Cellular Plans make a big difference on how freely you can use your cell phone for communication. If you choose your plan well, your cell phone bill could be a fraction of what you'd pay in your native country, and the opposite is also very possible. In this following article I will go on to introduce two of the largest cellular service providers in China and briefly mention their most cost-effective/popular plans.

 You may have noticed I skipped straight to Cellular FAQ #3 from #1. This is because in #2 I plan to briefly go over the type of cell phone hardware/software that would be recommended for China, but since that information is easier to gain on ones own, it is most useful to put up this guide regarding cell phone plans first.

 Please read on for an introduction and summary of several popular plans...

The largest and most popular cellular service provider in China is China Mobile. Another very popular cell phone service provider is China Unicom.

China Mobile specializes in GSM products including GPRS (Internet on your cell phone) protocol. China Unicom specializes mainly in CDMA technology for mobile phones and wireless internet for cell phones & laptops. China Unicom also has some competitive GSM plans, but they do not offer GPRS internet service.

First I will go over some China Mobile plans. China Mobile has 3-4 plans:

The most economical plan is called M-Zone, which is targetted to young customers who are heavy users of mobile phones for SMS'ing and talking. This plan comes with a monthly fee, but offer reasonable call rates and a few cell phone internet packages. There are also other calling packages that can be added to give additional free incoming/outgoing minutes, and more, making it even more affordable.

The next less economical plan is call ShenZhouXing, which is targetted to casual and older users of mobile phones. This plan has no monthly fee and is a very straight-forward flat rate for incoming/outgoing calls, but the call rates are at least twice as high as M-Zone call rates. This plan also offers a few cell phone internet packages. There are also other calling packages that can be added to give additional free incoming/outgoing minutes, and more, making it even more affordable.

The least economical, but most useful plan for frequent travellers would be the Go-Tone. Apparently the Go-Tone has nationwide free roaming for minimum monthly fee of 99 yuan, which includes unlimited incoming minutes, a set amount of free outgoing minutes, some internet usage, and more. You can also use your Go-Tone in other countries, the rate chart is available on their website.

I personally would recommend getting the M-Zone plan with lowest SMS monthly package of 10 yuan, and maybe addon a voice/internet package. At the time when I signed up for my M-Zone plan, which is 3 days ago from the writing of this article there is a special going on which gives you 20 yuan a month to spend on packages for 3 months, totalling 60 yuan for free. The offer ends on March 31st of 2007 I think. I have an internet capable phone (GPRS) and the packages I signed up for were:
- 10 yuan monthly SMS package which gives me 120 outgoing SMS for free
and
- 15 yuan monthly package with 500 free incoming minutes (non-roaming) and 10MB of internet

My previous phone plan for the previous semester (6 months) was ShenZhouXing. I wish I had known about all this before, but my Chinese was not good enough to do all this research. 

Note for Tsinghua Students or folks near Tsinghua: If you purchase a new GSM account through the China Mobile shop on-campus near DuFeng Cafe, the fee is much less (more than 50% less) than purchasing a new GSM account through the China Mobile dealers at Wu Dao Kou. I bought my new China Mobile M-Zone account for 120 yuan, whereas my friend got his today from the on-campus shop for 50 yuan and my phone number has more 4's than his does. Hopefully many of you will read this and can save a few bucks where I failed.

China Unicom offers some GSM plans for very competitive rates, but does not offer GSM internet (GPRS). I was not able to find detailed rate charts on their website, but you can go to their store at Wu Dao Kou for more information.

Hopefully this information has been useful and can save more people from walking the same costly mistake I have. I have created a crude comparison chart below of prices. Some I do not completely understand as the charges can oftentimes be very confusing. Please click on the links below to visit the provider's sites for the latest information.

Goodbye for now! See the next page for chart.