Guangzhou - Post Report Question and Answers
Is high-speed home Internet access available? How long does it typically take to install it after arrival?
Internet is very hit-and-miss in China. Most of the housing comes with free internet (5-8Mbps) that is routed through Hong Kong to avoid the Great Firewall of China (GFW). We can get fast local internet (100mbps) added for about $20/month if needed, but you would need a very reliable VPN to get any use out of it. - Apr 2023
Already installed upon arrival. Some have VPNS already, but you should download VPNs before arrival on your own device for Netflix, etc. - Aug 2021
Internet speed is so so. Get a high quality VPN before entering the country. - May 2019
Internet? Hahahahaha. One of the biggest downfalls of the post, in my opinion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. - Nov 2018
No. Nothing here is high-speed, even at the Consulate. You often can't stream Netflix at certain times of the day. At our complex, the internet is so slow that it's basically unusable at night when a lot of people are home. It's decent enough to check email, but you couldn't do anything substantive on it. It's provided for "free" at your residence. You'll need a VPN to get to anything you'd actually want to read. The VPNs often go down for mysterious reasons. Some housing complexes started providing a free VPN. - Nov 2015
"High speed" is very, very relative in China. The internet is, of course, heavily censored, so accessing a variety of major websites (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, the New York Times and others) requires a VPN, which you'll need to set up before arriving. Accessing Chinese sites is usually quick, but foreign websites take a while to load. I would save all of my system updates and do them while traveling to Hong Kong or elsewhere. All apartments have internet access, so far as I know, but it tends to mysteriously cut out during times of political significance (Party congress, for instance). The internet situation in China was one of the single most frustrating and morale-killing aspects of my time there. - Aug 2014
Generally, yes. Not sure about the cost. - May 2013
I'm not sure if I would describe it as 'high-speed,' but it is available for about $30USD/month. Depending on how much the government is cracking down on access to the foreign internet, downloading and streaming can range from simple, to 90s AOL-style snail's pace, to nonexistent. - Apr 2013
High speed internet is available around $50/month. The speed is okay, but given the censorship you need a VPN, and when using it the connection drops a lot. Not great for streaming. - Jan 2013
Yes. High-speed is a relative term. It is usually fast enough for hulu/netflix through a VPN. It is very cheap. - Oct 2011
Our apartment put up a flyer advertising that fiber optic internet was available for the super-low rate of about 300 USD/month. Seriously. We've stuck with our DSL service for about $40-50/month (can't remember).It's shared bandwidth, so sometimes it's blazing fast, sometimes it crawls horribly slowly. The ISP also has a nasty habit of throttling your bandwidth if you catch a high-speed time and try to take advantage with a bunch of downloads. Oh and of course everything is censored, monitored, and controlled (adds to the slowness), so you'll need a VPN. - May 2011
High speed internet is hard to find. You can buy what the Chinese call "high speed internet," but if you expect it to be the same as cable internet in the US, you will be disappointed. The internet is frequently interrupted, and download and upload speeds are very slow. Internet costs about 50 USD a month. - Jul 2009
Available and very reliable, although a little slow. I pay about US$35 a month. - Jan 2009
