Universal Subscriber Identity Module

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Jul 28, 2017 · 4 min read

I finally got my ARC on the 10th of July, so the first thing I did the next day was head out to get myself a phone number!


My plan was to take the bus over to Suwon Station and go into the olleh global store that Anton found and linked me to on Maps. There are plenty of telephone stores dotted around everywhere, but I wanted to go for this global store in the hopes that they spoke English. It was very easy to find after getting off the bus and crossing the street to the shopping street area. There were a couple of olleh stores in sight, but I knew the location from studying Google Maps intently before going and I figured it was the one with a sign in Chinese at the entrance.

Taking the bus over to Suwon Station

Seeing the Chinese on the sign did verify for me that this was probably the global store, but also disappointingly indicated that they probably did not speak English since it wasn’t advertised. I discovered that I was right once I tried asking the woman if she spoke English. She replied in Korean with kind of a sheepish laugh like “Oh English? Nope.” I decided that I would still try to get myself the SIM card though. After all, I had come on this mission specifically.

The woman wrote down the price of the USIM, calling credit, and data plans for me on a piece of paper. It wasn’t hard to understand in that aspect, but I didn’t feel like I could ask many questions. The card was 8,800 Won, you had to get between 5000–50000 Won in calling credit, and the data only ranged from 500MB to 2GB for 30 days. I really wanted to ask about unlimited data, but I didn’t want to get things too complicated.

I settled on the 2GB data because it was the most bang for the buck, but honestly I wasn’t not sure how much data I’d use. I have been without data for a month and a half now at this point anyway. I guess we’ll see in 30 days how I am doing. I didn’t really want calling credit, so I went for 5000. She tried to explain something about how you can use the money for calls and also for data use, but I was unclear about it. It was possible to get a package of 30000 Won credit for 6 months and since I figured I would be here for a year anyway, I went for that in the end.

The USIM totaled me just under 60000 Won. I think it came in at like 58600 Won or thereabouts. When I first requested buying a SIM card for my phone, she asked if I had my passport with me, which meant that I might not have needed my ARC. Nonetheless, I went ahead showed her the ARC instead of my passport since I had been waiting to get it before going to get a phone number and she went with that as my ID when processing my purchase.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I am even a fan of the phone plan situation I have now. I might have been better off trying to ask one of the Korean teachers to help me with buying a SIM card, but I really didn’t want to bother them. I also wanted to experience what it would be like to buy one myself.

Recharging the card requires going to the store and knowing your phone number. She made sure that I definitely knew I would have to have it and not to lose my number or anything. It’s not as convenient as Thailand or Taiwan for sure, since I could use phone recharging stations or 7-Eleven in those two countries.

Suwon Station bus stop; start of the USIM mission

Maybe when my 30 days are up and the 2GB proves to be too little, I’ll ask a Korean teacher to come with me for assistance. I actually think I’ll be okay with 2GB and may struggle to use it all up.

P.S. I went with olleh purely for the name. I am no expert on which company has better service or plans. I know the big companies are SK’s T World, KT’s olleh and LG’s U+ because they are all over.

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traveling, teaching, struggling; just my life happenings

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