Thread: Taiwan
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  #18  
Old January 31st, 2013, 06:00 PM posted to rec.travel.asia
SMS
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Default Taiwan

On 1/29/2013 8:04 PM, Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:27:59 -0800, the renowned SMS
wrote:

On 1/29/2013 1:08 PM, Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Spehro Pefhany
says...
Is there any problem getting cards that work with the verfication
scheme used at, say, Starbucks? I think they only accept China Mobile
and maybe one other carrier.

A mobile phone is not dependent on the infrastructure of a coffee shop.
Maybe you are confusing something.


No, just not spelling out the details.

I think that he might be referring to the use of Wi-Fi.


Yes, that's it. You can't log on freely as you can in North America-
you have to authenticate using a cellphone, but it has to be one with
a SIM card from one or two domestic Chinese service providers. So you
can go in there with your Android tablet or iPad or notebook but if
you don't have a China Mobile or whatever cell phone account, you're
not using their WiFi (apparently it's a government requirement).


We didn't hang out in coffee shops at all in China, but there was free
Wi-Fi outside the Apple store in Shanghai, and in most of our hotels.
One hotel was wired-only. I had brought along a travel router, and my
netbook has a wired port, so I was okay there.

We had four phones and four SIM cards, but only one was a smart phone. I
was hoping that the Nexus 7 would come out in time for our trip, but it
was a month late. I would have liked a 7" Wi-Fi tablet with built in GPS
(the Wi-Fi only iPads don't have a GPS, but most mid to high-end Android
Wi-Fi only tablets do have one).

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