EDGE access in China for the iPhone

screenshot of EDGE in use.

OK, this is big news for a lot of apple fans in China. I have confirmed that EDGE works fine on my 1.1.4 iPhone. It is using a normal China Mobile SIM card, and all I had to do to turn it on was configure the settings correctly (credit for the settings goes to Alison)

It works through the normal China Mobile GPRS mobile internet service. The fee varies from 2RMB per MB, to 15RMB/month for 160MB, to 200RMB/month for unlimited access (ed note: See update about the prices). As far as I can tell, any prepaid card should work, even the most basic.

 

 

 

 

 EDGE China Mobile Settings

To configure the service, navigate to Settings -> General -> Network -> Edge

Use the following settings:

APN: CMNET
Username:
Password:

That's right, just set the service name. The fees are taken directly from your prepaid card.

So for any of you out there who were just getting by on WiFi, feel free to upgrade. And if you are coming to China... don't even think about paying roaming fees. Just get a prepaid China Mobile card when you get here and use it for the duration of your trip. It costs a minimum of 100RMB (14USD) or so and that would be enough to get started, you can add more in 50RMB increments

Enjoy!

Update: I seem to be wrong about the prices, according to a chart on the China Mobile site. It says that 15RMB/month gets you 100MB, 200RMB/month gets you 2000MB, after that it is 1RMB/MB up to 500RMB. So that's 3USD for 100MB, 30USD for 2GB, with a max of 72USD a month.

Update2: The monthly package doesn't kick in till the next month so for a short trip, it doesn't make much sense. For those of you still interested, here are the instructions: 

text "BLGPRS" to 10086
they respond with a list of choices
text "GPRS100" where 100 means the 100RMB per month service.
they should respond with a confirmation

Posted by Adeh Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:51:00 GMT

Read full article 4 comments


Comments

  1. jerry 5 days later:
    Please note that 15RMB/month getting 100MB is only for CMWAP flush not including CMNET flush. We must pay for CMNET separatly. That means 15RMB can only get 15MB CMNET flush. :(
  2. Adeh 5 days later:
    thanks jerry. But what's the difference?
  3. mmo 23 days later:
    72 a month is a little steep but the 3USD should do fine ;)
  4. Adeh 23 days later:
    Note that as jerry noted, the 3USD/month option does not support CMNET, only CMWAP. I myself have not tried CMWAP, but I understand that it is limited in some ways, and may not even work with the iPhone.