Cryofern

If we're going with this analogy, I'd like to point out that (in the absence of damage to other systems) engine failure is not really something that will result in fatalities. I'm not saying either occurrence would not be a hassle, just throwing a bit of perspective in (partially for comedy ).
The deal with a SIM card is that the encrypted connection to the card's home region is inherent in roaming, and the bypassing of the firewall is just a side benefit, really. Because of that, certain parties usually* do not bother with fighting against it, unlike with VPNs, so a SIM card is indeed useful in the "volcanic ash" situation in the analogy. (Now the important question is, in this analogy we've been using, what is the SIM card - a backup ramjet? )

*well, I guess the change a couple of years ago requiring real-name registration for HK-mainland dual-number SIM cards could have been a move against this sort of thing, without really interfering with anything technical

Really, that analogy was quite amusing. Thanks for that.

plunet

I would echo the comments above by moondog , having access to a roaming SIM card for data services at a sensible cost in China is a completely hassle free way of ensuring good internet access. Muck around with VPNs for stuff when you need to or you can be bothered.

Oh and if you are technically minded, building your own VPN server on a cloud infrastructure is another useful trick, it only needs a low spec Linux box, change your target IP address and ports as often as you want, mess around with both IPv4 and IPv6 as they are policed differently, and pay for only what you use. If you don't need VPNs services for hours at a time, this could be cheaper than some of the commercial outfits.

I doubt that posting names of VPN providers on here will directly influence firewall policies, the amount and pattern of traffic being sent to specific IP addresses outside of China will.

moondog

The Go Duck Sims I buy in HK don't have a real name registration requirement. Even at face value, which is hard to fetch these days, they are more expensive than post paid Sims, but I can usually get at least two months out of them. As I mentioned previously, I'm patient with VPNs when I'm home in the evening, but I want a fast connection at work. I also use the HK Sims for Google Voice calls. This does suck up data, but I figure talking with my parents is important enough to justify it.

Loren Pechtel

They could kill all traffic to the VPN nodes.

lsquare

Won't they hurt legit businesses that actually have to use VPN in China?

lsquare

Does Google Fi work in China? If you need speed that badly, you can always roam with a foreign carrier on a post-paid plan. It probably won't beat any HK SIM since HK is physically closer, but for my purposes, it can be good enough.

moondog

I brought a Fi Sim to China about 3 years ago, and dropped my plan after 2 days (i.e. just moved my number to GV) because I was getting 2g/Edge speeds 90% of the time. Maybe it's better now, but I wouldn't pay $70 per month just to get unlimited data.

lsquare

I think things may be different now. If you don't want to fly to HK to restock your SIMs, this may be a worthy alternative.

moondog

1. $70 per month is a lot more than HK post paid plans
2. While I can't go to HK (and return to Shanghai) myself yet, I have no shortage of friends there who are happy to kuaidi pre paid SIMs to me if I find myself running low
3. Honestly, it's not hard for me to stretch 8gb over 2+ months because ast (and exp before that) has been pretty reliable
4. Mainland data (on Mainland SIMs) is absurdly cheap

Cryofern

I consistently get 4G with a signal strength better than I get in the US, unless I go into a deep subway tunnel, the countryside, or certain tech companies' office buildings (I suspect there's some intentional interference going on here). I never even had to muck around with any settings; things just worked (a little surprising, since I remember the first time using Fi in Hong Kong, I had to manually change something to get data). To be fair, when I'm in the US, most of the time I'm basically in the countryside, so possibly that has something to do with the signal strength.

lsquare

I haven't looked into Mainland plans in a very long time. The last time I actually had a Chinese number and even a Chinese bank account was when I was studying at Fudan. How cheap is cheap and is it possible to get a Chinese or even HK post-paid plans without a Chinese/HK ID?

tauphi

You don't need a Chinese post-paid plan to get cheap data on the Mainland, a pre-paid plan works just as well. Having said that, it is possible to get a post-paid plan on the Mainland, although it's not easy as they don't give out credit to foreigners. I had to pay a 600RMB deposit with China Telecom to go post-paid.

YariGuy

I'm using Google Fi on a dual-sim iPhone 11. In the beginning I was getting LTE speeds but in the last month and a half my experience has been the same as Moondog - unusable EDGE.

Cryofern, what hardware are you using?

As for local data rates, I'm paying about $10 for my China Mobile usage (5-6 gigs I think). US mobile rates are ridiculous.

lsquare

That's insane. $10 for 5-6GB of data? Even a decade ago, things weren't that cheap in China. I don't know if they charge for SMS now, but they charged me on a per text basis back then. 100 RMB went by very fast.

moondog

I pay Y76 for 16g on Unicom prepaid. I recently received an upsell offer -- Y100 for 30g.

I used to have a postpaid number, but I don't see much value in that anymore.