Phone
On the Chinese mainland, there are three communication providers: China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, they provide both mobile communication and landline phone system.
China Mobile and China Unicom are elder mobile communication suppliers.
China Telecom used to be a provider of landline phone system, and only joined in the market of mobile communication in the past few years.
China Mobile Hotline:10086
China Unicom Hotline:10010
China Telecom Hotline: 10000
Internet
There are three major Internet providers in Shenzhen: China Telecom, Topway and Great Wall Broadband.
China Telecom is an ADSL provider, Topway is a cable provider while Great Wall Broadband is a broadband provider.
The connection speed of them is not so much different. China Telecom’s ADSL offering originally focused solely on commercial solution, so it is pretty stable but charged more expensive than other two Internet providers. As to Topway and Great Wall Broadband, depending on the area you live in, one may be faster than the other. Great Wall Broadband has not covered some elder housing estates.
China Telecom
How to apply?
You can just place the order on their website (Chinese version only):
http://gd.189.cn/index_sz.html
Or call their hotline: 10000
Or go to one of their business halls.
You should prepare a photocopy of your passport and a photocopy of your bank book (should be one of the Chinese banks) for application. If you apply via phone or web, the technical man will collect them when he comes to install the line.
Topway
How to apply?
Call the hotline: 96933
You should prepare a photocopy of your passport and a photocopy of your bank book (should be one of the Chinese banks) for application.
Great Wall Broadband
How to apply?
Call the hotline: 3300 0999
The photocopy of your passport is needed.
Mobile Internet
If you want mobile Internet, you can buy a 3G card from China Unicom or China Telecom. China Unicom's 3G card can be applied for both laptop and Ipad, China Telecom’s only can be applied for laptop. If you don’t need to use it for Ipad, choose China Telecom as its signal is better.
Cable TV
Since about 2006, Shenzhen has digital television throughout the city. This means you need a special box with your TV to receive and convert the digital signal into other signal that your TV can understand. The TV network is built by Shenzhen Media Group who owns Shenzhen TV stations, broadcasting stations, movie factory etc.
Shenzhen Media Group also owns Topway, the company that you as end user will buy the TV subscription from.
Topway offers both TV and Internet services via the cable, and you can apply for it via its website: www.topway.com.cn , or call the hotline 96933, or go to one of the service centers in the city.
There are 4 channels from Hong Kong: two English and two Cantonese channels. All the others are Chinese mainland program : all CCTV channels, all local Shenzhen channels, and provincial channels. Besides TV, you also have radio, news, weather forecast and living information on the digital channels that are accessible by pressing a special button on you remote control.
Topway also offer HDTV. The box costs 1000 yuan, but you can also rent it for 15 yuan per month. Once you bought the special HD box you get 10 free HD channels besides the regular channels. All these HD channels are Chinese.
If you want more channels, especially some English channels, you need to buy these separately from the basic subscription. Often it’s cheaper not to buy one particular channel, but to buy a package which includes several channels at a reduced price.