Prepaid IDD Card in Seoul

If you're staying in Seoul and need to make international calls frequently, you may want to consider getting an prepaid IDD card. This is pretty useful if you have no land line (i.e. a student), have no international roaming on your mobile (i.e a traveler), or if there is just simply no service when you are abroad, or in this case, in South Korea.

The IDD card (by SK Phonelink) can be purchased from convenience stores like 7-11, GS25, or Buy The Way. I got The Asia card at 10,000won (approx. MYR29) and one thing that caught my fancy is that I can even use the card from payphones (public phones), besides land line or mobile phone. Unfortunately, the website is published only in Korean, but you can get the gist of it via Google Translate ;)

To call:
1) Dial 162. It will connect you to an automated system.
2) You can select English as your preferred language. Just wait a little while till you hear 'English'.
3) Key in your Card No, followed by a hash (#), for. e.g 1234567890#
4) Key in the phone number (Country code + Number), followed by a hash (#)

However, if you are making international calls from public phone, on top of the IDD rates, public phone rates will still apply, but it is not expensive, as they identify 162 as a local number. Calls made from public phones costs 70won for every 3 minutes.(approx MYR0.20).

As for the IDD card, rates ranges from 33won (MYR0.10) to 695won per minute (MYR2.00), which is pretty affordable in my opinion. You'll be satisfied with the quality.