Comment: Re:Is this for real? (Score 1) 258
I should have mentioned this in my original post, but my friend can send messages to me just fine, it is messages from UK to china which do not reach the recipient.
China practically unreachable by western SMS
Submitted
by
Ainsy
Ainsy writes "A friend of mine recently began a placement as an english pronunciation teacher in china,
She's picked up a pay-as-you go sim for use over there, only to discover that china seems to have been almost compeltely overlooked by international communications agreements, specifically from the UK.
a bit of snooping tells me that vodafone are the only network from which it is possible to send SMS to a chinese registered mobile phone.
SMS in china is upscaling massively, and is incredibly cheap curently- even 'premium' SMS info services cost 1 yuan (that's just £0.081 GBP)
I'm curious why such a large section of the world market is cut off from the west's wireless comunication networks especially with the recent olympics putting the spotlight on the nation in general.
China mobile is the world's largest carrier ranked by subscriber base- 415 million and isn't even the only carrer to operate in china)
there are a few websites around from which SMS can be sent to china for a fee but this is of only limited use when on the move.
so can anyone tell me why this situation has come about and when we can expect this sort of service to be enabled?"