China coverage

Name: China coverage
Creator: Orbislo
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quality tier B. Two networks, reliable 4G, 5G in places. Fine for everything except heavy tethering.

Mbps median

Mbps, slowest tenth

1,130

travellers measured

networks available

Which network you get

Carrier	Role	5G
China Unicom	Primary, used by default	yes, non standalone
China Mobile	Failover, used when the primary degrades	yes, non standalone

You do not choose between them. If the network you are on gets congested we move you to the other one automatically, in the middle of your trip, and tell you afterwards.

A single carrier provider cannot make this move.

How we measure

Orbislo devices report connection quality on real traffic, never synthetic speed tests, because a speed test spends your data to tell us something we can measure for free. Reports carry the carrier, the radio type, the throughput and a coarse location of roughly one kilometre. No precise location is ever collected, nothing is published below a sample of 25, and you can switch the whole thing off in one tap.

Measured from real sessions, never from a speed test we ran ourselves.

How to read the China numbers

Two numbers matter and only one of them is the one every seller quotes. The median, 41 Mbps, is the middle of 1130 real sessions: half were faster, half were slower. It tells you what a good moment looks like.

The tenth percentile, 10 Mbps, is the one worth reading. It is the speed in the worst tenth of the day, when the cell above the station is full and everybody around you is on it too. A country with a high median and a low floor is a country that works beautifully right up until the moment you actually need it.

None of this is a speed test. These are real sessions on real handsets belonging to travellers who left measurement switched on, aggregated over ninety days, and a country is not published at all until it has 25 of them.

What happens in China when the network is busy

Congestion is not a fault, it is a Tuesday evening. The question is what your eSIM can do about it, and for most travel eSIMs the answer is nothing: one wholesale agreement per country, one network, and no way out except buying a second eSIM from somebody else while standing in the street.

Here, Orbislo traffic runs over China Unicom and China Mobile. When the network you are on degrades we move you to another one, mid trip, without you asking, and tell you afterwards rather than interrupting you at the time.

Questions about China

Which network will I be on in China?

China Unicom or China Mobile. Orbislo moves you to whichever is performing better where you are standing, without asking you and without you noticing.

How fast is the data really?

Median 41 Mbps and tenth percentile 10 Mbps, from 1130 real customer sessions. The tenth percentile is the number worth reading: it is what you get when the cell is busy.

Can I tether a laptop?

Yes, on every plan, at the same allowance as your phone data and at no extra cost. At 41 Mbps a tethered laptop in China is comfortable for a full working day.

How current are these China speeds?

They are a rolling ninety day window, recalculated daily from the sessions coming in. A carrier that upgrades its network shows up here within weeks rather than at the next annual review, and a country whose sample drops below 25 stops being published rather than showing you a stale number.

What if I get no signal at all in China?

Open the app and use your free rescue data: 100 MB a month, on every account, in over 200 countries, and it works at a zero balance. It exists for exactly this moment, because needing data in order to buy data is not a situation anybody should be put in. If that cannot find a network either, message us from the app and we will sort it.

Will my phone work in China?

If it supports eSIM and is not carrier locked, yes. We check your exact model before you pay and tell you plainly if it will not work, rather than taking the money and leaving you to find out on arrival.

Coverage nearby

China plans from $11.89 Asia regional plan Compare every country

How China compares across Asia

Speed rank: 15 of 26 destinations we sell in Asia
Regional median: 44 Mbps
Consistency: The slowest tenth still reaches 24 percent of the median
Upstream networks: 2, China Unicom, China Mobile
5G: Yes, non standalone
Next fastest nearby: Cambodia, 42 Mbps
Next slowest nearby: Indonesia, 38 Mbps
Cities with their own page: 4: Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xian
tenth percentile: 10 Mbps
Behind these figures: 1130 travellers, rolling 90 days

Nearby destinations in Asia

Thailand: Thailand, 52 Mbps median, 2 networks
Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan, 51 Mbps median, 2 networks
Maldives: Maldives, 47 Mbps median, 2 networks
India: India, 46 Mbps median, 2 networks
Cambodia: Cambodia, 42 Mbps median, 2 networks
Indonesia: Indonesia, 38 Mbps median, 2 networks
Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan, 37 Mbps median, 2 networks
Mongolia: Mongolia, 35 Mbps median, 2 networks
Philippines: Philippines, 34 Mbps median, 2 networks
Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyzstan, 33 Mbps median, 2 networks

Cities with their own page

Beijing: Beijing Capital International Airport, nearest airport PEK, 25 km from Beijing
Chengdu: Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, nearest airport CTU, 17 km from Chengdu
Shanghai: Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, nearest airport SHA, 12 km from Shanghai
Xian: Xi'an Xianyang International Airport, nearest airport XIY, 26 km from Xian