Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
There are three phone companies in Beijing, all state owned—China Mobile (
中国移动
,
Zh
ō
ngguó Yídòng), China Unicom (
中国联通
, Zh
ō
ngguó Liánt
ō
ng), and China Telecom
(
中国电信
, Zh
ō
ngguó Diànxìn). Within Beijing, China Telecom also operates under its loc-
al name of Beijing Telecom, particularly for landlines.
China Mobile is by far the largest telecommunications company in the world, boasting
more than 700 million subscribers. It currently, however, has the smallest share of 3G pie,
having only recently added this to its raft of services.
As far as which one is better, that's debatable. They are all on obvious paths of develop-
ment, and standards today are much better than what you would have had even five or ten
years ago. For coverage and customer service within China they are all roughly on par. In
addition to that, prices don't vary greatly between companies. For this reason, when choos-
ing a carrier, there are other factors worth considering more than individual prices or cov-
erage. These include knowing what company already services your housing complex for
phone and Internet, and then what package you can get for your cell; and secondly, knowing
what wireless network system that both your home country and existing cell phone use.
Landlines and ADSL Internet are the exclusive turf of China Unicom and China Telecom
(Beijing Telecom), and when it comes to choice, there isn't one. The decision of which
phone company covers which property is made by property developers and the Internet
companies, not individual tenants. One phone company usually has exclusive rights to an
entire community or apartment complex, and you can't change phone companies if you
don't like the one you're with. Given that, both companies are relatively similar in price and
quality, and good and bad experiences have been reported by users of both. If you are plan-
ning to buy a mobile phone on a contract system where you bundle your costs with your
Internet, then it may be important to you to know up front which company you're going to
be using at home. The landlord or real estate agent should be able to tell you who that is;
you can also tell by the first numbers of the landline phone number. If it starts with a 6 or
an 8 it's China Unicom, if it starts with 57 or 58 then it's China Telecom.
