China Telecom has a fear that wireless routers encourage people to steal internet from their neighbours and therefore not pay. This is quite irrational because every wifi router comes with encryption which most people don't bother to turn on. A campaign to get people to encrypt their wifi signals would be more friendly than a threat to cut everyone's cables.

Unless I'm mistaken, to the ISP a router is a router - I'm not sure how they'd know it was wireless unless they are wandering around Kunming actually monitoring wifi signals. They are more likely seeing a router on the network and getting flustered about that. With that in mind I'm not sure how wired ethernet ports will make much difference. Sure it will stop people stealing the internet but that can be done with encryption.

Some Routers (Netgear, Linksys etc) can fake a MAC address (a unique code assigned to every piece of network hardware) so that you will be showing your computer's MAC address to the ISP rather than a router's MAC address. This might make the ISP think you are connecting a computer straight to the modem and no routers are involved. I've done this at home but not sure if it works - the internet is as slow as ever but I haven't been threatened with being cut off.

Having spoken to engineers at China Netcom (who provide our office internet) they don't seem to have a problem with routers (wireless or wired) and can often be cheaper and faster than Telecom. The big problem is they are the little guy in Kunming (very big in the North of China) and are squeezed out by China Telecom. Most large apartment complexes will have already signed deals with Telecom making it impossible to use another ISP. However, with individual shops directly connected to the road (ie, not a big building) it might be easier to choose your ISP.

I'd be interested in finding out if China Telecom offer any special packages that allow for WIFI if you pay for more bandwidth. It doesn't seem reasonable to stop people using WIFI. For many people using WIFI still means they are only using 1 computer (and therefore the same bandwidth), it is just more convenient. And at the end of the day its safer - a router acts as a firewall. Connecting directly to China Telecom is actually quite dangerous for your computer.

You are of course absolutely right that my comments are careless and I did declare my lack of knowledge about George in my last post. However I fail to see how his comments are any less careless or ill-informed; or indeed why his background, skills or age let him off the hook.

I'm not at all surprised that Jackie Chan had a bad time in Japan - the relationship between Japan and China is depressingly bad. It makes me very angry to see how Japanese people are often treated when visiting China - my room mate in Beijing many years ago frequently pretended he was Korean. Its equally disturbing to see how foreigners are often treated in the US and UK. But George's comments went over the top and bordered on the farcical. Although not sure as my knowledge of Jackie Chan is as ill-informed as my knowledge of George, I would hope that Jackie Chan would not publicly dismiss an entire race of people on his fansite based on his bad experiences. Moreover embellish them to the extent of writing halftruths about food and segregation. We all know that there are some exotic food items available in certain restaurants (many of which are actually worth a try) but to imply that you're going to find it everywhere, moreover that it is impossible to find standard chinese dishes is nonsense. I'd be really surprised if anyone really was turned away from a hotel swimming pool for being a foreigner.
I would hope his age, experience and worldliness would help him to realise that, as a musician/celebrity/teacher/public figure it is not particularly responsible to tar 1/4 of the world's population with the same brush. I concur that it is disappointing that he had such a difficult time in China but are you not even slightly disappointed that someone you clearly respect so much has given as little thought to his comments as I have to mine?
Anyway, as I admitted, you are right that my comments are careless and uninformed and I only wrote them as I was staggered by what seemed equally careless and uninformed comments from a musician/celebrity/teacher/public figure. I've seen similar comments made in internet forums about China by people who've clearly never been and so assumed George was coming from a similar position. To his credit he didnt go so far as to mention that every person in China eats aborted embryos; something I've seen written many times in similar kinds of posts.
Anyway, sorry if I offended, it wasn't personal.
All the best,

Greg.

Hi, George Lynch here.

I'm just taking a minute out of my busy schedule to give you some more informed opinions about China.

I've got to make it quick though as I'm preparing for my covert mission into the hotel swimming pool. I'm hoping that if I wear a thick enough coat of Beijing opera makeup I might fool the bao'an into thinking I'm Chinese and be allowed to have a swim. After that I'll probably be a bit hungry so put on my yellow foreigner ID badge and go and sit in the alien's section of my local shaokao bullfrog restaurant, hoping that they might actually give me some food rather than bumping into me and spitting at my feet in disgust. It is rather exhausting being constantly hounded by the secret police for my subversive art but then it gives me satisfaction to know that I am the greatest living threat to China's national security since Celine Dion. I do wish they'd feed me something more than bullfrog every day, its getting a little tiresome but I guess they just resent me for my extra large belly. Oh f**k - I just drank some water by mistake - where's the US consulate?

Having never heard the guy's music I'm judging him purely on his ill-informed rant.Its seems clear that he came to China with preconceived ideas based perhaps loosely on real perceptions and qualms foreigners have had about China, spent the entire trip trembling behind the sofa in his 5 star suite, and on his return to civilization promptly embellished those perceptions and qualms to the point of them being total nonsense in the vain hope that some impressionable gullible fans might believe that he's seen something of China.

China Mobile has better network coverage than China Unicom but they're both fairly bad in terms of the services they offer and are both 2nd Generation. China keeps delaying its 3G launch every few months and the rest of the world will probably be using 4G before China gets there. There are a multitude of different SIM cards and different tariffs. If you want a pre pay (topup card) one that works all over China and can do international calls or texts you're best off with Shenzhouxing but then there are many different types of those. I've always found it difficult to find a shenzhouxing that can do both international texts and calls. you're probably better off sticking with texts as there are plenty of other considerably cheaper ways of making internationals calls (the China Mobile rate is expensive).
If you're planning to stick around in Kunming for a while then the best bet is quanquitong (GoTone) which is a like a contract rather than topup cards. You'll need to go to a China Mobile office with your passport and sign up for a contract but then you get much better deals which include a certain number of minutes and GPRS megabytes per month. You can either pay at a China Mobile office each month in cash or can get the account connected to a Chinese bank card and then just check your bill online.

not positive but I imagine this is something a lawyer can do for you. I think there's a page on this site listing some law firms. Personally I recommend Edmond Yang, he speaks excellent English and is very helpful. I'm not by my phone book so can't find his number but I think he's listed in the lawyer page on this site and there's even an interview with him somewhere. Greg.