China's two major internet service providers have been embroiled in monopoly allegations for the past month or so, and it looks like their pain will eventually be our bandwidth's gain. On Friday, China Telecom and China Unicom asked the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to halt their investigation into alleged monopolistic behavior. In exchange, they pledged to improve internet speed and China Telecom went as far as saying it would lower broadband costs by up to 35%. more ›

Users of Shanghai Telecom's fiber optic internet were surprised last week when they found their internet speeds had been upgraded overnight from 2Mb and 4Mb, to 10Mb, 20Mb and even 30Mb! Though the upgrade is free, some entrepreneurial conmen (and women) cashed in on the opportunity by showing up on people's doorsteps asking for "upgrade fees" from unsuspecting residents! more ›

Pan Shiyi, a real-estate developer who called for cheaper iPads for the public, was ridiculed with requests for cheaper housing from netizens, including viral mockups made of a new currency in his namesake. Now, he's busted out his savvy PR chops, by issuing a personal version of his own currency. Well played sir, well played. more ›

If you often feel like that guy in the picture on the right, the problem is not yours alone -- Shanghai is home to the slowest internet in all of China. But here's some good news: China Telecom is introducing fiber-optic cables citywide to give a boost to your internet speeds, and they're rolling out incentives beginning next month to entice consumers:

As part of the initiative, users whose current household Internet speed is 2 megabits per second, for example, will see their broadband speed doubled to 4mbps without extra charge during the transitional period to complete the new network, a China Telecom manager said. more ›

Have an iPhone and not on 3G yet? Now's your perfect opportunity to dump China Mobile once and for all because China Unicom, so far the only mobile operator offering 3G packages, is slashing down prices to as low as RMB66 per month. China Unicom aims to convert more iPhone fans over to 3G fast because China Telecom is said to be in talks with Apple to introduce the iPhone. China Mobile also hopes to finally hop onto the iPhone bandwagon once its 4G system is up. more ›

We've been wondering why our infamously slow internet access has ground to a halt this week. One reason, as we've told you, is a possible GFW level up. Well here's another reason we missed out -- the Japan earthquake has damaged a large number of undersea fiber-optic cables that carry internet data and voice calls between Asia and North America. more ›

Reports the Straits Times, a total of 500 public telephone booths in downtown Shanghai have been equipped with WiFi hotspots - which might actually make people use them! The spots are currently in central, highly trafficked areas like Yuyuan, Yanzhong Park and People's Square, but will soon be expanded to cover the whole urban area. Unfortunately though, it's not free - you need to pay about 3 fen per minute and possibly already have a China Telecom account. more ›

Recently uploaded onto the twitterverse were two word documents (this one and this one) purporting to be a list of SMS words banned by China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. The three telecommunications companies had announced their plans to monitor text messages for "bad content" this time last year, but the implications of that went unnoticed for most of 2010. more ›

Starting this month, everyone in Shanghai should be able to go online for free at airports, cafes and shopping malls for two hours a day if they have a mobile phone account, says China Telecom. To get this deal, all you have to do is type your mobile phone number into China Telecom's WLAN welcome portal (which I assume pops up when you try to get on) - a temporary password will then come through to you in an SMS. I haven't tested this yet, but anyone outside on this lovely day willing to give it a go? more ›

Last time we checked in, there were over 5000 Shanghai Wi-Fi hotspots around town here. Now, apparently that number has risen to a whopping 10,000, though there's a catch. The Wireless City project, which began in 2008, has brought Wi-Fi access to most downtown areas of Shanghai... as long as you've either subscribed to or purchased cards from China Telecom and China Mobile. China Mobile charges five cents per minute and China Telecom charges around 50 cents per megabyte. Huh - guess I'll just stick to the coffee shops I'm used to... at least that's free. more ›

With the Expo soft opening happening next week and the Expo itself drawing ever closer, even my procrastinating butt decided it was time to try and wrangle tickets. Then I read this article from City Weekend telling me that "single-entry ordinary day tickets are... sold out." Well, after calling around frantically, turns out that's not quite true (read on for more). But the calling around frantically also produced some interesting results. So if any of you want to try buying tickets by phone - so here's a short guide for what to. more ›

• Your text messages will be rated automatically based on "key words" provided by the police.
• Someone can also rat you out for sending unhealthy messages.
• Also not allowed: "a large amount" of illegal information. We're guessing this is like spam or something.

Despite assurances that cable operators totally have everything under control, it seems like the earthquakes really did affect the internet. Again. Shanghai Daily confirms that the 6.8 quake that rocked both Taiwan and Japan yesterday morning shook up the undersea cables once more. A back up channel that flowed through Pusan, South Korea also became victim to the earthquake, which is what caused most of the trouble for us here in Shanghai. The internet seems to be relatively okay today, so we guess whatever magic China Telecom used to tide us over until the cables are repaired works. more ›

Tickets for the World Expo officially went on sale at 9am yesterday and already, peak-day tickets (tickets for the first three days and for the National Day holidays) had completely sold out. more ›

Remember how the internet got uncomfortably, ridiculously slow last night? The Great Firewall might be to blame for that too. While we just got a couple of annoying connection difficulties, several parts of Guangdong province were completely cut off for nearly four hours. China Telecom, southern China's main ISP, said it was due to glitches that have now been fixed, but would not comment on the scale of the disruption. But two IT analysts said the breakdown could have been the result of an upgrade to the GFW. In which case, we say FU GFW. Source: South China Morning Post more ›

Kaiser Kuo of Youku Buzz writes:

Here’s a short video of a download speed test of China Telecom’s trial 3G wireless network, which is on the CDMA 2000 1x EV-DO standard. (We usually hear about China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA network, foisted on them by regulators against their wishes, and the “European” standard WCDMA network that will be operated by China Netcom). more ›

Ladies and Gentlemen, China Telecom has finally officially launched its 3G commercial service in Shanghai! The new 3G network signal covers all urban areas within the Outer Ring Road, as well as towns in suburban areas. The CDMA2000-based (that's the network usually used in Europe the U.S.) 3G network technology promises to be 20 times faster than our current 2G data streams - though whether it will ever reach advertised speeds is up for debate. From today to the end of the month, users who have agreed to use 250 yuan in monthly service feeds could get trial 3G Internet access cards and high-speed wireless internet access for 100 hours a month. Source: People's Daily more ›

CNNIC has released two reports on the status of China's mobile internet, which is used by about 117.6 million out of the current 640 million registered cellphone holders. China Web 2.0 Review summarized some of the key findings: more ›

As it turns out, China's 3G licenses will be issued to China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom by Spring Festival. Guangdong Mobile (a China Mobile subsidiary) is already releasing a new set of 3G numbers all starting with "188" beginning this Thursday. In addition GPRS fees will be cut by as much as 2/3 in most cities. According to Pacific Epoch, Shanghai Mobile users can "now pay RMB 5 per month for 30MB, rather than the RMB 5, 10 MB package originally available, while RMB 20 per month gets 150MB, also three times more than before". more ›

A nameless source in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has leaked the news that the three restructured mobile telecommunications carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, will be issued licenses on the same day after a meeting with the State Council today. more ›

More and more folks in China are getting in on the mobile phone rage: December 2007 saw an increase of 6.6 million new mobile phone users. The newest January 2008 stats are even more impressive, with 7 new mobile people. China Mobile is now the choice of 376.4 million people in a nation of 1.3 billion and counting. more ›

The industry is trying to make 3G services available in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics so that half a billion cell phone subscribers and millions of visitors can stream and download small screen clips of Yao Ming slam dunking his way to gold medal glory. more ›

Shanghaiist isn't quite sure how this will affect us, but we are pretty sure that our American readers should go throw eggs at the corporate offices of Narus and Verso ... now. more ›

Gadget blog Engadget brings us the latest news on Skype in China: more ›

Via AsiaPundit we learn some breaking news: It has been confirmed where Xiangyang Market will move once it it officially shut down on June 30. Where? Online of course. Visit xymarket.cn for all your fake goods needs. Here's what Pacific Epoch wrote about the site: more ›

How does that Arcade Fire song go? "I woke up with the power out, not really something to shout about." Well, that is our theme song for the day. The power is out on a large chunk of Nanjing Xi Lu -- no street lights during the middle of the day on one of the city's busiest streets ... beautiful -- and we live on Nanjing Xi Lu. So our power is out. A sign in the window of Zara says power should be back on by 2 pm. Yes, businesses on one of the main shopping streets had to close for this. Doesn't seem like an accident, either. Looks more like a planned work day. Couldn't they have chosen a better time of day (or night) to do this work? Anyway, with no internet at home, we headed to Element Fresh for what we thought was free WiFi. But there they told us to get the "free" WiFi we had to buy some kind of Shanghai Center card. So now we are at Blue Frog on Tongren, where the internet is indeed free ... but a little bit dicey. Things may be quiet here for a little while. Sorry. more ›

In the latest news that may affect Shanghaiist's calls across the Pacific, Skype claims that it is in discussions with "Chinese operators" and is "optimistic" that SkypeOut will launch in China soon (we're not really sure what launching would entail, since we can already use SkypeOut here). Skype's chief also suggested that a supposed Skype-blocking-system released by a company in Atlanta is nothing but "vapourware." Ouch! The Financial Times has the story: more ›

China's internet thugs are are it again, this time attempting to block popular internet telephony services, namely Shanghaiist favorite Skype: more ›