China Mobile has introduced a mobile service solution especially for the Olympics, which allows foreign tourists to make domestic and international calls within the domestic network.
The "International roaming card for the Olympics", which can be bought at Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport with 68 yuan (about 9.86 U.S. dollars), includes a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card containing a pre-injected 50 yuan communication fee, a domestic map and user's guide written in both Chinese and English.
The solution would allow users to make domestic calls at 0.6 yuan per minute, and receive calls at 0.4 yuan per minute. Dialing Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan will cost 1.5 yuan per minute, and calling the Republic of Korea, Japan, the United States and Canada 3.6 yuan per minute, with other countries at 5 yuan per minute.
Sending short text messages to China Unicom and China Mobile users would cost 0.2 and 0.15 yuan per message respectively. Messaging Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas users would cost 1 yuan per message.
3G mobile phone users should note that the Chinese domestic mobile service supports GSM and TD-SCDMA network only, and the latter might be different to the 3G standards in other countries. It is advised that these users check with their domestic network carrier whether their mobile phones can support international roaming and the 3G network in China.
Foreign tourists can also purchase ordinary China Mobile and China Unicom cards in business halls and street shops.
(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2008)