China Unicom 3G Service Breakdown
Posted: Oct. 22, 2009
3G Lands in China Ahead of the iPhone
China Unicom has set October 30th as the much-anticipated launch date for the iPhone in China. Less well publicized, however, is the fact that folks with unlocked iPhones have been up and running on China Unicom’s brand-spanking-new national 3G network for several months now.
Getting on Unicom’s 3G network is a lifestyle upgrade for any urban resident or traveler to China. 3G is advertised as covering 285 cities, which naturally include all of the first tier cities. I can report that in Kunming, the sleepy little provincial capital of Yunnan province that I currently call home, Unicom’s 3G service is blazing fast, way faster than my “broadband” connection at home. Recent versions of iPhone OS also allow you to “tether” your iPhone’s 3G Internet connection to your computer via USB or Bluetooth, enabling you to use your laptop at broadband speeds from just about anywhere even remotely urban in China. China Unicom currently places no restrictions on tethering (as AT&T did until recently in the US) so you if you’re on Unicom’s 3G network, you no longer need to inquire whether or not hotels, airports, cafés, and friends’ houses have wifi, or what the password is. You’ll have constant access to the Internet wherever you are in major Chinese urban areas, even traveling in a car (Beijing taxi cab commuters can be heard rejoicing somewhere in the distance).
Getting Hooked Up With Unicom 3G
So how can you get hooked up with the 3G goodness on your visit or to China, and how much is it going to set you back? There’s good news on that front. I have been a Unicom 3G subscriber since August 2009, back during their trial run of the system. Since then, Unicom has dropped the entry level price from RMB 186 / month to just RMB 96 / month. At the bottom of the post, I’ve transcribed and translated a recent schedule of all Unicom’s 3G plans and prices for reference.
To sign up for a Unicom 3G plan, you need to go down to the nearest China Unicom service office (中国联通营业厅). You will need to bring your passport and a couple hundred RMB to register for a plan (the exact amount depends on the plan). The shortest available service contracts are for one year. I suppose there is no real way that Unicom can enforce the contract other than keeping your passport information (theoretically preventing you from opening another account with that passport if you have an account in arrears) and shutting down your account if you let your account balance drop to zero. The paranoid will also note that Big Brother can keep especially close tabs on you when your passport info is tied to your phone number. If these restrictions aren’t to your liking, then Unicom’s 3G plan is probably not for you.
Billing Breakdown
The various plans can be studied in detail below. Basically, all Unicom 3G subscribers must select a basic plan (套餐), ranging from RMB 96 - 886 per month. You put money in your Unicom account by pre-payment at a China Unicom office or at your local telephone recharge shop. Every month, the set amount of the plan you choose is deducted from your account. If your funds are insufficient, all your Unicom-provided services are immediately suspended. They are immediately restored when you put funds back on your account.
The plans each specificy a set number of minutes of outbound calling time and data download volume per month. If you go over the voice or data limits in a given month, you will be charged for the services you use on a pro-rated basis, a translated chart of Unicom’s pro-rated fees is attached below for reference.
Big time data users, like myself, will note with disappointment that the base level RMB 96 / month data plan only allows 300MB of data downloads per month. This was the impetus for a recent, unhappy trip to Kunming’s China Unicom office where I was informed that the extra 2 GB / month plan I signed up for during the 3G trial period had been cancelled and there were no extra data plans available for purchase.
There is an alternative however, which might be particularly appealing to travelers with netbooks or folks who just want to get broadband Internet for their laptops over 3G: China Unicom’s 3G USB modem, whose price schedule is listed below as well. 1 GB of data per month over the 3G network is RMB 80, or about USD 12, far cheaper than most broadband plans (although those are generally not bandwidth-metered). The best news for travelers and casual users is that these Unicom 3G USB modems can be purchased on a pre-pay / recharge system, much like the way China Mobile and other cell phones carriers in China work. The Unicom rep said that they were compatible with Macs and PCs, a claim I would like to verify before purchasing, although it seems credible that Unicom would have gone there, seeing as they are Apple’s sole carrier in China.
Of Networks and iPhones
Unicom 3G, as I’ve mentioned, is faster than home-based broadband and available from all major urban areas of China. Coupled with an amazing device like the iPhone, 3G will make all the other ways you used to get on the Internet seem as quaint as listening to your favorite band on cassette tape, except without all the retro-indie street cred. So what about buying an iPhone from Unicom in China?
China Unicom’s special version of the iPhone will be shipping without wifi, which would enable users to do things that give China Teleco’s the cold sweats, like making competitively priced, industry-grade encrypted, international Skype calls over any wifi network with a consumer handset. Tin-foil hat wearing paranoids could also be expected to assume unreasonable things, like, to pick a random example, that Apple has made some kind of deal-with-the-devil to get their foothold into the lucrative China mobile market, allowing remote backdoor access to the phone, which, incidentally knows your precise geographic location at all times. This is all stuff that’s worth thinking about when considering whether to purchase an iPhone in mainland China or, say Hong Kong, where these hardware advances have not yet been applied. Hong Kong, incidentally, is one of the few places in the world where you can purchase a totally unlocked iPhone that you can use with any carrier in the world. So there are lots of pros and cons to both options, I’d say the deciding factor should probably be one’s own personal taste.
Final Thoughts
If it wasn’t manifestly obvious by now, I’ll just come out and say it: I think Unicom 3G is a great deal. For less than USD 15 / month you get your email on your phone or laptop anywhere in China, and a phone plan to boot. The folks at the Unicom Office in Kunming were extremely friendly and easy to work with. The new Unicom 3G numbers also have weird prefixes, like 186, so you can impress all your friends with a new number, to offset the pain of having new business cards printed.
Hopefully I’ll be fortifying this post with a few links and research updates. I don’t have comments enabled on this blog, but you can always reach me via the feedback form. I’d be particularly interested in the experiences of other folks using the Unicom 3G network.
Transcribed China Unicom Service Plans, Oct. 2009
China Unicom Basic Monthly Plans, Oct. 2009
| Monthly Plan Price | Features | Inbound Call Area | Domestic Outbound Call Overage Rate | Domestic Outbound Video Call Overage Rate | Data Overage Rate | All Plans Enjoy For Free | Other Charges | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic Outbound Minutes | Domestic Data | # of MMS | # of T?? | Minutes of Domestic Video Calling | |||||||
| RMB 96 | 240 minutes | 300 MB | 12 | 20 | 10 | Nationwide (includes voice and video calling) | RMB 0.15 / minute | RMB 0.9 / minute | RMB 0.0003 / KB | Caller ID, 10GB Mobile Mailbox | Standard Rates Apply |
| RMB 126 | 320 minutes | 400 MB | 20 | 20 | 15 | ||||||
| RMB 156 | 420 minutes | 500 MB | 20 | 40 | 20 | ||||||
| RMB 186 | 510 minutes | 650 MB | 20 | 40 | 20 | ||||||
| RMB 226 | 700 minutes | 750 MB | 30 | 40 | 25 | ||||||
| RMB 286 | 900 minutes | 950 MB | 40 | 50 | 30 | ||||||
| RMB 386 | 1250 minutes | 1.3 GB | 50 | 50 | 50 | ||||||
| RMB 586 | 1950 minutes | 2 GB | 60 | 100 | 100 | ||||||
| RMB 886 | 3000 minutes | 3 GB | 90 | 120 | 180 | ||||||
1. New users joining the network have the following two options for their first month of service. They can either choose to pay exactly half the price of their selected monthly plan for exactly half of the volume of services, or they can select to pay the pro-rated fees for all services (waiving the RMB 50 base fee for that month). In both cases, normal billing for their selected plan will begin on the following month. Users who change plans will have the new plans activated on the following month.
2. Mobile Internet data usage capping: if a subscribers’s mobile Internet data usage exceeds 6 GB in a single month, the system will automatically shut down the user’s data service. The service will be automatically re-activated on the following month.
China Unicom 3G Pro-rated fees, Oct. 2009
| Monthly Fees | RMB 50 / Month | |
|---|---|---|
| Phone | Basic outbound, inbound calling | Outbound: RMB 0.36 / min, inbound: Free |
| Domestic roaming | Outbound: RMB 0.6 / min, inbound: RMB 0.4 / min | |
| Domestic long distance | RMB 0.07 / min | |
| SMS | RMB 0.1 / message | |
| Data | RMB 0.01 / KB | |
| Picture Message | RMB 0.9 / message | |
| Multimedia Message | RMB 1 / message | |
| 文本使用费 | RMB 0.02 / T?? | |
| Video phone | Basic outbound, inbound calling | Outbound RMB 0.9 / min, inbound free |
| Domestic roaming | Outbound RMB 1.2 / min, inbound RMB 0.9 / min | |
| Domestic long distance | RMB 1.2 / min | |
| Note | 3G subscribers incur no added local surcharges for domestic voice and video calls. | |
Wireless Internet Modem Plans
1. Wireless Internet Modem Pro-rated Fees: 0.01 / KB
2. Wireless Internet Modem Monthly Plans
| Plan name | Monthly fee | Domestic download cap | Overage fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wireless Internet Card Plan | RMB 80 | 1 GB / month | RMB 0.1 / MB |
| RMB 150 | 3 GB / month | ||
| RMB 200 | 5 GB / month | ||
| RMB 300 | 10 GB / month |
