DH and I will be traveling around China in October on our own. All flights we will need have been booked with FF miles. I will reserve a hotel for Beijing, which is where we arrive into China, but was going to get hotels when we arrive in each city. I will purchase train tickets once we get there. I have a netbook that I will have with me, but I do not have a cell phone on an internet plan. I use T-Mobile. I'm not a big cell phone user; no texting or internet, just for talking. I won't have access to translation apps or google maps on the phone as it is now.

Will I need to buy a cheap cell phone in China to use there or will a local SIM card work in my phone? Should I change the cell plan for the month that includes our trip to China to have internet access? Will people in hotels make phone calls for me to drivers/guides/restaurants/hotels to make reservations, or let me use their cell phone? Will I be able to use my netbook on wifi at coffee shops or hotels or are most web sites blocked by the government? What's the best way to communicate within China?

I can't help you with communication in China but I know a little bit about using T-Mobile internationally.
First, their website is not really user friendly to find international info imo. You would be best calling their customer service which is usually quite good.
You would need a phone that has the correct bands to work in China for one thing. But the international roaming is quite expensive and having internet access on a phone is incredibly expensive - so imo your best bet would be to get a local SIM card if such a thing is possible in China. Sorry I have no idea.
And you would need to have your phone unlocked for that which is usually no big deal for T-Mobile to give you that info.
Also the international plans that you might see on their website are for calling from the US, not within a country - I went through that with them recently.
Hope that helps a little....

First, who are you going to communicate with in China by phone? Between you and DH? Between you and someone in the US? Or between you and someone in China (do you speak Putonghua)?

A fairly new T-Mobile phone you got here in the US is usually 850/1900 dual band GSM, or it 850/900/1800/1900 quad-band. If it is just dual band, it won't work at all in China. If it has quad-band, it will work but will cost US$1.49/minute, regardless where you're calling to. To use a local SIM, your phone must be <b>unlocked</b>. If you have been with T-Mobile for a while, they can probably do it for you for free, depending on the model of the phone.

For my most recent trip to Tibet, I got myself a local SIM card since it was a long trip and I need to communicate with others in my group. But for my previous trips to China, it's not worth the trouble, and I mainly use text messaging with just my regular US T-Mobile SIM. It costs US$0.35 to send, and US$0.20 to receive each text message.

To access the internet, subscribing to T-Mobile's wi-fi or data plan won't work, since T-Mobile don't operate there. Most hotels in major cities have free ethernet in the room with a cable, but it never hurts to bring an extra one just in case. Some sites like Facebook and Youtube are blocked, but you can download the "Freegate" program from Dynamic Internet Technology before arriving in China to bypass that censorship. [Your US Tax dollars at work.]

3G Mobile internet is present in China from the Chinese carriers, but I am not sure about prepaid service or their rate. Likely require a contract.

rkkwan - just curious where you see the price of $1.49 - I am under the impression that rate is from the US to China - International Services - Long Distance. Roaming within China is $2.99 according to what I read on the T-Mobile site....and what I was told about the same type of service in France....

Oh yeah, my mistake. It's $2.99/minute raoming in China.

I am living proof that you can vacation without a cell phone. We have made 9 international trips to both Europe and Asia lasting usually 2 weeks- all without a cell phone in hand!

We communicate when necessary by email.

We did not have a cell phone in China in 2008. And we didn't need one until I left my wallet in a taxi.

Cancelling credit cards would have been a breeze with a cell phone but was more like a three stooges episode without one. But you probably won't leave your purse in a taxi.

Skype should work, so one cheap and easy way to communicate with others while in your hotel room is by Skype.

I was thinking I might need to call ahead to the next city on our itinerary to reserve a hotel room. Or call a restaurant to make a reservation. But they probably wouldn't understand English anyways and my Chinese won't be good enough to talk on the phone. I don't know how to text nor do I really want to or have any need for it. If I need to communicate with my office back in the US I'll do it by email. I also do not have skype service or know much about it.

The phone is a brand new LG Sentio bar phone. I've been with T-mobile for 4 years so I can go to a store and have them unlock it for me.

The other reason to make a phone call would be to reschedule a flight if one is canceled or there is a problem along the way. We seem to be having bad luck with political protests and civil unrest disrupting our trips; happened in Thailand in Nov. 2008 and Peru in Sept. 2010.

Unless you're planning to use the phone to talk to each other or to call the US, I don't know what good it's going to do you unless you speak the language, and fluently.

I just returned from two weeks in China and the cell phone I planned to use wouldn't work as the phone and SIM card weren't cooperating with each other (it was likely user error mostly). It is absolutely not only possible to not have a cell phone but it's really easy. With the netbook, I didn't have a cell phone and didn't feel the need for one. You have the netbook and as long as that has the microphone and speaker built in, you're set.

I used Skype on my netbook to call home (I used the US and Canada subscription and it was FANTASTIC) or to make any other calls I needed. My hotels all had free internet in the rooms, and wifi in the lobby. I never needed a phone when I was out and about, though having access to a translator and map and/or GPS program would have been really handy at times.


Skype is really very easy to use, don't be shy of giving it a try. I had never used it before and got it just for this trip. The program itself is free, and you can choose to either pay as you go (put money on an account and use that for your calls) or sign up for a subscription. You would make that decision based on how much talking you're planning on doing.

Calls to China (even from China I think) are 2.6cents per minute if you just put some money on an account and use that to pay by the minute. Calls to the US are the same rate.

If you decide to go that route and use Skype, you just have to go to skype.com, choose "get skype", and download it to your netbook. Set up your account (there should be a walkthrough and otherwise you can always call their customer service and ask for help), and then try it at home. Call your cell phone or house phone and play with the program a bit while you can hear both sides. You can input numbers in the contact list so you just have to click the name and then "Call" and it'll go. Otherwise you can tell it what country and then type in the number.

Honestly, you're not going to want to call restaurants to try to make reservations unless you speak somewhat decent Chinese. At most of the places I wandered into, from fast food to a very nice restaurant, the English was extremely limited. At a few I'm not sure if they spoke any English at all. Everything was done by picture menu and charades. The very limited or no English was perfectly fine in person, but would have been impossible over the phone. If you wish to call for reservations, ask your hotel to do it for you and they'll be happy to help.

As for calling to the next hotel, the middle to large hotels will have someone at the desk who speaks at least fairly decent English. You could always call to make the reservations and if you ran into problems, say that you'll call back in a few minutes and ask your current hotel to help you and call back.

I had no issues getting to Skype. The only thing I tried to access that I had to use the proxy for was Facebook.

Thanks, Iowa_Redhead (I'm a Missouri redhead). I will download skype onto my netbook and play with it. If I can get a subscription for just the 2 1/2 weeks we are in China that would work out perfect. I guess I can always make some hotel reservations ahead from elong.com or ctrip.com using my netbook and the internet connection at the hotels.I'm not wanting to make calls back to the US while traveling, but if I had skpe I probably would, check in on my business and my dogsitter to see how the dog is.

Susiesan

Just use SKYPE. I started using SKYPE when I was in China in January 2008,and its been on now 3 years. Many of my friends now use it and are amazed how much they have saved in call costs.
I never turn my mobile on when I am travelling as it would cost too much $$. In fact, when I was working around Asia, I would hear of horrendous costs on my phone account.

You dont need a subscription with SKYPE.
SKYPE user to SKYPE user is FREE, NO CHARGEE, GRATIS.

However, if you are calling to a land line or cell phone , then you pay. Just be careful on the costs to cell phones. For example, when I am in Australia, I can call USA or CHINA mobiles for US $0.023 cents a minute. However, if I call an Australian mobile number, its about US$0.25 a minute approx. Seems crazy, but thats what it costs.

What I do, is charge up US$ 10.00 in my account, and have it set up automatically to recharge by another US$10.00 when my account gets down to $2.00 in credit.

Its so easy.

I am now in China, and use Skype to keep in touch with Australia almost every day.