| I bought two ShenZhouXing G.S.M. S.I.M. cards in BeiJing airport late at night for my long treks across China, one cost 280 Yuan, while the other cost 380 Yuan, both come with a complementary 100 Yuan charge couchers.
The cards are a bit quite more expensive than the price that Jian Shuo Wang quoted for the cards sold in ShangHai (around over 80 Yuan more expensive), but considering that I might not have the chance to encounter these type of cards again and I'm traveling with a tour (which can be quite restrictive, I can't even go on the MagLev while in Shanghai), I rather paid expensive than to be communicationless from day one. Besides, things tend to be always more expensive at the airport, and they probably got a limited amount of it at the airport, just hope the sales girl got a nice commision on every card she sold. The 380 Yuan one was priced 100 Yuan more expensive because it got a much easier number to memorized, while the 280 Yuan has a pretty regular number, though considering how many 4 it gots, I think some would be quite suprised that I'm still alive. As for S.M.S. into China. Well... I have no problem with it at all... using my own country S.I.M. card set into roaming mode using China Mobile. I forgot though if ShenZhouXing was capable of the same. Personally, I think that they limit the amount of outgoing International S.M.S. probably due the fact if it's that easy, the network could be jammed from the flood of all of those messages. Trust me, if a network is jammed, you have more luck sending messages through regular mails. It should be noted that many prepaid phone in many countries don't provide S.M.S. service while doing international roaming, and China is as big as some countries combine into one. Really, a country as big as China with a huge popupation with a huge population of mobile phones, imagine all the mobile phones call the network at the same time, it could bring down the entire network. As for network coverage in small cities. I have good coverage of ShenZhouXing in both SuZhou and GuiLin. The same goes for the Great Wall area and the Ming Tomb area (definetly not inside the tomb though). I don't consider Hangzhou as a small city, at least, not if one don't consider Las Vegas as as small city. And yes, I got good coverage on HangZhou too. Personally, if the reputation of China Mobile is true, you pretty much got a good coverage all around China. If you're affraid of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no coverage, just get Byru (www.byru.net). Besides, a satellite phone could be quite handy if someone decided to bring down the whole phone system by calling all of the phone numbers. As for foreign based e-mail. Why? Even if you use it, the network you using would be still Chinese network anyway, unless you use something like Byru, though that would have been little extreme, and besides, communications around the world are always monitored by 'them', even the communication system in China is owned by 'them', how do you think that China got so 'wired' that quick? As for P.I.N., User Password, and so on for ShenZhouXing. It's inside your package, it's a proof of identity that you own the card and incase your lost it, you can get a new one with the same phone number. A brief info about ShenZhouXing can be found here: http://www.shmc.com.cn/English/fivegreat/shenzhou.htm http://www.shmc.com.cn/English/fivegreat/15_IPTelephony.htm http://www.ebds.com.cn/en/sim%20card/prepaid.jsp Or at your manual. For more, I suggest talking either to customer service or someone who is an expert (like a phone store manager and so on). |
Difference Between Quanqiutong and Shenzhouxing