Keeping in touch from China

stackhouse

Hi, this is my first thread on here, so bear with me. On 22nd May I'm travelling to China to trek on Great Wall as a fundraiser for adoption charities. I'm then touring around the country and return home on 17th June.

What will be the cheapest way to stay in communication with my hubby and children? I have a Samsung 500 on Orange, 200 mins. I'm told that I won't be able to send photo msgs/video back. I'm also hoping to send email. Thanks,

Jo

www.justgiving.com/joraisingmoneyforadoption

tight-git

get yourself a pay as you go sim there and tell ur family to call you via some discount rate number - i use telediscount-local rate!

do ask for a NATIONAL sim card as some are regional.

when you want to contact them , just 'buzz' them (tell family DONT pick up phone straight away! or call their mobile! sometimes id shows!) and they call u at local rate.

thats what i 've using so far and have NOT find a better way - and yes im Chinese :O)

andy88_2

If you will want to make calls to other people in UK as well, you could sign up your Chinese SIM with a callback service. These rely on differences in call charges in different directions and sets you up with an incoming call that connects to your destination, from about 4 or 5 pence a minute for China.

If you use your present phone, it will need to be unlocked to allow use of the other SIM. There is info on unlocking on other threads. Or you could use an old phone; Nokias are the easiest to unlock.

marjorie_2

stackhouse wrote:

Hi, this is my first thread on here, so bear with me. On 22nd May I'm travelling to China to trek on Great Wall as a fundraiser for adoption charities.
Jo

Well done kiddo!

:beer:

durain

the question is... will you get any mobile signal at the great wall of china?

izzy_flint

becareful not to wing the wong number loland good luck with your sponsered event :beer: :T

iamchrisli

1. Depends on how you like to keep up with contact. If you would like to use your mobile to call your family from China, if would be around 1pound per min, check orange site for details. However, what you can do is to buy a local PAYG sim, it called " Sheng Zhou Xin" (http://www.chinamobile.com/ENGLISH/services.html)

Then your family can call you from here just around 2p with 18866. You can always send text from your mobile in China to ask them to call you.

2. If you dont have local contact to help you buy the PAYG sim, you can visit this site http://www.0044.co.uk/, which you can buy the Chinese sim here can use there.

3. Also, before you go, call orange to unlock your international roaming, divert all your incoming to voicemail, and change your voicemail notification by text message. Then you will use less money as possible.

Any other questions let me know.

stackhouse

Everyone - thank you for your responses. I think this is what you're saying to me - with a few extra q's!

a, get a national sim card - Sheng Zhou Xin - if thr 0044 it's £34.99 - how does this compare with price in China? (taking into acct convenience factor?)
b, sign upto discount rate network ie telediscount
c, I assume my phone is unlocked for international roaming as i've used it abroad before (not this handset yet tho)
d, Yes, it should work in a lot of China
e, how do you set up a 'callback' service?f, I've been trying to set up email on my handset - will this make any difference (haven't got my head around whether this will be same as if send/receive text msg)
g, sending back photos/video?
h, divert calls to voicemail

Basically I want to contact them as often as poss for as least money as poss and hopefully send them back some sort of images. A few friends may want to call but not often.

andy88_2

a. buy the SIM when you get there; can't see the price on their website, but it's bound to be much cheaper.
b. telediscount you don't need to sign up; their 0844 number goes on your BT bill at whatever the price is - 1p per minute in this case
c. it's the handset that needs to be unlocked; do you have an old one you can take as well?
d. -
e. you set this up with a different company - more below
f. + g. this is part of the reason why I'm thinking of 2 phones - you may find that the Chinese SIM has fewer facilities for things like this - or maybe the network won't support it (in which case less point in 2 phones) - perhaps others (tight-git?) can give more info on what's available there - and sorry I'm not knowledgable about email etc myself
h. presumably the intention is that you leave a message detailing a new number to call you on, like your family, who could give your Chiese number and cheap calling details

It is possible that you will find that the cost of international calls on the Chinese SIM is very cheap anyway and you will call direct - I think Hong Kong to UK is about 2p per minute; maybe China is similar, in which case this will be simpler than callback.

Call-back - they work in slightly differing ways. There are some prepaid SIM cards that use callback when roaming in certain countries anyway, and calls are prefixed with something like *111*. This will not apply to you though.

You will have a service from a different provider. The way it works is you call a trigger number then hang up the phone, then the system calls you back with a dialling tone and you enter the number you want. Some of these recognise the caller ID of your phone; some give you a dedicated number (which means you could trigger the call separately if you like).

Though I haven't used their callback service, I'd recommend http://www.easy-dial.com/ They have other services as well like instant call-through (like Telediscount, but not as cheap in this case), calling card accounts, etc. There are 2 callback services, either a US based one on the main menu on the top left, or a Ring-me option sub-menu on the Calling account. They cost US 8c and 4.5p per minute so I'd only use them for calls to other people, as you can get your family to call you back with Tele discount or similar.

If you explore their site a bit more, you can get rates, etc without entering your details - look for links just below. You could ring them for a chat about how to set this up; I don't know if you do it on-line or what. Somewhere I think I have a non-0870 number for them; if I find it I'll send a PM.

ps I forgot to say, as China mobile is the same price as calling a landline, I would not be surprised if incoming calls are charged to the SIM account, like USA, Canada, Russia, etc, but I don't imagine it will be expensive. Perhaps someone else will advise

stackhouse

Andy88, thank you for your advice

tight-git

hi stackhouse, agreed all with andy88 ,only points i can add is the photo/video -use internet. hotels / shopping malls /cafe' will have internet access( mind you , if you're using ur fone, you will need a way of getting that onto a pc) everything is cheap anyway so just enjoy :O)