Originally Posted by
abraxis
Hmm. This is the only thread that is on point for my China prepaid SIM card question...
The last time I was on the Mainland was in 2017 BC (before covid), Back then I could go to a local shop and purchase a prepaid SIM. All I needed to do was bring my passport so they could take down the particulars.
Now it's 2023 and was wondering how much more is involved in purchasing a prepaid SIM, if you're still even allowed to? This will be for several months and will be in Guangzhou. Thoughts?
TIA
I actually tested out the China Unicom HK GO Travel eSIM:
https://www.cuniq.com/global/travel-...goodsId=506001
Once you order it, download it to your phone (over WiFi via QR code), and activate it, you can use it in many different areas, including Mainland China (I bought one day of data in the US just to see how it would work). And since it routes data via HK, you don't need to use a VPN when you're using it. I did find two downsides though:
1. The activation page is a pain in the .... It initially didn't work on my phone's Chrome browser. Eventually I realized that this was because I denied permission to my browser to use the camera, and after you take a picture of your passport, it then wants you to do "facial recognition". When you aim the camera at your face, it then asks you to open your mouth, and then to nod, but only in Chinese. It also has a 30 second timeout, so I had to Google translate the instructions and then do this over multiple times before it worked.
2. The bigger issue is that these cards become completely unusable after you use > 500 MB of data in 1 calendar day in HK. It throttles you to 128 kbps at this point and it's useless. And it doesn't even give you the
option to pay more to lift the bandwidth cap.
These cards remain valid for 6 months, and as long as you purchase at least 1 days' worth of data every 6 months, you can keep them active indefinitely. They work, but you'd better have a backup in case you hit the throttling threshold.