{"id":831,"date":"2010-10-06T22:45:38","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T22:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/?p=831"},"modified":"2022-08-09T18:52:17","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T02:52:17","slug":"roaming_in_china_maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/roaming_in_china_maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"Roaming in China?  Maybe&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"zemanta-img mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 1em; display: block; float: right; width: 250px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/50811886@N00\/3687591912\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3579\/3687591912_71cb5d1293_m.jpg?resize=240%2C160\" alt=\"MTN SIM card\" height=\"160\" width=\"240\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"zemanta-img-attribution\" style=\"font-size: 0.8em;\">Image by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/50811886@N00\/3687591912\">warrenski<\/a> via Flickr<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Staying in touch is more important than ever in this fast fast go go world.&nbsp; And for that, the luxe flashpacker uses local prepaid SIM cards.&nbsp; In most countries, it&#8217;s pretty easy to purchase a local SIM.&nbsp; Walk into 7-11, walk out with a new local number that&#8217;s a bargain to make calls and even more so to send SMS on.&nbsp; Some of these SIM cards even allow you to roam, making and receiving calls and SMS, albeit at a really expensive rate.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes it&#8217;s not necessarily worth the bother to purchase a local SIM for a 3 day trip; that roaming will be fine since all that will be sent is SMS.&nbsp; That&#8217;s what I thought on my recent trip to Shanghai via Hong Kong.&nbsp; I have maintained a New World Mobility prepaid roaming SIM for a few years now.&nbsp; I can receive and make calls\/SMS in the US and Singapore with it.&nbsp; Considering that mainland China is 40 minutes away via KCR, it should work there too, right?&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nope.&nbsp; As soon as I landed PVG, I turned on my phone and tried to call my friend who was to meet us at the airport.&nbsp; I manually selected China Unicom and CMCC (China Mobile) and registered on their networks respectively and tried to make a call.&nbsp; China Unicom said my call was &#8220;Barred&#8221; and China Mobile asked me to pay my bill.&nbsp; No roaming this trip.&nbsp; SMS went through fine both ways.&nbsp; No calls.&nbsp; So what to do?&nbsp; After having to make a call desperately, I fired up my AT&amp;T Sim locked iPhone and made a 1 minute $4.00 phone call.&nbsp; No more!&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When I returned to Hong Kong, I picked up a new prepaid from Peoples (AKA China Mobile HK).&nbsp; They have a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hk.chinamobile.com\/p_prepaid_1c2n_en.jsp\">prepaid that has China roaming, slightly cheaper prices for aforementioned roaming and most interestingly, a Guangzhou phone number in addition to the HK number.&nbsp;<\/a> Since it&#8217;s part of China Mobile, it should work over there.&nbsp; And we will see in December&#8230;<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\" class=\"zemanta-pixie\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?w=525\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image by warrenski via Flickr Staying in touch is more important than ever in this fast fast go go world.&nbsp; And for that, the luxe flashpacker uses local prepaid SIM cards.&nbsp; In most countries, it&#8217;s pretty easy to purchase a local SIM.&nbsp; Walk into 7-11, walk out with a new local number that&#8217;s a bargain &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/roaming_in_china_maybe\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Roaming in China?  Maybe&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,4,18],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compooper-stuff","category-good-travel-advice","category-overseas-travel","tag-china-mainland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2mgIi-dp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1674,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/1674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}