internet in China
 

hey
I was going to China with my mother for a month (mainly Jan 2012)
I was wondering, whats the cheapest way to get as fast as possible internet?
We will be staying a bit in Foshan (close to Guangzhou) then go to multiple places

I remember from the last time I was there 3G was expensive. I could be wrong?

I like downloading stuff, so I'd like unlimited if possible, or else as high a limit as possible (500mb won't cut it no matter what)
The plan is to put the simcard (?) into my iPhone3gs if possible.

What you presumably 'want' is lots of data on your phone from my understanding. There is a thread on SIM cards in china that does address this issue, and there are data-only solutions possible. But "I want" doesn't "I get". The 3G speeds here are slower than USA, at least in my experience, but can be tolerable.

Data is actually pretty cheap, again, compared with USA. Modest overage is affordable, but if you really go insane it can cost you. I have a monthly plan, and if I go over, I think the charge is c. 0.0003 RMB/kb so 1GB would cost you 300 RMB (c. US$48).

tb

Cheapest = internet cafe.

This place costs me about 2 1/4 Yuan/hr (although that is a bulk-purchase price, the walk-up rate is 3 Yuan/hr.) I don't know what their link is like but it's good--the few times I've pulled large files they've come in at speeds close to what I'm used to at home and I have the highest tier offered in my area. Most of the machines have exposed USB ports and flash drives work fine in them.

Starbucks is even cheaper (as in FREE), but you need to be mentally prepared to endure Starbucks culture.

at home (India) I use 16KBps (192KbPS) internet.. what speed would i get on 3g? do they have a plan with at least a few gas allowance before thee overage charge?

Except one usually has to stump up (at least psychologically, I would feel obligated) for a coffee -- which is 20+RMB! At tous les jours, one can get a very tasty croissant for 6RMB and then use internet for as long as you like: pretty good value!

tb

Best case scenario is at least ten times faster than that. So you're going to see an improvement. And yes, they have a plan with "gas allowance". 300RMB for 3GB, 600RMB for 6GB. These are the cards you can purchase in one shot. If you want less you'll have to find someone who's got an existing card and buy it off of them because practically nobody sells them "blank".

definitely not less. 8gb might be enough. thanks.
would I need to show ID for this? what company is that?

Officially you'll need ID, in reality if you don't buy from a carrier-owned or other official store you won't necessarily be asked. In either case, a passport should suffice, although depending on how much experience they have dealing with foreigners it may take quite some time for them to find a way to process it all.

The only W-CDMA provider in the PRC that can sell you a 3G SIM for your iPhone is China Unicom 中国联通; China Mobile uses a proprietary, China-only 3G standard (S-TD-SCDMA) that falls back to standard GSM/EDGE on non-compatible hardware, while China Telecom uses CDMA2000 1x EV-DO that wouldn't work with an iPhone at all.

Cool. what are China unicoms prices? I can't find them online

If time permits, you might want to try to grab a SIM/plan on eBay. Also, for long term visitors, there are some sick tuangou deals out there (e.g. y1500 for 2 years with 700 mins of talk time per month and more than enough data for most people). Telphony/internet is one area in which China is much cheaper than most other countries. I even use my China numbers when I'm in the US/Europe because roaming rates aren't really any higher than prepaid SIMs.

Only in Chinese as far as I know - but you can use a free web-page translation site to get the main points. It seems there are some good deals for pay-monthly-as-you-go data plans, but as far as I recall these all start from the beginning of each month (can anyone confirm that?) - so depending on your exact arrival date these may or may be better for you.

China Unicom no-contract data plans

That sounds good - I may have to question you more on this for 2012. I still haven't joined the 3g-club (I still have a phone that does little else but handle calls), but I can see that this is something I am just going to have to sort out next year.

great.. I should be in China roughly since the beginning of January 2012 (give or take a couple of days)....

Don't you have to buy something?

And as for the normally (sans VPN) blocked pages, some for political content and some for failing to pay protection money to the relevant Chinese authorities.

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