Using a phone in China - Roaming, WiFi calling etc what to look out for

Forums › Travel (planes, train, cruise) › Using a phone in China - Roaming, WiFi calling etc what to look out for

Morgenmuffel

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#319594 12-May-2025 12:39

Ok i leave in a few days, i am not a phone person, I somehow completely forgot that i'll need my phone data to work if i am going to use payment apps while out and about.

I m on what was Vodafone prepay, I top up $20 a year because i just use email and am fairly unsociable.

Anyway i looked up roaming charges for data while in China and it $11 a mb, which is rather a lot, the roaming packs also seem pretty small (is 1gb a week enough)

I assume that if I turn off all updates and notifications on my phone, this will mean the only data used will be that for payments?

Also if I turn on wifi calling while in the hotel all texts and calls will be charged at nz rates, should i when doing this turn off mobile data/

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BDFL - Memuneh
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Geekzone

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#3372405 12-May-2025 12:56

Just a heads up, you won't be able to access Geekzone from China. Or Russia, Belarus or any sanctioned country for that matter.

floydbloke

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#3372421 12-May-2025 13:54

My two cents worth:

$11/MB is outrageous, definitely avoid
You could buy a local SIM and data pack on arrival. That ensures your payment apps will work but I guess that means losing your NZ number calling and SMS ability
Hotel WiFi is often substandard, and WiFi calling may not work (not sure about SMS, does that actually work over WiFi at all anywhere?)
I recently transited through China a couple of times and bought Skinny roaming packs. On my outbound trip I simply could not get any Internet connectivity at all. Skinny credited the $11 I paid since I hadn't been able to use it, and suggested I try a different carrier next time. Did that on the inbound leg and got connectivity, although some apps/sites weren't functional due to, I guess, the Great Chinese Firewall. If you do decide to roam it might pay to check beforehand which carriers OneNZ partners with in case the Automatic one on your phone doesn't work.
Turning off updates and notifications makes sense, you could leave mobile data off at all times unless making a payment
Download and use Amap to get around if you need a navigation app (ignore the registration requests), Google Maps is a bit sh*t over there
Because of my initial issues I ended up getting some cash. It was still accepted everywhere.

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SpartanVXL

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#3372422 12-May-2025 14:12

Get a HK or singaporean esim to avoid most of the hassle with connectivity. You can use wifi calling with the data sim as well, not just wifi. There are steps for iphone and android to get it working. Apple maps works well vs Google who aren’t allowed there.

If you are using wechat pay or alipay then the HK sim tends to fair better. Best not to use local wifi if you can help it, wifi calling probably will have issues connecting out.

dipper

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#3372472 12-May-2025 14:50

I have just got back from two weeks in China, loved it! I used Amap for navigation, Metroman to help with the subway, had Alipay and Wechat for paying for items and I used 4gb of data. So get an esim.

Remember to carry your passport with you as you will need it to go into any attractions

Morgenmuffel

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#3372473 12-May-2025 14:56

unfortunately my phone doesn't support esim, as that does seem to be the go to recommendation on all the travel forums I visited

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SpartanVXL

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#3372475 12-May-2025 15:17

You can get a physical sim at the airport when you land, need to register with your passport. Can get something like 40GB for fairly cheap but has the caveat of being within the firewall. Commercial VPN’s are spotty but self hosted may work better.

Given you can’t use esim (do look at a phone upgrade with this feature, very convenient not just for travel), the only other option is to buy vodafone prepay roaming bundles for $20 per GB. Theres an additional weekly addon for an extra 1GB at $17.5 if you can ration your data.

Or you could try your luck at shipping a travel sim to your hotel.

Linux

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#3372481 12-May-2025 16:02

Morgenmuffel:

Also if I turn on wifi calling while in the hotel all texts and calls will be charged at nz rates, should i when doing this turn off mobile data/

@Morgenmuffel Flight mode on the handset and then enable Wi-Fi but the great Firewall of China may block Wi-Fi calling from working

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wongtop

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#3372484 12-May-2025 16:38

We found that to use hotel wifi in China you needed to validate it with a Chinese mobile. Luckily 2D roaming worked well for our short stay.

Asteros

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#3372491 12-May-2025 17:01

OP what phone do you have? Do you have dual sim functionality?

Aucklandjafa

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#3372498 12-May-2025 18:13

freitasm:

Just a heads up, you won't be able to access Geekzone from China. Or Russia, Belarus or any sanctioned country for that matter.

is that still the case with NZ roaming packs? I only ask as I thought roaming data is all tunnelled/VPN’d back to NZ - essentially getting around any firewall.

Linux

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#3372499 12-May-2025 18:21

Datq Roaming is different as you would get allocated a NZ IP address

SpartanVXL

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#3372507 12-May-2025 19:28

wongtop:

We found that to use hotel wifi in China you needed to validate it with a Chinese mobile. Luckily 2D roaming worked well for our short stay.

Ah yes I forgot about this. OP unless you stay at a hotel that caters to foreigners theres a fair chance you need to have this in order to use wifi. Ask your hotel about it. Most things use wechat but some things do fall back to a local number.

Another option you can also try is to purchase another device (phone/wifi hotspot) with esim functionality and use that as your internet connection. The firewall and the fact everything relies on the mega apps makes things not simple for foreigners, best if you have someone local who can help you.

gareth41

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#3372644 13-May-2025 09:12

I was in China recently, I setup an Outline server (google it) on my home UFB connection before I went, and connected to that when I was in China. It was rock solid and I could use FB, YouYube, Gmail and everything else without issues. Sometimes I got packet loss, Outline would connect but not load anything, but I had a /29 block of IP's assigned on my home UFB connection, so just cycled to the next IP and Outline worked again.

nztim

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#3372663 13-May-2025 10:05

Roam, you will have an NZ IP address, and you won't be locked out of anything

Roaming data enters the Internet at your home country, in a country like China I would not connect to any Wi-Fi or use a local SIM

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

gareth41

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#3372744 13-May-2025 11:53

nztim:

Roam, you will have an NZ IP address, and you won't be locked out of anything

Roaming data enters the Internet at your home country, in a country like China I would not connect to any Wi-Fi or use a local SIM

That's a very expensive way to do it if you're going to be in the country for a while like I was, almost a month. Data is very cheap in China, using a local sim card or connecting to wifi is just like anywhere else, follow all the usual security precautions and you'll be fine. Outline uses end to end encryption with packet obfuscation to evade the GFW. I kept my NZ sim card with me for critical stuff like banking.

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