Your Questions About International Sim Card Best Buy

Lizzie asks…

I am going to Costa Rica over Thanksgiving for 7 days. I’m concerned about cell phone usage.?

I have to be able to call home at least once a day to check on my pets, and in case of emergency I need to be able to receive calls. I have AT&T (Samsung A867). I keep reading different things – rent a phone, buy a pre-paid phone card, get a SIM card over the internet for an unlocked phone, add international calling to my phone. I’ve been researching for days, but I still don’t know what is best. I’ll probably use about 30 minutes total the whole trip. I’m staying at the Arenal Observatory Lodge and La Posada Jungle. I don’t know if I can make free 800 phone calls to use a phone card from those places.
I know that they are free. What I said was I don’t know if the hotel allows that.
so with the SIM card at the airport…I need to call AT&T and get them to unlock my phone, then how does the SIM card work? Do I purchase it with minutes for international calls already on it?
I have no idea how to use skype? Do the people I’m calling back home have to use it? Also, we are staying about 20 minutes from the nearest town the first 4 days, that seems very inconvenient to have to go find an internet cafe. Do you think it would work? I really wanted to use my cell phone for convenience.

Pete answers:

Wow, you seem to have a lot of Information from other posters here. Let me see if I can clear some of it up for you.

1. If you decide to use your own phone it must be a GSM phone and working on the 1800 MHz band, you will have to unlock it and purchase a Costa Rican SIM card. International SIM cards only cover about 200 countries and Costa Rica is not one of them. They (CR) are on a independent network (ICE) and only ICE phones or ICE sim cards will work in CR. This is a great idea if you are going to be making multiple trips to Costa Rica or you will be there for many weeks (which it doesn’t sound like applies). However, if you only plan on making a total of 30 minutes in calls while you are there, really not worth the expense. Also, your cell phone will need to be on the list of ICE approved phones. Http://portal.grupoice.com/wps/wcm/connect/Web%20Content/esp/cattelecom/personal/homol/samsung – I just took a peak and didn’t see your cell phone on here, but I included the link so you can double check it yourself.

2. Renting a phone is by far the easiest for short trips, Although, it isn’t exactly the cheapest. Here is an example of one of the cell phone companies. Http://www.cellphonescr.com/rates.html#plan1

3. Going into town from ArenalObservatory to make a simple phone call would be very unpractical. La Posada Jungle has free wi-fi if you are bringing your own computer, so you could use Skype there if you wished too.

4. Calling cards. In my travels across CR, I have found that international calling cards are by far the easiest way to go. Nearly every hotel sells them and you can use them on any regular phone. A ten dollar phone card can easily last you all week. I have never stayed at the Lodge though, so you may want to send them an email to confirm that guests have access to phones (although I would be shocked if they didn’t). La Posada Jungle is around a number of other businesses, so in the off chance that they don’t have guest phones (highly unlikely), you’ll have plenty of other places where you can use your phone card.

Jenny asks…

How do I rent a cell phone in South Korea?

I am going to Korea in August and I wll be staying in Seoul. I want to, preferably, rent a cell phone service before I get there, if that’s possible.
Here are a list of things I would want in my service. I don’t need every single one but I would like every single one. Please point me to a website where I can rent a cell phone ahead of time or get more information about where to rent a cell phone service once I get to Korea.

I want a KOREAN phone number. Not an international phone number.
I don’t need to be able to call any other country but Korea. I don’t want to waste my money on international phone call service when I won’t be using it. I will only be making calls in and to Korea.
I want to have SMS and MMS.
I don’t want my friends to be charged outrageous fees for calling me.
I have an unlocked gsm phone. It is the LG GD580 Lollipop. I’m pretty sure the phone has 2100 frequency, correct me if I’m wrong though. If there is no way I can use this phone in Korea then I won’t mind because I know most Korean phones aren’t gsm. I can buy a new phone if this one won’t work so it’s not a big deal.
I won’t be using data like internet.
I want to rent just a SIM card or just rent the service and use my own Korean phone(I don’t care if the service will only work with GSM or CDMA I can buy either type of phone). I don’t like the phones that they usually have available to rent. They are usually ugly, over priced, and old. If there is absolutely no way I can use my own Korean phone then I will settle on their provided phones.

Thank you! If I think of anything else I need, I will add it in Additional Details. Please don’t just answer one of my questions or you won’t get my vote for best answer. Please don’t say things like “Well I don’t know about in Korea but in America we do it like this…” I’m not visiting any other country but South Korea.

Pete answers:

Well, you can rent at the airport…im pretty sure its a korean number.
Or, if you have a korean relative or friend, or if you are korean yourself, then you can just make an account and make it prepaid so you just put in however much amount of money you just need. Then just leave korea and it will be terminated after 3 months of no usage.
Or, there are those phone stores (not sprint, verizon, or stuff like that) that rent you korean cellphones. Maybe there is one near you.