Originally Posted by moondog

This thread is a bit trivial because we're only talking about a price difference between 30 and 200 per month, but I'm starting it because I want to be more efficient, and avoid paying for service when I'm out of China for extended periods of time.

My summary is this:
1. I started out using prepaid (SIMs purchased on the street) about 20 years ago; this was fine
2. I switched to postpaid about 8 years later; initial registration process was a PITA, but all was good after that
3. Now, I'm doing prepaid again on the lowest possible monthly plan with Unicom (~30), and I WeChat them money whenever they tell me to, or when I want more data (very cheap)

My current problem is that the data they sell on WeChat is still cheap, but the packages are good for "today", "7 days", or "this month".

Unicom called me and told me that my life would be simpler if I simply switched to 100/month postpaid. I'm contemplating this option, but I really dislike visiting their stores...and, I still think I pay less than 100 per month on average, especially when I'm not here.

On a semi-related noted, supposedly, we need to go to HK within the next several months in order to register our HK SIMs in person there (I have 8 unused ones left, and they are a great fallback whenever we have V issues up here).