Mobile phone plans
Friday, 6 March 2020 20:04![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elusivekA little bit of China ridiculousness to share here.
First off, I want to reiterate somethine I always say: Macau is not China. Macau can be a SAR (Special Administrative Region), Macau is a part of China, but Macau is not China.
If you send something from China by post to Macau, you pay international postage.
Thus, Macau is not China.
Also, someone holding a bank account in "Bank of China" in Macau, does not mean that they hold a bank account in "Bank of China" in China.
Taobao, Wechat, and Alipay is a pain to set up when you are in Macau. Yes, international platform is available, but if you are in Macau, they do not give you the option to input "passport details" as identification information. You are forced to put "China ID" if you choose your location as Macau. However, I live in Macau, but I do not have a "China ID", because I'm not Chinese. It's just stupid.
So today I was being a good girl and went to renew my mobile phone plan (my current contract would end on 26-March). I learnt about a family sharing plan, so I put my Dad's phone under my number. My Dad has been using a prepaid card all these years, and he keeps asking me to help him top up. I figured, I don't use much data on my personal phone (because my work phone has unlimited data), so if I renew my contract to a sharing plan then we are only paying for 1 plan.
Turns out that now they are doing this "Greater Bay Area" promotion thing. What is the Greater Bay Area? That's Hong Kong, Macau, and the area in China directly around us (so, Hengqing, Zhuhai, Shenzhen I think?).
My old plan costed me almost $400 (local money) per month with 7GB of data. I subscribed to a promotion where I paid an extra $12 to get 2GB extra, so let's say $400 for 9GB of local data (Macau only data). If I got to Hong Kong or China, I have to pay roaming or buy a roaming package, or buy a local card to use.
This new plan they gave me has a base plan of $260 for 12GB of data, can be used in Macau, Hong Kong and China. Even the talk time is included. Then, I add a $10 one-off charge to port in my Dad's number. So essentially, it's $260 for 12GB to be shared by 2 phones. Since I hardly ever use my personal phone, you can say my Dad will get all that 12GB for himself. Now I'm trying to convince my Mom to join in the plan, as they have a $500 for unlimited data and we can share that within the 3 of use, and in a way, I can just pay for their phone plans as well.
I'm trying to find things to pay for my parents (a lunch here and there, groceries, and I don't ask my Mom for money back when she asks me to help her buy something online), because my Mom isn't charging me rent. I've offered to pay rent, but she just keeps saying I should save up money. And then she turns around and complains that I don't pay rent. (Same for my Sister). Anyway.
So I'll trial run a few months to see if 12GB is enough (it SHOULD be, but I kind of think my Dad doesn't understand the importance to keeping to the WiFi signal while at home), if it isn't, I can just upgrade my plan to the unlimited one. And if we do go unlimited, I'm going to port in Mom's phone, and what the heck, my Sis' phone as well. We'll see. Coz I can't just look at the data plan only. I need to figure out if the voice airtime is enough as well.
First off, I want to reiterate somethine I always say: Macau is not China. Macau can be a SAR (Special Administrative Region), Macau is a part of China, but Macau is not China.
If you send something from China by post to Macau, you pay international postage.
Thus, Macau is not China.
Also, someone holding a bank account in "Bank of China" in Macau, does not mean that they hold a bank account in "Bank of China" in China.
Taobao, Wechat, and Alipay is a pain to set up when you are in Macau. Yes, international platform is available, but if you are in Macau, they do not give you the option to input "passport details" as identification information. You are forced to put "China ID" if you choose your location as Macau. However, I live in Macau, but I do not have a "China ID", because I'm not Chinese. It's just stupid.
So today I was being a good girl and went to renew my mobile phone plan (my current contract would end on 26-March). I learnt about a family sharing plan, so I put my Dad's phone under my number. My Dad has been using a prepaid card all these years, and he keeps asking me to help him top up. I figured, I don't use much data on my personal phone (because my work phone has unlimited data), so if I renew my contract to a sharing plan then we are only paying for 1 plan.
Turns out that now they are doing this "Greater Bay Area" promotion thing. What is the Greater Bay Area? That's Hong Kong, Macau, and the area in China directly around us (so, Hengqing, Zhuhai, Shenzhen I think?).
My old plan costed me almost $400 (local money) per month with 7GB of data. I subscribed to a promotion where I paid an extra $12 to get 2GB extra, so let's say $400 for 9GB of local data (Macau only data). If I got to Hong Kong or China, I have to pay roaming or buy a roaming package, or buy a local card to use.
This new plan they gave me has a base plan of $260 for 12GB of data, can be used in Macau, Hong Kong and China. Even the talk time is included. Then, I add a $10 one-off charge to port in my Dad's number. So essentially, it's $260 for 12GB to be shared by 2 phones. Since I hardly ever use my personal phone, you can say my Dad will get all that 12GB for himself. Now I'm trying to convince my Mom to join in the plan, as they have a $500 for unlimited data and we can share that within the 3 of use, and in a way, I can just pay for their phone plans as well.
I'm trying to find things to pay for my parents (a lunch here and there, groceries, and I don't ask my Mom for money back when she asks me to help her buy something online), because my Mom isn't charging me rent. I've offered to pay rent, but she just keeps saying I should save up money. And then she turns around and complains that I don't pay rent. (Same for my Sister). Anyway.
So I'll trial run a few months to see if 12GB is enough (it SHOULD be, but I kind of think my Dad doesn't understand the importance to keeping to the WiFi signal while at home), if it isn't, I can just upgrade my plan to the unlimited one. And if we do go unlimited, I'm going to port in Mom's phone, and what the heck, my Sis' phone as well. We'll see. Coz I can't just look at the data plan only. I need to figure out if the voice airtime is enough as well.
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no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 15:11 (UTC)It's funny how China talks about Macau, HK and (in a different way) Taiwan. Of course according to government official communications it's all China, everything China, it's all one China. But in reality, you get a stamp in your passport if you cross, you need to use a different currency, you cannot use Alipay across the border (i have mainland account and cannot use it in HK) etc. It really might as well be a different country.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-07 04:33 (UTC)2 years ago i think, when I was going for a short trip to Chaozhou 潮州 with friends, I went to either China Unicom or China Mobile (forgot which) to get a sim card, they guaranteed it was the RMB1 per day data one. Since we need to register with the real name for data service in China, they did what they had to do. Then, on the train, the SIM suddenly stopped working. At Chaozhou, I found the mobile company and asked them whats up.
Due to needing the ID registration, they shouldn't have sold me that package as that's for people with China ID (and I suppose someone with an employment license/permit I guess). So I tried to get it fixed, but they said since I bought it from Zhuhai, I can only do any changes or rectifications in Zhuhai, can't do anything about it in Chaozhou, except buy a new card.
I would think that they were playing me, but it was my friend (Chinese from China) who talked to the lady, so I guess they wouldn't try to dupe her.
Yup, it's things like that. There was an online store from Japan that suddenly stopped selling to China/HongKong/Macau clients, and stated that if anyone from there wanted their products, to go buy from their T-Mall store (essentially Taobao). I tried that and again, since my alipay is only bound to a credit card (that's outside of China), so my alipay account couldn't buy from there.
I sent an email explaining to them "it's China, but it's not China" and finally they've changed their policy and are selling to Hong Kong and Macau again.
Even for regular post, the Macau post office advises us to "Rather put MACAU (VIA HONG KONG) than MACAU (CHINA) because Macau post has a thing with Hong Kong where they can forward stuff back to Macau, whereas if you put MACAU (CHINA)..... it's probably gonna get lost in China LOL