Beijing Travel Forum

My husband and I will be visiting Beijing for the Olympics. We are considering brining our laptop for Vonage Softphone use, to keep in touch with folks back home. I know our hotel has internet but I'm wondering if the Chinese government has any restrictions on Voice over IP. Knowing that I am a spoiled American I like to be sure to never break any laws while traveling.

We were in China last October. We used Skype via our own laptop (internet) to call home (Canada) and USA throughout the entire 31 days trip from over 10 diff cities without any problem.

When you check in the hotel, let them know you need the internet and they will connect the internet for you at about 30 - 60 Chinese Dollor per day. Bring you own internet cable as there was no wireless internet in the hotels we satyed. Yes, we got free internet at few hotels.

Hope this help.

Yes. This is very good information. I know the hotel has internet but it didn't occur to me that I would have to pay extra. I'll check into that. 4 to 6 dollars a day doesn't sound too bad. We are so excited about this trip.

Yes you can skype in China no problem.

Some 5-star hotels charge US$20/day for internet, which negates the cost savings if you're only using internet to make phone calls. One can buy cheap IP phone cards in any city to make calls to the US for only a few cents a minute.

This is the good thing about forums like this. I thought my problem was VOIP restriction. But my real problem will be the cost of internet access. I'm used to internet being free at hotels. When the Hotel said Internet access in every room it didn't occur to me there would be extra costs. Glad you guys clued me in before we leave.

We are staying at Tiantan. I'll ask our group leader to find out the internet cost for me.

it is said you can use wireless in the city of Beijing for free from this month

Yes that's true James, though I've heard that some people are having problems connecting to the network. I'd approach the free wi-fi as hoping to be pleasantly suprised rather than counting on it to work.

skype is allowed

You may consider the option of renting a mobile in Beijing to stay connected with folks back home as you can bring with you the moble all the time. Last time a friend of mine from the United States come to Beijing, he rented a phone, which is a surprise package of reasonable rental fee, low internaitonal IP call rate plus live English assistance. If I remember correct, the mobile rental service is called Yoyoor. Maybe you can google it to find out more.

Cheaper 2 or 3-star hotels catering mainly to Chinese (business) travellers usually have free in-room Internet. The big 4 or 5-star hotels (especially international ones) seem to invariably charge for it, sometimes at rather exorbitant rates.