Thursday 8 October 2009

International roaming

Today is Day Four that my wife has been away from the country. I should be enjoying my temporary bachelorhood but I'm not. She's almost totally incommunicado. I thought that I could still keep in touch with her by opening her mobile for international roaming.

I thought wrong. When she touched down at Incheon airport on Tuesday, she had to text me via her colleague's mobile that she couldn't use her own phone. Strange, isn't international roaming working there? I had even checked her stored essential numbers to ensure that they were valid. There was nothing wrong.

Feeling perplexed, I phoned the service provider yesterday. Yes, I was told that international roaming had been activated for her number. But no, it's only good if she's also using a 3G phone. Duh....

I was also told that Korea and Japan are the two countries in the world where international roaming can only be used with 3G phones. I guess that's the extent of their technology over there. They are so far advanced that they have fully embraced 3G technology all the way. Unlike Malaysia. Unlike the rest of the world.

However, I should still be glad that my own non-3G phone can be used every where else on the planet. As long as I don't go to Korea or Japan....

1 comment:

stephen said...

Yes, they have their own mobile system which is cdma rather than gsm.So the only common system is the 3G system which can be used by others.