China Practically Unreachable By Western SMS?

Ainsy writes "A friend of mine recently began a placement as an English pronunciation teacher in China. She has picked up a pay-as-you go sim for use over there, only to discover that China seems to have been almost completely overlooked by international communications agreements, specifically from the UK. A bit of snooping tells me that Vodafone is the only network from which it is possible to send SMS to a Chinese registered mobile phone. SMS in China is upscaling massively, and is incredibly cheap currently — even 'premium' SMS info services cost 1 Yuan (that's just £0.081 GBP). I'm curious why such a large section of the world market is cut off from the west's wireless communication networks especially with the recent Olympics putting the spotlight on the nation in general. China mobile is the world's largest carrier ranked by subscriber base (415 million) and isn't even the only carrier to operate in China). There are a few websites around from which SMS can be sent to China for a fee but this is of only limited use when on the move. Can anyone tell me why this situation has come about and when we can expect this sort of service to be enabled?"

Censorship

[gsslay]

Wow. Don't follow international politics much, do you?

The whole kit and kaboodle . .

[arizwebfoot]

is handled by the same people who verified the Chinese Gymnasts ages.

You know the ones who they say were 16, but really 14 and looked really 12?

Chinese Government's Reply

[PPH]

Open communications and expresion is in China's future and always will be.

SMS is doing what?

[Paul Carver]

I may be at a disadvantage as a native English speaker, but what the heck does "upscaling massively" mean?

Is this some bizarrely twisted Babelfish translation of "becoming very popular"?

Those gymnasts were 016

[davidwr]

The Chinese use octal. They just love the number 8.

plain n simple

[Anonymous Coward]

> Can anyone tell me why this situation has come about

cuz d gr8 fw of CN cn't detect d h8rz

Re:US T-mobile works

[monktus]

You'll notice that the user above posted anonymously. If he'd logged in then thousands of Slashdotters would be on his case trying to find out which website he ordered his hot Asian wife from.

Re:Shenanigans!

[pipatron]

Yeah, you do realize you're talking to a real, actual Chinese person in English?

Stop it with your lies! The parent says that you can not communicate in English! Clearly you are! You must cease.