your batch to the local phone market. If you want to join the service in other means, you can ask help to someone you personally know. Officially, I recommend you follow the mentors and join the service. Korean telecom market fluctuates very severely, and depends on the marketing expenses the telecom companies spend during the period. When their competition is fierce, you can get a better phone cheaper. In other words, it’s all luck.

8. How to buy Ph. D candidate will get a visa with 1 yr. validation, so he or she can only join LG. Master candidates who have visa valid for more than 2 years can join SKT and KT as well, but usually your visa comes out little bit shorter than 2 years, so check it when you register for the card if you are interested in joining SKT or KT. ※ SKT Requires deposit of 200,000 KRW (returns when you unsubscribe) ※ SKT & KT (3G) subscribers must pay for their SIM cards (in Korea we call it USIM; costs 5,500+ KRW)

9. How to buy When you arrive at the shop, you would be able to see some models. Some might be free of charge, since their cost is less than the subsidy you will get. When you join the service and form a contract, you will need to use it during the contract period (1 or 2 years), else you will be charged of violation fee (depending on how much subsidy you received). The amount of fee is as follows. Example) You received a phone that costs 120,000 for free, due to 120,000 subsidy you’ve got for 1 yr. contract. If you unsubscribe it after using it for 6 months, you will be charged 60,000. (120,000 X 6 months /12 months=1 year)

10. How to pay monthly bills Normally, there are three ways to pay monthly phone bills. Credit card Automatic bank account transfer Direct payment Credit card is one which you pay the charged amount automatically with your credit card account. It has most benefits and is comfortable, so is recommended the most. Automatic bank account transfer is similar to paying by credit card. Your payment is withdrawn from your bank account automatically instead of credit card. It is also convenient and thus recommended. (Continued)

11. How to pay monthly bills Direct payment is bit complex. Every month you’ll receive a bill through either physical mail or email, and you take it to the bank and pay that amount. It is inconvenient, but if you are very sensitive with your payment and do not want automatic payment, maybe you want to choose this way. (but is not recommended because you might forget to pay) Every months you will receive a receipt after you pay either automatically or manually. You might have hard time trying to find information from the receipt, since it is rather complex, with lots of categories and similar category names. Ask your mentor nearby if you have any question regarding payment

12. Contact customer service center If you have any trouble with your cellphone, especially with your monthly bills, you need to contact the customer service center. Easiest ways are as follows: By calling – dial 114 with your cellphone. You will be connected to the service center. English speaker is available, so press 1 when the automatic voice message asks you what kind of language you want to use. (English = 1, Korean = 2) By mobile internet – using mobile internet for solely contacting customer center is free of charge. Press the ez-i button in your phone, and look for the customer center icon. Ask your mentor nearby for more details

13. How to unsubscribe You need to directly visit nearby centers in order to unsubscribe. For respective network provider, the location is as follows (ask mentors for more specific info)

14. Cautions & warnings Always be cautions with mobile internet. In Korea, there are two types of mobile internet – first the ‘old’ one which most of the phones are capable with but very expensive and slow. It is different from PC based internet, rather similar to intranet. - there is a ‘new’ one which some new phones and smartphones are capable of. Those are similar to pc based internet, but can be very costly if you don’t join the special fare program and still use 3G network. The old mobile internet is which you can access by pressing the ez-i button. Almost everything is in Korean, and you won’t get any useful info in there so no need to use it. To be sure, ask your mentor to call service center and block the mobile internet capability of your phone.

15. Cautions & Warnings 2. Don’t lend your phone to others - In Korea, phone sometimes can be a measure of identification. It is better not to lend to others to prevent any kind of unfortunate experience. 3. Only call international calls with calling cards - You can still call your countries with dialing 001 or 002 in front of your country code and phone number, but it is very expensive for most of the time. When you want to make international calls, purchase international calling cards prior to calling and save money.

16. For further info… Contact your nearby Korean mentor if you have any question regarding this matter. The content is written in July 2010, so some contents might be changed as time goes by. Ask your mentor if you find some outdated information so that he or she can update the guide. If you get any physical problem with your phone, if it’s broken or damaged, ask your Korean mentor to locate the A/S center and arrange a reservation for you. Regarding to payment issues, contact the customer service center.