Or, to put it another way, can you use Skype in China? Haven’t been for a few years, and last time I was there I had problems using Skype to call home. Since my last trip, there are now two little people at home I would really love to be able to see, so would be great to know if anyone has any recent experience.

Thanks.

We have very lengthy very reliable Skype calls to our Chinese distributor, works very well.

Once again, the STW HiveMind delivers. Is there anything this place can’t answer? 🙂

Thanks!

From past experience I have found some hotels block the IP port used by Skype but by and large you should be fine.

????. 🙁

We have lots of Skype calls to Chinese suppliers at work so I’d guess you’ll be fine. If not just ask on here about VPN links to the UK and run Skype through that.

Skype in hotel was rubbish but Lync (Skype) from work office was OK (Shanghai).

Is there anything this place can’t answer?

‘Wheel size, which is best?’

I live just outside Shanghai.

Skype is fine – can sometimes be a little bit of an issue if you’re dialling a land line. Just be aware that hotel internet can sometimes be terrible and nothing will work!

Face time on apple products works pretty much every time.

Also remember that anything Google, Youtube, Facebook or most other social media won’t work here either (unless you’re going to Hong Kong then you’ll be fine!) Oh and if you’re here with work and using office 365 that can be really slow…

Sat in a factory in N.China right now.

Skype is a bit iffy at the hotels – found Whatsapp phone calls much better, but I don’t think it does video calls.

Using Office 365 okay, but be aware that many cloud storage systems don’t work – Dropbox, Onedrive and Googledrive all blocked here.

As above, Skype and Factetime are generally not a problem in China unless your hotel Internet connection is particularly suspect.

General Internet access from hotels is really variable. It’s best to assume that you won’t have decent access to the ‘normal’ Internet, but you may sometimes get a (positive) surprise. The Great-Firewall-Of-China currently seems to be big into degrading service as well as blocking. So you would be blocked from accessing Google directly (Bing works OK), but may also be ‘punished’ by having your Internet connection slowed down to a snail’s pace for a short period. This really becomes a problem when you realise how many sites you normally visit contain at least some Google/Facebook/Twitter content which then result in you being penalised and pages taking a..g..e..s.. to load.

Sometimes VPNs are actively blocked – either you can’t establish them, or they’re torn down within seconds of opening up.

However, from time to time you stay in a hotel that isn’t, apparently, subject to any restrictions. I know of two big-brand hotels in random parts of China which seem to have Internet connections terminated in some way to avoid blocking – Google etc are all accessible and by default you get search results returned from Google.com.hk. I also know of one Chinese owned/run hotel which appears to have no filtering at all – although I have no idea why. Of course, the paranoid may assume that if there’s no filtering it’s because they want to see what you’re doing 😉

????????make sure you don’t download it IN China. Most software companies have a version of their product available in China which is government compliant or not secure which is why Google got the boot, they wouldn’t compromise.