One thing I can’t stand is disobedient technology. And once again, China Unicom’s CDMA [ahem] “service” is missing in inaction, meaning I have to use this expensive but a million times more reliable and almost as fast dial-up. I tried to get online yesterday evening, but the signal was fading in and out, and when I had a signal long enough for it to actually dial, all of a sudden there was no dial tone. Same bullshit this morning.
Just so you know: You can set up a new dial-up connection with 95963 as username, password, and the number to dial. It’s not cheap, but it’s pretty good for a backup. Fortunately China Unicom is reliable enough that I only use 95963 two or three times a month. If I were using this fulltime I’d be looking at phonebills in the region of 300/month, which is pretty steep considering my China Unicom deal was 640 yuan for a SIM card and seven months “unlimited” (limited only by China Unicom’s crap signal and worse service, in other words) internet access.
We’ll soon be looking for better, more reliable, equally wireless deals. Why? Wireless is good. So long as I have a cellphone signal I can get online, which means the laptop is as portable as it is supposed to be. In other words, I can get online at the in-laws’ place without running up a huge phone bill for them, and I would have internet access pretty much anywhere in China if we were travelling- meaning if we had enough money to contemplate travelling anywhere other than Yanqing or the nearest shopping centre to beg.
