[Shanghai] 17908, 17990 IP cards - 0.25 on the RMB

Discussion Greater Forumosa
1

A friend of mine here in Shanghai has passed along to me the contact information of a phone vendor who will deliver IP Cards (and other telecom accessories) in Xin Hongquiao and Changning Districts. My friend has patronized this store for years and only just found out that they can offer free delivery.

This IP long distance service is only available from inside Shanghai. Cost of the IP Cards is RMB 25 for RMB 100 face value.

17908 seems to offer the best quality, and is issued by China Telecom
17990 is issued by Tie Tong (铁通 - Railway Telecom?)

You can contact Ms Zhuang at 13681709933 lumitx17@sohu.com to work out your delivery. Her shop is at 天山西路237号 (#237 Tian Shan West Road) near “Bei Xin Jing” (北新泾) Metro line 2

I’ve been using 17908 to call back to Taiwan. I heard a strange thing tho - supposedly, if you program your overseas numbers into your phone address book, and call from the address book, you will be charge the regular rate (or at least, not the IP rate). This doesn’t make sense to me, but if anyone has heard something similar, please post about it here

2

What do these do? How are they better than Skype?

3

They are like the E-Call Cards in Taipei - essentially, you are using the telephone company’s Skype account (same underlying technology), although I’ve never compared the pricing

The difference is that with Skype Out or Skype phones, you use your own Internet connection. With these, you use your telephones, and in my case, my mobile phone. Also, I’ve had much less success with Skype in terms of quality (in Taipei and in China) - but maybe its just my bad luck