Which company gives you the best internet service?
China mobile
China telecom
or
China Unicom?
I currently use China telecom and was wondering if China mobile is better. My wife tells me that her friends said that China Mobile's service is slow and intermittent. What about China Unicom's serivce? What about the 3G dongle thingy? How much does it cost and is it better than the wired service? Any input would be appreciated.
Another question,
are the answers affected by the area of the city you live?
I know the 3G or not 3G question is affected by locale.
Internet service may be ranked according to two speed categories, as follows:
DISTANCE TO SWITCHING CENTER
The distance of your apartment or more appropriately, CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) aka ADSL Modem from the carrier's switching center will determine the raw speed quality.
DOMAIN NAME SERVER (DNS) RESOLUTION
The speed at which your ISP (Internet Service Provider) can resolve domain names (eg apple.com) into it's IP (Internet Protocol) Address (eg 172.16.xxx.xxx) may also be the cause of apparent slowness. A fast way to test is jump to baidu.com and apple.com at the same time. Baidu USUALLY loads instantly. Apple may timeout or take several seconds before it loads. This is because the DNS server may be overloaded (probably). Larger companies such as China Telecom etc "usually" have heftier equipment.
Finally - there's the carrier requirements in China for internet forensics. Keeping track of everything everyone does consumes tremendous processing, storage, and bandwidth. Outbound traffic (out of country) can be incredibly slow as it bounces around the ISPs servers, content filters, etc on the way out of one of the several "gateways" out of China.
Foreign VPN (Virtual Private Networks) can sometimes speed up the perceived internet speed - but that depends heavily on how fast your Chinese ISP can resolve that VPN address.
MOST connections out of China these days ricochet around an ISPs infrastructure for seconds before being allowed out - VPN or not.
For 3G systems - best to probably go with either China Telecom or China Unicom. China Mobile inherited China Rail Telecom's infrastructure (2% of China's market share before the merger), so China Mobile's aggressively trying to build out it's broadband network. Unicom got China Netcom and China Telecom is - well China Telecom. Both have strong broadband networks.
You may also try out the second tier ISP providers such as AIPU and Great Wall Broadband - but your mileage may vary (YMMV) as they usually depend on pipes from the big 3 to exit China.
I use Aipu - speed is faster, but DNS resolution sucks all around (both for domestic and international websites). Even taobao is sucky to connect to - but I've used aipu connections at friend's homes and speed is blistering fast.
I'll switch to great wall after this contract is done - see if that's any better.
FYI asking the gorilla installers the distance from your apt to the switching center - may as well be speaking yiddish. My connection looks like a tangled clothes line fed out through an apartment window. Gorilla installers. Good thing we don't have typhoons here.
Thanks for the replies. I guess I'll be sticking with China Telecom.
Stick with China Telecom, its No. 1 service in wired Internet currently in China. Possibly every Chinese guy knows that...lol. My flat is using the service from China Unicom. The speed is terrible during peak time...
Thanks jiyun I will.
For prepaid 1200rmb, unicom will give you a free 3g usb stick modem and roughly 14 months of service. You get a few gigs a month and unicom 3g is decent speeds in cities. This could be as backup for your main telecom service during those slow peak times. Of course, it would also allow you to be mobile or travel to other Chinese cities and have internet. Pricey or affordable, depending on how much you value or how much you are frustrated by chinese internet providers during peak times.
Does anyone have any up-to-date information on which internet provider can deliver the fastest internet (given the same purchased speed)?
I just switched from China Mobile's 20mb service to China Unicom's 50mb service, and my internet seems way slower. I'm thinking to switch to China Telecom, though their prices are the highest.
don't know but I see China Telecom offers Fiber Optics, might be worth looking into... anybody tried it?
I use China Telecom cauz my building has no Unicom service. These two are faster than the rest service providers. In Beijing Unicom is the fastest.
I got Telecom 20M one year package with three mobile numbers and some free minutes and 3G flow rate.
