Chunghwa Telecom 499 Contract Expiring — How to Choose? A Practical Guide to Saving Money with the Low-Cost 199 Plan and the Prepaid Ruyi Card for "Extreme Number Keeping"

Thinking back to two years ago (May 2018), Chunghwa Telecom unexpectedly launched a Mother’s Day special offer that shook Taiwan’s entire telecom market, triggering an unprecedented “499 chaos.” At the time, people across Taiwan were willing to pay high early-termination fees and queued day and night at Chunghwa Telecom’s directly operated stores, just to grab the “double-unlimited divine contract” of NT$499 4G unlimited internet at full speed, free in-network calls, plus a huge number of out-of-network and landline minutes.

In the blink of an eye, the two-year contract period has expired. I believe many of the 499 users from back then have recently been receiving a flurry of renewal text messages and telemarketing calls every day, all aimed at persuading everyone to stay in their original price tier.

However, two years have passed, and everyone’s life and work patterns have changed to some degree. If you’re still a heavy-data user who commutes and binge-watches dramas and plays mobile games to your heart’s content every day, then renewing the 499 plan is undoubtedly the safest and most worry-free choice.

But many people, like me, are like this: More than 95% of daily life is spent at home or in the office under high-speed Wi-Fi, contacting friends and family when out relies entirely on LINE or messaging apps, monthly mobile data usage is under 1GB, and I might not even make a single traditional landline call for months.

For this low-usage group, continuing to dutifully pay NT$499 every month is no different from letting your wallet slowly bleed out every month. So how exactly do you pick the most money-saving, most “number-keeping”-friendly extreme plan from Chunghwa Telecom’s vast price library? This article will break it down and test it in depth.

The Key Decision: Why Not Just Port Out (NP) to Another Carrier?

When looking for a cheap number plan, many people’s first reaction is usually: “Then just port out (NP, Number Portability) to Taiwan Mobile, Far EasTone, or Taiwan Star or Asia Pacific Telecom, right? Don’t the others have NT$88, NT$99, or even lower slow-speed unlimited plans?”

This is indeed a logical option. However, I ultimately insisted on keeping my number with Chunghwa Telecom, for a core consideration I couldn’t compromise on — the “lifeline” signal coverage in remote mountain areas and outdoor travel.

I usually love going into the mountains, hiking and doing in-depth travel in remote areas or on the Baiyue ancient trails around Taiwan. In civilized urban areas, the reception experience of the major telecom companies differs only marginally; but the moment you step into the deep forest roads of the Central Mountain Range, the ridges of mid-level mountains, or remote coastlines, the true strength of the telecom companies is immediately revealed:

• As Taiwan’s oldest and most solidly founded national telecom leader, Chunghwa Telecom’s density of base stations and microwave relay stations at high-mountain lodges, forest road corners, and remote offshore islands has long ranked first in Taiwan;
• At the life-or-death moment of a sudden climate change, getting lost and falling, or encountering an unexpected accident, that faint but communicable “one bar of Chunghwa Telecom signal” on the phone screen is often the lifesaver for dialing the 112 emergency rescue hotline and sending coordinates to the search-and-rescue team!

For this irreplaceable sense of safety outdoors, I still choose to firmly keep my main number under Chunghwa Telecom’s system.

Option 1: Downgrade to a “Low-Cost Monthly Plan” (NT$199 Plan)

Once the premise of staying with Chunghwa Telecom is established, the first and most easily thought-of way to save money is to apply at a store or with online customer service to downgrade to the lowest-threshold regular monthly plan — the NT$199 per month plan (there are occasionally hidden NT$149 plans for old customers during specific promotional periods).

Breaking Down the 199 Plan:

• Monthly fee: NT$199 (12- or 24-month contract);
• Data allowance: Includes 1GB to 2GB of high-speed mobile data per month;
• Over-limit throttling: After the month’s high-speed data is used up, the system won’t cut off the internet directly, but will automatically throttle to 128kbps–256kbps slow-speed unlimited;
• Call benefits: About 20 minutes of in-network and out-of-network call credit.

Pros and Cons Analysis:

• Pros:
  1. Enjoy full monthly-plan service, with support for automatic monthly credit card deduction, no need for manual top-ups;
  2. Even after the 1GB is used up, the throttled bandwidth is still enough for LINE and Messenger to send and receive text messages in real time, without facing disconnection;
  3. Occasionally opening Google Maps for navigation or showing a mobile payment barcode when out — 1GB is more than enough as long as you properly turn off background app auto-updates.
• Cons: The fixed annual holding cost is NT$2,388. For those who almost never go out and simply want to keep a Taiwan number to receive verification codes, paying NT$199 a month for a meager 1GB of data still offers poor value per unit of data.

Option 2: Convert the Number to a “Prepaid Card (Ruyi Card)” — The Ultimate Number-Keeping Tool

If you even find NT$199 a month wasteful, then Chunghwa Telecom has one ultimate money-saving ace hidden away — converting your original monthly number, keeping the same number, into a “Chunghwa Telecom prepaid card (Ruyi Card 4G)”!

Many old users mistakenly think prepaid cards are only for foreign migrant workers or