With Lunar New Year holidays boosting overseas travel demand, interest is growing in how to save on roaming charges. ChosunBiz compiled ways to help cut the hassle of choosing roaming plans.
◇ For SK Telecom and KT families, it pays to have a child enroll as the representative when traveling abroad
On Feb. 14, a telecom industry official said, "When a family travels abroad, the most cost-effective approach is for just one family member to sign up for a period-type roaming plan (up to 30 days) and then share the data," and noted, "For SK Telecom and KT, if a child age 34 or younger enrolls as the representative, the expense savings are significant."
All three telecom companies allow up to five people to share period-type roaming data. They also apply youth discounts for those age 34 or younger. SK Telecom offers a 50% roaming fee discount to youth subscribers, while KT runs a youth-only roaming plan about 40% cheaper than its standard rates. LG Uplus does not have a separate youth discount but provides an additional 1 gigabyte (GB) of data.
◇ For a family of four traveling abroad, KT is the cheapest… 6,600 won per person
This Lunar New Year holiday spans five days including the weekend. Assuming a family of four uses a total of 2GB per day (about 500MB per person), they need 10GB in total. Period-type roaming plans in the 10GB range from the three carriers are all under 60,000 won, so if one family member enrolls and shares, the per-person burden drops to around 15,000 won.
Current roaming prices for the 10GB range are 59,000 won (12GB) at SK Telecom, 44,000 won (12GB) at KT, and 44,000 won (17GB) at LG Uplus.
Without youth discounts, the per-person burden is about 14,750 won for SK Telecom, 11,000 won for KT, and 11,000 won for LG Uplus. However, during family data sharing, SK Telecom and LG Uplus charge an additional 3,000 won, making KT's final burden the lowest. Instead, LG Uplus has the advantage of providing 5GB more data.
With youth discounts applied, KT's per-person burden falls to 6,600 won and SK Telecom's to 7,375 won. LG Uplus has no separate youth discount, so the level remains around 11,000 won.
◇ If traveling alone for three days or more, daily roaming is disadvantageous… youth discounts are also excluded
Minimum buy-in amounts for period-type roaming differ by carrier. SK Telecom starts at 29,000 won (3GB), KT at 33,000 won (6GB), and LG Uplus at 44,000 won (17GB). For a short solo trip, a daily plan can be advantageous. However, for solo trips of three days or more, choosing a daily plan becomes disadvantageous.
Based on 500MB per day, daily roaming rates are 9,900 won for SK Telecom, 11,000 won for KT, and 13,200 won for LG Uplus. With SK Telecom, using a daily plan for three days costs 29,700 won for 1.5GB, but the minimum period-type plan (3GB for 29,000 won) offers twice the data at a lower price. For KT, the three-day daily total (33,000 won) equals the minimum period-type plan (6GB for 33,000 won), but the data allowance differs by a factor of four.
Above all, SK Telecom and KT's youth discounts do not apply to daily roaming. For a solo traveler age 34 or younger on a three-day trip, period-type roaming lowers the fee to 14,500 won for SK Telecom and 19,800 won for KT, making it more advantageous than daily roaming. However, because LG Uplus has no youth discount program, the three-day daily roaming aggregates may be lower than the minimum period-type plan (17GB for 44,000 won) for a solo trip. Instead, choosing the period-type plan has the advantage of a larger data allowance.
◇ With KT, plans in the 80,000-won range or higher include free international roaming… SK Telecom offers free calls via the adot app
KT subscribers can use free roaming overseas depending on conditions. KT is the only one among the three carriers that provides free international data to subscribers on plans priced at 80,000 won or higher. However, speeds are capped at 100kbps, which limits high-definition video viewing, so it is best suited for KakaoTalk messages and simple searches. A person surnamed Park (27), who recently tried KT's free roaming service abroad, said, "The speed was slow, but there was no inconvenience exchanging messages on KakaoTalk."
All three carriers offer free incoming calls overseas. Outgoing calls are charged at 119 won per minute across all three. The same rate applies to calls to Korea and local voice calls, with no differences by distance between countries. SK Telecom allows free voice calls overseas when using the "adot" phone app.