I have a Cingular 4 band GSM phone that likely will work well in Beijing and other major China cities and in Hong Kong. I will be there for about 17 days and expect to use the phone total for about an hour. The Cingular cost including one month's World Traveler fee will be about $125.

Cingular will unlock my phone free. Question is whether it will pay to get a local sims chip while there. I do not expect to receive any calls -- phone will be off except when I am calling out. I doubt that I will make many local calls. My main use is for calls back to the United States.

If a local sims chip is a good idea, where should I buy one? My first stop is in Beijing. Also, will a main land chip work in Hong Kong?

you can buy sims anywhere and everywhere and they are cheap.

for roaming, i (strongly) recommend verizon for incoming calls (at least, until they get around to upgrading their billing software).

also, most phones purchased in the US, regardless of how fancy, do not support chinese text/input.

If you can plan you calls such that you are in your hotel room, and assuming you are travellnig with a laptop, you are better off using Skype. You'll need a headset with mic.

My international cellphone charges on my T-mobile blackberry run me ~$2/min calling the US out of China. I would rationally assume your costs through Cingular would be similarly high.

For two weeks in Asia, my calls on Skype cost a total of $4.80, That was for 3 hours, 40 minutes, and 44 seconds of phone time. Quoted cost per minutes is $0.021/minute, but you pay rounded up minutes so I ran closer to $0.036/minute.

They are running a promotion that if you charge up your skype account at least $10 through Paypal you get a 25% bonus.

will a main land chip work in Hong Kong?
My mainland chip didn't work in HK. Also I noticed people on the train from
Canton to HK opening up their phones and changing chips right before getting into Kowloon.

Maybe there are HK/China chips that work both places? Don't know about this. Some phones you can put two chips in them and switch back and forth.

What is the minimum price should I expect to pay for a local sims chip and what is cost of to call home to the States? Might use them for local calls to my wife when we separate (deliberate on her part!!!) while shopping. How much are local calls?

What is the minimum price should I expect to pay for a local sims chip and what is cost of to call home to the States? Might use them for local calls to my wife when we separate (deliberate on her part!!!) while shopping. How much are local calls?

In BJ and SH, generic numbers (with 4s in them) start at around y40 ($50). In HK, there are lots of different types of SIMs starting at around $100HK.

most gsm cards that i'm aware of in the prc charge around y8 per minute to call overseas with 6-second billing. there is an ongoing promo with unicom (cdma) that lets you call for y1 per minute plus y50 per month. but, you would need to buy a cdma phone.

anacamalibu: one of my colleagues has a device that allows him put the data from multiple SIMs on a single card so he can use multiple numbers simultaneously.

also, you can get roaming cards in both hk and the prc, but i don't know of any prepaid roaming cards in china off hand. currently popular, are cards for sale in hk that come bundled with a gz or sz number (i forget the company); quality is not very good.

I have one phone with a China Unicom chip and the other with China mobile.
One is a Beijing chip and the other is a Shanghai chip. I don't know why but have had trouble to recharge a chip that's issued from a different city than
you are in. Plus if your out of the city of origin the charges are higher. Its kind of confusing but service is cheaper than in US. Plus if you don't use the prepaid
minutes within a certain time they seem to expire. Then I heard that now you have to register your name for a prepaid card.

I have one phone with a China Unicom chip and the other with China mobile.
One is a Beijing chip and the other is a Shanghai chip. I don't know why but have had trouble to recharge a chip that's issued from a different city than
you are in.


shenzhouxing (china mobile) cards can be recharged pretty much any where. unicom and some of the local companies (e.g. shanghai mobile) can be more problematic.


Plus if your out of the city of origin the charges are higher.


on most cards, roaming aprox doubles the cost of local calls and is equivalent to the long-distance surcharge. so, if your base rate is .4y, a roaming call costs .8y and a ld roaming call costs 1.2y.


minutes within a certain time they seem to expire. Then I heard that now you have to register your name for a prepaid card.

with the repsect to the prepaid cards with which i am familiar, minutes last 6-12 months and get extended as soon as you recharge. i've seen that registration requirement a few times, but only in smaller cities. sims are commonly sold by street vendors in most of the cities that are in my circuit; those guys certainly don't care much about formalities (and neither does the typical ebay seller).

imo, post-paid is the way to go if you're in china more than 20% of the time. most companies let you drop down to the y40 per month plan when you're out of the country and bounce from plan to plan at will when you're here.