Thomas,

The cell coverage is quite excellent in China especially when compared to the US. In fact, the rural areas of China are paid attention to in particular since the legitimacy of the telco duopoly rests on supplying universal coverage.

A number of years ago, I was traveling from Guilin down to a small town in southern China by river. It would be several hours on a boat, creeping down the stream surrounded by the steep karst mountain valleys you see in postcards. The problem: I needed to make a crucial phone conference call at a particular time, while in transit on the five hour boat ride. I figured it'd be impossible to get a cell signal.

I asked the hotel concierge before I left, "Is there a small town I could stop in and make a landline call?" 

He looked at me quite confused, and said there should be cell phone coverage the entire way.

He was right -- during the 5 hour ride, I never saw less than 80% signal reception and the phone call was crystal clear. All throughout China in rural and isolated areas, it's common and expected to get wireless signal. 

Don't even get me started on how bad the US is in this regard. :)




On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jan 19, 2013 3:48 PM, "Alan C Y Lai (Wikimedia)" <alancylai@wikimedia.hk> wrote:
> 3G coverage in China is fairly decent I think - if you can have pictures from things like gridlocks on motorways to riots in towns on Weibo or other online forums fairly quickly then you can see that the mobile coverage is extensive.

I know coverage in urban areas is pretty good, but have they really got good coverage in rural areas? That would require far more investment in mobile infrastructure that we've had in the UK!


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