James
Unicom is the only telecom company that offers a 3G network as well as phones and supposedly is working on creating China's 4G network.
Unless your phone is from outside the mainland you can't get on the internet unless you use your carrier.
Wi-Fi iPhones Finally Arrive in China
A few weeks ago we reported on speculation that Wi-Fi enabled iPhones would soon be officially hitting the mainland Chinese market. As of today it seems they have finally arrived.
According to the Wall Street Journal, China Unicom issued a statement last Friday (Aug 6) which said that company would “start offering the 8GB iPhone 3GS with Wi-Fi on Monday [today].” The Sanlitun Apple store now has ads for the phone on their site.
Wi-Fi enabled iPhones were previously not permitted on China’s mainland, though they have long been available on the grey market.
The Wall Street Journal speculated some time ago that the iPhone 4 may hit China’s mainland in September, and Friday’s article noted that the introduction of the Wi-Fi enabled sets may be a step in that direction: “The 8-gigabyte iPhone 3GS is a companion of sorts to Apple’s newer iPhone 4. So when China Unicom starts offering that version of the iPhone 3GS next week, it will not just be bringing China its first iPhone complete with Wi-Fi wireless Internet capability. It may also be setting itself up to offer the iPhone 4.”
For those who just can’t wait for an iPhone 4 and feel like a trip down south, this site claims that Hong Kong has the cheapest iPhone 4 handsets in the world.
Related stories :
Comments
New comments are displayed first.
Login or register to post comments.
Sally G - 3G is allowed and was previously the only way to access the internet via officially sold iPhones before they recently started allowing iPhones with wi-fi to be sold.
Unlocked phones on the gray market have been also readily available around town for years.
Hi James2009,
As far as I understand - and I could be wrong on this - the "official" phones sold here are configured so that they can only use Unicom services. However, I think unlocked gray market phones can be used through any provider.
I'll stand corrected though if there's a user out there who knows more about this.
Cheers,
Dan
What hit my head is the term 'Unicom'. I heard that iPhone can only be used via Unicom network in China, not Telecom, is this true, Dan?
If so, Apple is not doing a very good job I would say because Telecom is having 5 times bigger subscribers in China than Unicom
I switched to Telecom 10 years ago because the signal was so bad