Pre-paid sim card for China

I'm looking for suggestions or recommendations on where to purchase a pre-paid sim card for our visit to China.

Any information or advice would be appreciated.

J

Is your first port of entry @PVG pre-cruise and staying there for a few days ? There are a # of mainland China carriers like China Unicom and China Mobile, among others that offered prepaid plans for travelers & foreigners visiting, and you will need to go to their official stores & bring along your passports for registration ... thus, it's a PITA. Some of the plans will roam & work in places like Hong Kong (within Asia) for a reasonable surcharge or possible none in the case of HKG. Vietnam is the most expensive for roaming so your best option is get a local prepaid Sim there, if you need one.

If you have easy access to Houston's Chinatown, you might want to check & ask around those mobile shops as they might be selling prepaid Sim card from China ... although, I'm not sure if they can find a way to activate it for use on your behalf before you leave ... those re-sellers are known to be very resourceful, might cost a little more but you will have it working - so, give it a try.

The other traveler's Sim card plan that I recommend, as the business flyers' community loved it, is Google's Project Fi, combined the networks of Spring, T-Mobile & U.S. Consumer Cellular (known for its rural coverage in some area) & obviously, it's mainly for Android smartphones - but, I have a secondary data sim card on my backup iPhone 5S that do VoIP calls. It's a best kept secret and no contract, no activation fee & worth a look - data plan is the best deal at $10 per 1,000 MB or 1GB at home and international roaming in 140 countries at 4G speed, almost as good as LTE with its recent upgrade. "Google" that & read some of the reviews on various tech websites.

Is your first port of entry @PVG pre-cruise and staying there for a few days ? There are a # of mainland China carriers like China Unicom and China Mobile, among others that offered prepaid plans for travelers & foreigners visiting, and you will need to go to their official stores & bring along your passports for registration ... thus, it's a PITA. Some of the plans will roam & work in places like Hong Kong (within Asia) for a reasonable surcharge or possible none in the case of HKG. Vietnam is the most expensive for roaming so your best option is get a local prepaid Sim there, if you need one.

 

If you have easy access to Houston's Chinatown, you might want to check & ask around those mobile shops as they might be selling prepaid Sim card from China ... although, I'm not sure if they can find a way to activate it for use on your behalf before you leave ... those re-sellers are known to be very resourceful, might cost a little more but you will have it working - so, give it a try.

 

The other traveler's Sim card plan that I recommend, as the business flyers' community loved it, is Google's Project Fi, combined the networks of Spring, T-Mobile & U.S. Consumer Cellular (known for its rural coverage in some area) & obviously, it's mainly for Android smartphones - but, I have a secondary data sim card on my backup iPhone 5S that do VoIP calls. It's a best kept secret and no contract, no activation fee & worth a look - data plan is the best deal at $10 per 1,000 MB or 1GB at home and international roaming in 140 countries at 4G speed, almost as good as LTE with its recent upgrade. "Google" that & read some of the reviews on various tech websites.

Thanks for the reply. We are in Australia right now so not in Houston to go down to Bellaire. We fly into Beijing, then onto Shanghai and then join the cruise for a total of 5 days in China. We could probably do without a local phone but I did think if one of us had it, it might be helpful. I'll do some Googling :)

Thanks for the reply. We are in Australia right now so not in Houston to go down to Bellaire. We fly into Beijing, then onto Shanghai and then join the cruise for a total of 5 days in China. We could probably do without a local phone but I did think if one of us had it, it might be helpful. I'll do some Googling :)

There are some places right in Beijing Airport that sell them. I haven't purchased so can't vouch for the price, but should be much less hassle than doing it somewhere in town which I have done a few times and agree it is a pain.

We are in Australia right now so not in Houston to go down to Bellaire. We fly into Beijing, then onto Shanghai and then join the cruise for a total of 5 days in China. We could probably do without a local phone but ...

Got it - :D

China Unicom and China Mobile are among the major providers in PRC and they have a variety of prepaid plans aimed at foreigners and visitors, and the official stores & outlets selling do require passport data as part of the registration & activation process. Mall stores as resellers, are known to, sometimes a bit "relaxed" on strictly sticking to all the rules and will make the process a little easier ... if you have time to look around, perhaps the front desk at your hotel might have a connection or two to refer you to, don't hurt to ask.

I have a China Mobile HK prepaid plan, acquired many years ago & kept it active as it has dual # that ring at home rates both in China & Hong Kong, fit our travel pattern & it roam in many countries with reasonable rates for voice calling & texting and I can usually find WiFi for basic search & email, etc. It cost about $14 a year to keep it with a semi-annual online refill here in the US, nice to have it upon landing in Taiwan & South Korea, etc. It's no longer available, however - rules tightened. But, you can still find a plan that allow roaming in HK and Singarpore at reasonable prepaid rate. Vietnam's rates are more expensive & best to find a local Sim there, but only if you need it or just skip - language barrier is a problem in getting tech support in configuring my HTC a few years ago.

Project Fi would be difficult, if not impossible to set up on the road but something to keep in mind for future travel. DW's monthly bill come to about $35 a month with taxes & fees, and that's unlimited calling and int'l calls at 20 cents over cellular, and often free if using WiFi calling & free to call home (USA) using Google Voice - unused data is rebated & credited against the following month's charges. We used it in Bermuda recently roaming on DigiCel, considered part of the Caribbeans - 5 minutes worth of call came to $1 USD and 200MB data for $2 - the billed amount ended up being free since we didn't use much data @home while on a cruise, LOL - offset the charges. ;)

The other traveler's Sim card plan that I recommend, as the business flyers' community loved it, is Google's Project Fi,

...

it's mainly for Android smartphones

As far as I can see, it's specifically only with a couple of Nexus phones? (It would be great for our Asia cruise but I'm pretty resigned to just getting sims in Singapore and going without until Hong Kong - I haven't found one of the pan-Asia sims that works in Vietnam and since we're only there 2 days it's not worth the time to get an individual sim...Same for Bangkok.)

Wnhat do you need it for? Calls, data or both?

If you just want to make calls and some SMS, these simple cards can be purchased everywhere. Ask your hotel for the nearest place.

If you need internet the it gets more complicated. You need to go to an official China Mobile or (better) China Unicom store. These are hard to find and the staff never speaks any English there. Plus you'll waste valuable time.

You can pre-order your SIM and have it waiting for you at your hotel. The advantage is that you'll know your phone number before you leave home and can let your family know.

There are two sources that I know of:

https://www.mychinaunicom.com/toProdisplayPage.dhtml

or

http://www.3gsolutions.com.cn/page/simcard

As far as I can see, it's specifically only with a couple of Nexus phones? ... but I'm pretty resigned to just getting sims in Singapore and going without until Hong Kong - I haven't found one of the pan-Asia sims that works in Vietnam and ...Same for Bangkok.)

Yes & No. Initial activation & setup do require a Nexus phone, ordered from Google Store directly - no contracts, no Sim lock restrictions and dual bands that work on CDMA and GSM (that's allow it to switch & lock to the best signal, whether it's Sprint or T-Mobile's network at home/domestic or one of the global partners in 140 countriess). DW is using my Nexus 6 and I carry the smaller Nexus 5X. These have the new & special "radio" receivers to auto-switch between CDMA and GSM bands, as otherwise, it will default to T-Mobile's network at home.

I also have Fi's data only nano Sim card activated on the iPad Mini (unlocked Sprint/T-Mobile 4G LTE model) for cellular/WiFi access so we can do FaceTime and Hangout (video & audio) along with Skype - and, on trips abroad (cruising well taking time off) - moved that into the unlocked iPhone 5S (VZW + global GSM/4G/LTE bands) to do the same, as it's easy to slip that 4" device into a pocket (although I have an integrated XL battery case for long standby & airtime ... sitting in airport lounges, terminals and tarmac, etc.)

If you have a friend that owns a Nexus device, s/he can activate the Sim card for you, and you can then transfer it to the iPhone or another Android smartphone to use, might need to manually change the APN setting & reboot on first use. Amazon periodically run special sales on these Nexus devices, brand new and pre-owned ones at very good prices. Swappa is another good site to buy like-new & well-cared for pre-own devices, much better than dealing with eBay.

You are correct about Vietnam, locally sold prepaid Sim cards by Vinaphone, etc. are great - others outside their country simply cannot and do not compete at all with rates & coverage ... and, in many ways, worst than getting prepaid services in mainland China, language barrier not helping one bit for most visitors.

Wnhat do you need it for? Calls, data or both?

If you just want to make calls and some SMS, these simple cards can be purchased everywhere. Ask your hotel for the nearest place.

If you need internet the it gets more complicated. You need to go to an official China Mobile or (better) China Unicom store. These are hard to find and the staff never speaks any English there. Plus you'll waste valuable time.

You can pre-order your SIM and have it waiting for you at your hotel. The advantage is that you'll know your phone number before you leave home and can let your family know.

There are two sources that I know of:

https://www.mychinaunicom.com/toProdisplayPage.dhtml

or

http://www.3gsolutions.com.cn/page/simcard

Thanks for this. I was wanting to use it for calls and data but since we have free wifi at the hotel, I can give the data a miss.