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App developer and iPhonAsia reader Wiley Kestner bought an iPhone 3GS in Hong Kong back in August and signed up for the China Unicom “3G trial” (beta testing the new network) in Kunming, China.

Wiley writes below about his experience on the new network and provides full details on Unicom’s 3G pricing and plan options. With Wiley’s permission, I’ve reposted the article below sans charts. You can go directly to China Bites for the full article + price/plan data.

I am headed to China for 2 weeks in November and to ensure I order the right item in the restaurant, I’ve downloaded Wiley’s excellent app  > China Menu

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3G Lands in China Ahead of the iPhone

by Wiley Kestner

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 covers 50 cities, including 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. 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, 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 . I’d be particularly interested in the experiences of other folks using the Unicom 3G network.

Please visit China Bites for the full article + price/plan data

Tags: 3G, Apple, China Bites, China Unicom, iPhone, iPhone in China, WCDMA, Wiley Kestner