Deployed to Korea, question about phones/sims
 

Hey guys, I have a question from a friend who isn't on the boards. Her husband was recently deployed to Korea for a year (he's with the American military) but T-mobile is telling him he can't use his phone over there/has to buy a new one. Anyone know if this is accurate? From what I understand his phone is carrier locked, so would he be able to find somewhere over there to unlock it? I'm just not sure if our cell phones work in Asia (I've never personally travelled there).

I hope this makes sense, I'm really tired lol.

I know data-wise T-Mobile has unlimited international bandwidth in many countries including S. Korea

that's exactly what I used when I was there few months back (unlocked phone with T-Mo SIM and part of an American T-Mo family plan)

it's slow...good enough for e-mail/messenging...instgram photos can take few seconds each to load haha

http://www.t-mobile.com/optional-services/roaming.html

I believe T-Mobile has an app to unlock the phone.

Once it's unlocked, as long as it's not an ancient phone, it will be able to access 3G data and even LTE depending if his phone supports the right LTE bands.

I've used an iPhone 5 and Galaxy S7 in Korea with no issues.

To put it simply, T-mobile may or may not be right.

The "same" phone actually has many, many variants that support different radio bands for different regions.

Get him to go to WillMyPhoneWork.net - Check if your phone works on a network, and see if his actual model is supported by Korean bands. SK, LG U+ and KT are the biggest telecoms in Korea.

Now, the phone working is a different matter than him actually getting it to work. He's going to need a "foreigner registration number" to even open a line, along with passport, etc.

They do sell "pre-paid" sims in Korea but they all expire in 30 days, with no option to extend.

Thanks for the information guys :) I'll pass it along to him, just in case he hasn't gotten it sorted out yet.