travelling with N800 in hongkong and Canton, china

[bunanson]

An unexpected trip coming up to Hongkong and Canton, China, plans to take my N800 with me. Anybody knows the cellphone/wifi situations in these two places? I am having Alltel plan. Would my cellphone tethers to N800 good enough or Wifi is still rare in Asia? Would my cellphone works just like in US or I need something different? I have been travelling in US with Wifi and supplement with Alltel and the experience with the N800 is super. And I even remote desktop to my office everyday to check things. Thanks for any info regarding N800 use or simply, any DOs and DONTs in these areas.





bun

[Jerome]

I travelled to Beijing and Xian a few months ago, I suppose that the situation in Canton is similar.

China uses GSM, so your phone should support that (and not CDMA, which I think that alltell is using). Data service via GPRS should work, although I did not try it. No UMTS coverage as far as I know. It is also very expensive, so you are most likely to use wifi anyway.

Wifi or an ethernet port in your room should be available in all hotels catering for westerners. Personally, I always carry a small wifi router with me on travel to use the ethernet port when available. Connection speed is good, gizmo worked but the quality was low (but gizmo's quality has always been low on the phone numbers I call which are in Europe).

You might find open wifi access in some western style cafes or malls, but it is not common.

China blocs Internet access to some sites, most notably the BBC. Direct connection to the i.p. address should work however. If there is a site that you absolutly need to contact during your trip, I suggest to check its i.p. number from home and take it with you. Do that for your mail server, for example.

PC with Internet access are to be found everywhere, in hotels, in airports and of course in numerous Internet cafes. A web access for your mail may prove convenient. There is a catch however: since I am back I receive about 50-100 spam messages in Chinese. I suppose that a key logger was running on one of those PCs and sniffed my e-mail address. You may want to set up a throw away address for the trip. In any case: change all passwords when you are back and be careful with sensitive information.

Dos:
smile, tell everyone that you find China great, try restaurants who do not have an English menu. Take a book with translations of common terms and food terms in chinese script with you, you can just point at what you need this way. Take maemo mapper with satellite images of the city with you, it helps to understand in which part of the city you are. I did not find any maps of China online down to street level, so satellite was the only choice. You'll find tourist maps on the spot (and they are good, with Chinese script and English translation), but finding the name of the street you are in can prove difficult. Ask your hotel for their card (with directions in Chinese script) so that you can show that to any taxi and be brought back home. If you are not picked up at the airport, it also helps to get the name and address of your hotel IN CHINESE SCRIPT before you leave: most people can't read our script in China.

Don't:
criticise, lose your temper. Don't use taxis offered in the airport hall, go to queue at the taxi stand with the Chinese (you'll jump the queue anyway). Don't try Szechuan cuisine if you do not like your food unbearably spicy. Don't try to order fancy foodstuff (snake, dog, etc...) unless you want to treat Chinese people (Chinese doing business seem to believe that the more important the contract, the more expensive the food must be).

[bunanson]

Thank you, Jerome. The Dos and Donts are better than any book I read in the library. Regarding Wifi situation, you are totally correct, Alltel is CDMA. I will have to get some GSM somehow or switch phone in HongKong, maybe. Thank you for those Asian visit pearls.


bun

[vickytao]

China use both GSM and CDMA. And HongKong is same.
Bring a wifi router is a good idea for you. Most of hotels have internet service.
The food is great in these two locations.

[Arynd]

I am an American living in China near Shanghai and I have traveled all over China. I have and use a N800 daily there. Here is a little more info that might help you. GSM is much more wide-spread than CDMA. If you have access to borrow someones unlocked GSM phone you can buy a SIM (I prefer China Mobile) anywhere in China. They are the prepaid type, you can buy recharge minutes at news stands, quickie markets, and China Mobile shops everywhere. You can get the SIM with GPRS data service. It works everywhere in China but buying recharge minutes becomes a little more difficult if you leave the area where you bought the SIM. You can still do it but you will have to go the a main China Mobile office in the new location to do it. You can find free wifi at all Dio coffee shops amd all New Island coffee shops. They are everywhere. Finding other "available" spots is as easy as hanging out near any high-rise apt building, and they are everywhere in China. Maemo Mapper is very useful, but I have not found any street maps written in Pin-Yin (Roman characters). If anyone knows of any, please share.

[spacehunt]

Hong Kong mainly uses GSM 900/1800 and WCDMA 2100. If you have an unlocked GSM phone, you can get a prepaid Peoples SIM card and get unlimited EDGE (with real IP address) for about HK$138/month. As for Wifi, you get 20 minutes free per day at most McDonalds, and there are plenty of "open" ones around.

If you don't mind paying for Wifi, PCCW is doing a massive Wifi rollout at the moment, see http://www.pccwwifi.com/eng/; they also operate the free Wifi service at the airport.

ps. unlike China, Hong Kong does not censor the Internet.

[yelvington]

Great advice so far!

In April I'm going to Macau. Is the access situation there similar to that in HK? Does a prepaid Peoples SIM card work there? If there's a flat-rate EDGE possibility I'll see about unlocking my Nokia 6133. That's a GREAT rate.

Several years ago I was in HK and Beijing, and was amazed by the GSM coverage. Five bars at the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, et cetera. But I was roaming on T-Mobile, so rates were steep. The only mainland Internet access I had was dialup from my hotel, and it was both slow and often blocked. HK was broadband and fast.

I took my N800 to Europe earlier this year hoping to find open access points so I could Skype home, but I was disappointed, except for my Barcelona hostel. I had hoped to find open APs at bars and coffee shops, but no dice. I could find dozens of APs at any one time, but all were locked down.

[whatever7]

I stay in GuangZhou last year for 2 weeks. Most of the sim card they sell do offer data but usually a pain to set it up. The prepaid sim I use charge dirt cheap for minute and data (0.4 for the days you use it and the .3 USD a MB or something) however only wap site and wap port are open. I was able to set it up only becuase I know Chinese.

The only sim that offer full internet access require monthly subscrition. It's going to be a pain to set it up. I suggest get the sim in HK and just roam in China. It's not going to cost you that much more and you can ask the HK phone shop to setup the server and DNS info for you. Most people in HK speak decent English its going to be a lot easier.

[spacehunt]

In April I'm going to Macau. Is the access situation there similar to that in HK? Does a prepaid Peoples SIM card work there? If there's a flat-rate EDGE possibility I'll see about unlocking my Nokia 6133. That's a GREAT rate.


Unfortunately using a HK SIM card in Macau is considered roaming, and you'll be charged the roaming data rate. It's not too steep though.

See http://www.peoples.com.hk/p_prepaid_supertalk_charge_iso.jsp
(they only mention GPRS but they have turned on EDGE in most places)


Several years ago I was in HK and Beijing, and was amazed by the GSM coverage. Five bars at the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, et cetera. But I was roaming on T-Mobile, so rates were steep. The only mainland Internet access I had was dialup from my hotel, and it was both slow and often blocked. HK was broadband and fast.


Many hotels in mainland now have wired and/or wifi broadband, usually for a fee.

[TA-t3]

My own 2 cents..

VPN, or even an SSH tunnel to a proxy, should be enough to get you around that great firewall. It worked well for me.
When you leave, go very early to the airport. Going through immigration is quick, through emigration is the opposite.. _huge_ queues, and forms to fill out. Go to the airport 3 hours early for your flight, no later.