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Q: Using your mobile phone in other Chinese cities
Hi everyone just a question about the cost of using your Chinese mobile phone in another Chinese province/city. I don’t have a contract phone just a sim card which I top up whenever required, I will be travelling to other provinces and one of colleagues mentioned that I must buy a new sim card for each city I visit as it would work out cheaper and perhaps I wouldn't be able to receive texts or calls from her as she will be in another province.
I am not sure if this is true or not so does anyone know if it is okay to continue using my original sim mobile phone while travelling or should I buy a new sim card for every city I visit as I have never heard of this.
Any information or tips would be appreciated thank you.
You probably can still use it in other cities, but may find that you burn through data/texts/phone time faster than you are actually using them.
hunny797:
that's true.. even the cheaper sims would work fine in other cities though the calls/data plan would be a little expensive. and also to be noted is that you will even be charged for incoming calls.
I have no idea what type of SIM card you bought. Some just allow you to call "locally" (either citywide or province wide), a some allow you access nationwide". The local ones are cheaper and thus used by many Chinese, the nationwide SIMs are more expensive to buy.
And it is not the provider you use, but the SIM card and how roaming access is controlled.
For example, my phone has access to all areas nationwide. But 100 meters pass the border station into Hong Kong, I loose the signal frm tower. Sometimes I can receive messages, sometimes no, but no calls at all. If I were you, will try calling from first city you visit, if works do not buy new SIM card. If not, just buy one that allows calls to all of China.
You probably can still use it in other cities, but may find that you burn through data/texts/phone time faster than you are actually using them.
hunny797:
that's true.. even the cheaper sims would work fine in other cities though the calls/data plan would be a little expensive. and also to be noted is that you will even be charged for incoming calls.
china Mobile didn't work abroad at all. Had no problems with regular ChinaTelecom in Europe. However no one called me, I got couple of messages from my chinese internet bank.
china Mobile didn't work abroad at all. Had no problems with regular ChinaTelecom in Europe. However no one called me, I got couple of messages from my chinese internet bank.
