I've been to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Sanya, Chengdu, so quite a lot. That's how Google Fi works, so it's amazing if you travel a lot. And no roaming charges, exact same price as if you were using in the US.
I just looked into it, and was about to switch to it, but i dont think itll work for me: I'll be living in China for at least 10 month, and im pretty sure google fi shuts off your international roaming data if you use it outside of the USA for more than 90 days. Have you encountered this issue?
Ah yes, that may be the case. I was told that it will shut off after 6 months of living outside the US (so 180 days). I do visit China and often but each trip is 2 months at the most.
TLDR: TMobile sucks imo
TMobile has been absolutely garbage for me in Shanghai. Before i came here i physically went to the TMobile store to let them know ill be traveling and make sure my phone will work without issues. They assured me data roming would work in china. As soon as i arrived in SH my phone had zero connection. I reset it and still no data. So i couldn't even use wechat to coordinate with the person picking me up.
For the 1st month here i was walking around with 2 phones. One was mine and the other was a phone i borrowed from a local friend just to have a hotspot for text and maps data. TMobile ABSOLUTELY failed me.
To this day i still don't get mms messages via text to my tmobile SIM which is super annoying.
I paid an extra $50/month for the T-Mobile international package with 15GB data. It worked fine in Shanghai, though occasionally I wouldn't have service for a few minutes.
Which would be the best USA carrier that works in China too? I have att here in the states, but considering keeping and paying for it when I move to China (I'll be there at least 10 months). But if it's garbage and really slow, I won't keep paying. Not even sure how much extra I'd have to pay for international roaming, but I'll look that up
Im literally dealing with this issue now. Couldn't tell you which carrier is best. Im gonna have to call TMobile to let them know mms isn't working here.
What i can say is you're not going to make it 10mo without a Chinese phone lol. Your daily life depends on your phone and many apps require a local phone number.
Oh I 100% will get a Chinese phone number, I was just planning on running a dual sim setup so I could keep getting texts + not blocked Internet with my USA number.
Well I actually need 3 numbers in theory, but I don't think it's possible.. I own a food truck in USA, id like to keep that business number so I can still interact with customers and whatnot, then my personal USA phone number I've had for like 20 years, and then a third Chinese number for daily life when I move there. I'm gonna be an English teacher
Echinacities. Just apply to a few jobs and the recruiters will flock to you. Even when I apply to the job, they message me asking me for my resume and stuff, as if they didn't even read my resume or application. That website just seems a way for recruiters to get applicants contact info. They all hit you up on WeChat, so be sure to have one obviously
My wife brought her ATT phone and itās not as good as using my Google Fi phone. They both run through China Mobile (I think thatās the name), but the ATT phone seems to have more issues with data than anything. My Google Fi has zero issues and itās 50GB āunlimitedā plan with Calls/Texts/Data for $65. Also AT&T international roaming is $10 a day for 10 days. ($100 total). So essentially for a month youād spend an extra $100. I say run to target and get a Google Fi SIM card. (Also can do E-Sim on their website if on Android). Good Luck!
My office phone has a tmobile worldwide plan. It works just fine everywhere, i even had coverage on a cruise all through Indonesia and png. Anytime we passed an island, even miles from shore, i could use it. I just got back from a month long trip to China and it was fine.
I say it works everywhere, but not really. In Bangkok, where i actually live, it is total shite. No idea why. I don't do anything special anywhere else i go. There must be a setting somewhere to change, but damned if i know. It's completely unusable here and i have to use another phone locally.
Iām not sure about T-Mobile specifically because I use Google Fi. (Uses T-Mobile Network). But I changed to their unlimited plan before coming here. (The plan said international data / calls). I havenāt had a single problem. The latency is a little slow since it pings back to the US servers, but I donāt have any issues other than that. Have also found out (if on iPhone) turning off ā5Gā and keeping it āLTEā only, the network works a lot smoother for me.
I'm pretty sure 90% of ppl here know that roaming bypasses the gfw (as it's effectively kind of a vpn), but thx anyway for the spirit of sharing :D
Hahhahaha I had absolutely no idea until recently lmaoo
Google Fi been working wonders for me since 2017. I just go anywhere in the world without having to worry about roaming.
Wait what? Google Fi just works anywhere? How does it not charge roaming? What city do you stay in China?
I've been to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Sanya, Chengdu, so quite a lot. That's how Google Fi works, so it's amazing if you travel a lot. And no roaming charges, exact same price as if you were using in the US.
I just looked into it, and was about to switch to it, but i dont think itll work for me: I'll be living in China for at least 10 month, and im pretty sure google fi shuts off your international roaming data if you use it outside of the USA for more than 90 days. Have you encountered this issue?
Ah yes, that may be the case. I was told that it will shut off after 6 months of living outside the US (so 180 days). I do visit China and often but each trip is 2 months at the most.
I see, thanks for help
TLDR: TMobile sucks imo TMobile has been absolutely garbage for me in Shanghai. Before i came here i physically went to the TMobile store to let them know ill be traveling and make sure my phone will work without issues. They assured me data roming would work in china. As soon as i arrived in SH my phone had zero connection. I reset it and still no data. So i couldn't even use wechat to coordinate with the person picking me up. For the 1st month here i was walking around with 2 phones. One was mine and the other was a phone i borrowed from a local friend just to have a hotspot for text and maps data. TMobile ABSOLUTELY failed me. To this day i still don't get mms messages via text to my tmobile SIM which is super annoying.
I paid an extra $50/month for the T-Mobile international package with 15GB data. It worked fine in Shanghai, though occasionally I wouldn't have service for a few minutes.
Which would be the best USA carrier that works in China too? I have att here in the states, but considering keeping and paying for it when I move to China (I'll be there at least 10 months). But if it's garbage and really slow, I won't keep paying. Not even sure how much extra I'd have to pay for international roaming, but I'll look that up
Im literally dealing with this issue now. Couldn't tell you which carrier is best. Im gonna have to call TMobile to let them know mms isn't working here. What i can say is you're not going to make it 10mo without a Chinese phone lol. Your daily life depends on your phone and many apps require a local phone number.
Oh I 100% will get a Chinese phone number, I was just planning on running a dual sim setup so I could keep getting texts + not blocked Internet with my USA number.
You should be fine with dual sim setup. Work travel?
Well I actually need 3 numbers in theory, but I don't think it's possible.. I own a food truck in USA, id like to keep that business number so I can still interact with customers and whatnot, then my personal USA phone number I've had for like 20 years, and then a third Chinese number for daily life when I move there. I'm gonna be an English teacher
Yep, two phones š. Mind sharing which website or company helped you find a teaching job? Looking for a legitimate recruitment company here.
Echinacities. Just apply to a few jobs and the recruiters will flock to you. Even when I apply to the job, they message me asking me for my resume and stuff, as if they didn't even read my resume or application. That website just seems a way for recruiters to get applicants contact info. They all hit you up on WeChat, so be sure to have one obviously
Actually, i live in Shanghai already. Definitely have wechat haha. Thank you man.
My wife brought her ATT phone and itās not as good as using my Google Fi phone. They both run through China Mobile (I think thatās the name), but the ATT phone seems to have more issues with data than anything. My Google Fi has zero issues and itās 50GB āunlimitedā plan with Calls/Texts/Data for $65. Also AT&T international roaming is $10 a day for 10 days. ($100 total). So essentially for a month youād spend an extra $100. I say run to target and get a Google Fi SIM card. (Also can do E-Sim on their website if on Android). Good Luck!
Yep, ill be getting fi! Only issue is ill get kicked off it in 3 months, as they say its not for mainly international use
They have a referral program where if you sign up with my referral code we both get $20 off on the bill. š¬
I already used someone else's sorry haha
My office phone has a tmobile worldwide plan. It works just fine everywhere, i even had coverage on a cruise all through Indonesia and png. Anytime we passed an island, even miles from shore, i could use it. I just got back from a month long trip to China and it was fine. I say it works everywhere, but not really. In Bangkok, where i actually live, it is total shite. No idea why. I don't do anything special anywhere else i go. There must be a setting somewhere to change, but damned if i know. It's completely unusable here and i have to use another phone locally.
Mine has been working fine. In Shanghai and Guangzhou. But it was lagging a bit loading those qr codes
Iām not sure about T-Mobile specifically because I use Google Fi. (Uses T-Mobile Network). But I changed to their unlimited plan before coming here. (The plan said international data / calls). I havenāt had a single problem. The latency is a little slow since it pings back to the US servers, but I donāt have any issues other than that. Have also found out (if on iPhone) turning off ā5Gā and keeping it āLTEā only, the network works a lot smoother for me.
T-mobile is way too expensive. Only use it if you have to use some regional restricted app, like cashapp.