Chinese Sim Cards
 

Where's a good online site to buy them?

buy when you arrive. if you want to make international calls then you need to register it with local chinese id (that's what they told me).

If you can pick, or if you're going through HK, find one that's called "Cross Border King" from China Unicom.

Has HK/China Number
shared data bucket between HK and China (4g in China)
has FB/Instagram/etc access. I believe it's the only one.

whatever you do, don't buy China Mobile because North American phones don't work too well with them.

Also don't buy from the airport. They will rape your ass off. Just be warn the data in China is pretty slow compare to here. If you want to use what's app you still can just make sure you have it on your phone first.

be sure to download 'skeleton key' app. 3rd most downloaded app in china and for good reason!

i live in china guangzhou

there is 3 companies here, all different networks

china mobile-gsm, they are most widely use as its gsm network & works with your unlock phone

china unicom-wcdma, not too sure about them, i heard they have decent serivces

china telecom-cdma, suppose to have the best network out of the 3, but they use huawei network box & they have most of these in guangzhou(not sure what those are actually call)

they also have give the most data out with the cheap prices (but its on cdma network)

canadian 4G phones wont work in china & china has like 1st gen 4G (they got 4G last year)

another thing is, in china some areas get better service & then reason for that is cuz that area signed a contracted with ONE of the mobile companies

i know some areas in guangzhou cant even make phone calls in there building as they have no service at all

Better yet, where exactly are you going first?

not to steal the thread, but I'm going to shanghai in july, i'll be there for a week, i pretty much only need data, atleast 4g would be nice. Anyone know what options i have? and prices? thanks!

Looking at this for my mom and pop's, they will be travelling all over China. The only destination I know of is Sichuan. They will be spending some time in Guangdong as well. They don't need data, just airtime.

Mom's got a OnePlus One, Dad's got a Samsung Galaxy S2X. Which network is best for coverage?

I'm not sure if they're going to HK.

So the safest bet is to get china mobile then?

China Mobile is the largest, hence the best coverage. But their 4G (or 3G for that matter) runs on TDD system. Check to see if the phone you'd be using is compatible with TDD networks.

I am have an iphoen 5s on fido. So I guess I will only get 2g in China again :accepted: