<p>It looks like one of my kids will likely be working in China for 6 months later next year. For those of you who have kids who have studied or worked in China how do you communicate with them?
She is getting a new cell phone soon but we assume she will turn it off and put it away till she returns to the US. Is that a correct assumption?
Any other things we should be aware of?</p>
<p>Most of employer will equip their expat employee with a mobile/blackberry with local numbers and company pays the expenses. </p>
<p>Or she can buy a local prepaid simcard and refill it when the value is run off. No need to join any plan if she only stay in China for six months.</p>
<p>Try italkbb.com. They give you all you can talk US and world wide for $25/mo, China especially because they are a Chienese company. They will provide a Chinese local phone number of your choice and for you D to call you is just a local call. You can call anywhere in China, including the cell phones. There are other plans.</p>
<p>italkbb is a voip provider. I do not use them because the voice quality problem, but if its not business call, it is ok. Fax does have problems.</p>
<p>S is currently living in Shanghai and we use Skype all the time. His employer did not provide a cell phone but S bought a sim card over there to use locally.
We never speak on the phone.
I know he bought something - VPS?? - so he can get on Facebook. I’ll ask him about other considerations. What city will she be in?</p>
<p>You can have the entire family up to ten people holding a video conference using Google+. The cost is free.</p>
<p>Do they buy the local simcard and put it in their phone in order to make local calls in China?</p>
<p>The phone must be an unlocked GSM phone with the China GSM bands (900/1800 like in most non-Americas countries; a quad-band GSM phone will have those bands and the Americas 850/1900 bands) in order to use a local SIM card in China.</p>
<p>^^ That’s true. S uses his Samsung from home. And yes, he bought the sim card once he was over there.
PS Just got off Skype with him! (10:30PM Shanghai time)</p>
<p>One of my kids has lived in Shanghai for almost four years now. She also lived briefly in Beijing while doing college internships.</p>
<p>She bought a cellphone there and calls me on a regular schedule as she get incredibly cheap international minutes - I think she said something like 2 cents a minute or maybe 4. We often talk for 30-45 minutes. We never Skype because the times that are convenient for both of us tend to be when she’s out and about, not sitting at a computer. When I want to call her, I use my H’s cellphone as he has unlimited international calling under an old AT&T plan. I rarely call her as when I do, she’s always too busy to talk.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the thing Woody’s son bought to use FB is called a VPN (Virtual Private Network). Every now and again Google gets blocked in China too so it’s a handy thing to have.</p>
<p>If you have questions you’d like me to pass along to my D, I’m happy to do so.</p>
<p>D is in Harbin this semester. We communicate through email and skype. Also, she can send a certain number of texts on her AT&T iphone (I think it is 50) with no charge, and receive unlimited texts for no charge (other than the monthly charge). She bought a cell phone in China to communicate with roommates/new friends/friends who are also in China. So for now she has two cellphones.</p>
<p>Too bad that there isn’t any facebook.</p>
<p>There are many ways around that.</p>
<p>When I was there this summer, I found that to be a hassle - of course I’m not so great with things like skype etc.</p>
<p>She is getting a new phone soon. She is leaning towards a Samsung android over the IPhone. Presently she has an old fashion cell phone that just calls and texts. We have ATT. She doesn’t leave till May so we have time to figure it all out.</p>
<p>This is what we did last month. Called ATT first and they will unlock your phone for you over the phone. </p>
<p>Once you get there, go to any small newspaper stand and they have all sort of simcard and international calling cards. We got both for under 100 RMB. The hotel typically will sell those but they are alot more expensive. You could recharge the simcard as you go, almost anywhere. </p>
<p>What we did not know was that what we got was a Shanghai number and when we went out of the region, there is an expensive roaming fee. </p>
<p>The 179100 calling card to call US is like 5 penny per minute, I think.</p>
<p>Of course, all these need to done if she speaks some Chinese.</p>
<p>Forget one important thing - make sure your call phone display Chinese or make sure everyone only message you in English. Our cell phone does not support Chinese font. Many got upset asking why we don’t return message. The phone campany will also send you notice via message. </p>
<p>Twice we did not know our account was low on funding and both times were when we need the phone.</p>