3G Phone Service in China?

[Prodigal Son]

Is this available through China mobile at all? I'm looking at upgrading to a 3G phone if this service is available.

[roddy]

Probably depends on where you are. No 3G licenses have been issued, but I think commercial trials are running in some cities. Best bet is to drop into a China Mobile office and ask what the fastest you can get is. China Unicom's CDMA1X service used to be fastest, but now Unicom and Mobile both have EDGE service in some areas.

Nobody yet knows what licenses will be issued or to who, and there's likely going to be a major shake-up of the industry roundabout the same time, with China Telecom also becoming a mobile operator. I wouldn't go buying any new phones yet.

[cdn_in_bj]

Yeah, I'd hold off on buying a phone until everything is settled. The government seems to be pushing hard for the homegrown 3G standard, TDSCDMA, or whatever it's called.

Roddy, do you know if EDGE service is available in Beijing?

[roddy]

Yes, but I think technically it's still a 'trial' and I would want to check how widespread coverage is before upgrading. If I remember correctly there's coverage around the universities and north fourth ring road, not sure about the rest of the city.

[Prodigal Son]

A phone repair guy told me today that 3G is available in Beijing and Qingdao.

[gougou]

So, I finally lost my mobile and have a reason to buy a new one. Do you guys actually think it makes sense to wait until they have got their licenses sorted out, or will that take forever?

[cdn_in_bj]

So, I finally lost my mobile and have a reason to buy a new one. Do you guys actually think it makes sense to wait until they have got their licenses sorted out, or will that take forever?

I think it'll be at least a year before they finalize it. But what will you do in the meantime?

I suggest you just get a grey import phone. These days you don't have to pay a lot to get a phone with basic 3G support (UMTS), and with luck W-CDMA (on standard asian/euro frequencies) will be one of the standards that gets used here.

[imron]

It will take forever

[roddy]

Yeah, I'm due a new phone too, thought about 3G, and decided it wasn't worth waiting for. Even the 'it'll be ready for the Olympics' has become 'on a trial basis' lately.

I'm now waiting for me to make up my mind which phone I want, which itself could happen either side of the Olympics.

[gougou]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Are there any protocols/frequencies I should make sure to get?

[roddy]

Assuming you are sticking with a GSM phone, then EDGE is the 2.5G standard which seems to be available in some places - I think China Mobile claims to have coverage of most cities now, but I haven't actually seen anyone saying 'yes, I've got it, it works great'.

Next up is UMTS, 3G and then HSDPA, 3.5G. I'm not sure there's much point worrying about those unless you know you'll be using it abroad. It's anybody's guess as to if and when we get those here.

[cdn_in_bj]

I would try to get an import that was originally from HK - I have a feeling they will try to be consistent with HK here. If not, then at least you will be able to use 3G whenever you visit HK.

By the way, there may be other asian countries that use the same 3G frequencies as HK, but I haven't gotten around to checking. I will need to do that eventually, as I recently found out that my phone was originally from Malaysia/Philippines/Indonesia.

[imron]

I have a feeling they will try to be consistent with HK here.

No, China is going for it on their own, with their own locally developed standard - TD-SCDMA, hence the reason for the delays, because it would appear that the standard has all sorts of issues.

[roddy]

Yeah, seems the manufacturers are all concentrating on dual-mode phones which will work on both TD-SCDMA and GSM networks - which seems to me like a tacit admission that it's going to be sometime, if ever, before TD-SCDMA has the coverage and reliability to stand alone.

Damnit, you've all got me lusting after smartphones now, currently browsing the complete works of Dopod . . .

[ipsi()]

This is something that's often confused me:

So we have 3G. I'm assuming this is a fairly generic term for the latest mobile-device-related speeds.

Then we have UMTS, which is the GSM implementation of a 3G network, yeah?

W-CDMA being the CDMA implementation, correct?

I'd love to have a 3G Treo... The best I can do is GPRS without one.

[cdn_in_bj]

No, China is going for it on their own, with their own locally developed standard - TD-SCDMA, hence the reason for the delays, because it would appear that the standard has all sorts of issues.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read a while back that they were planning to allow both the homegrown TD-SCDMA as well as one or both global 3G standards. The reason for the delay in issuing the 3G licenses as you mentioned appears to be due to issues with TD-SCDMA. They want to "level the playing field" so to say, ie- they don't want TD-SCDMA to be at a disadvantage compared to the other standards and having it fall out of favour with carriers, customers, and handset makers.

Then we have UMTS, which is the GSM implementation of a 3G network, yeah?

W-CDMA being the CDMA implementation, correct?

Yes, UMTS is the 3G successor to GSM. You can think of W-CDMA as the network transmission protocol for UMTS. There is also HSDPA which is a "3.5G" extension of UMTS.

CDMA 2000 is the transmission protocol for the 2.5G and 3G evolution of CDMA, known respectively as 1X and EVDO.

[roddy]

Assuming you are sticking with a GSM phone, then EDGE is the 2.5G standard which seems to be available in some places - I think China Mobile claims to have coverage of most cities now, but I haven't actually seen anyone saying 'yes, I've got it, it works great'.

Here goes:

Yes, I've got it, it works great.

Already posted in here, but I'm getting EDGE speeds in Dalian, M-Zone SIM card. Didn't do any extra set-up.

[badr]

How are the prices in terms of bandwith up there Roddy?

I was checking Mzone's homepage in beijing and the cost is scary. with Edge speed at 163kbps one figures that their 200RMB 2GB bandwith plan wouldn't last long for anything substantial

[roddy]

I don't actually know. Mobile Internet is only a back up for if cafe wireless lets me down, so I just make sure it's working and leave it at that. Or if I forget to pay the phone bill and the neighbours haven't turned their wireless on. Although last time that happened I'd also run out of mobile credit. But yeah, the bandwidth costs are bound to be high.

Edit: Just checked. Likewise, it's 200Y for 2GB, 0.01Y for every KB over that.

[gato]

0.01Y for every KB at 163kbps would be 0.2 yuan per second or 12 yuan per minute. No?