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CMLink

AbsolutelyRidiculous

ULTIMATE Member
Is anyone with them?

Just ordered a £1 trial.

Not sure I would use them as a main driver, despite the fact it is a very reasonable £18 a year (for low usage)
 
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CMLink Global eSIM.
They were the providers of the US eSIM I was using, routing via china made for a 600ms ping which was

Not amazing
 
They were the providers of the US eSIM I was using, routing via china made for a 600ms ping which was

Not amazing
Did you try setting an alternative APN? It doesn’t work in every country but occasionally there will be a secondary APN available in the country list that seems to have an impact on routing. I’ve seen it go via places other than Hong Kong before.

Further away you get from Asia the higher the latency if it is going to force it through CM’s own servers unfortunately. The high ping isn’t fantastic but for use on a phone I can’t say I ever found it caused a problem in real world use or made the connection feel particularly unresponsive. Definitely wouldn’t like to have that on my home broadband however!

For the price and variety of countries I’m still personally very happy with it as an alternative to my UK SIM if I’m somewhere that their roaming doesn’t include.
 
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Yes, still with them now and have switched lots of friends and family members over too since. Only have good things to say about both CMLink UK and CMLink Global eSIM.
I was thinking of moving to them. Currently with 1p mobile zero issues but I do like the roaming element outside of the standard EU areas (Turkey being one) for cmlink.
I did notice their roaming element was restricted to data only not text or calls so just a simple top up does and fine.
My only concern was the sanctions Cmlink had by Canada shut down for security concerns and the USA recently making them a sanctioned firm banning them from operating there as well calling them a national risk to security.
I just wanted your views as I was still considering then went on trusted pilot and seen a recent uk review saying they had "call being transferred" announcements that sounded like it was being routed.
I'm no spy though and just do my usual banking and surfing on phone via apps etc (or is that what a spy would say lol)
To me the only difference when reading the other post with that spreadsheet on is the roaming is better in Europe with 1p (larger gb which don't need and calls and texts) outside of Europe within the cmlink 18 designated countries.. its better. Anything else that drove you to them and did spam calls stop once transferred over to them
 
Last edited:
Quoted comment
No spam calls as soon as I transferred my own number to them. And they have mostly fixed this now anyways by assigning a random number to their SIMs upon activation rather than having a fixed number range.

North America got carried away with the banning of Chinese companies which started with the whole Huawei thing. I'm not personally concerned about dealing with these companies but everyone has their own opinions and approaches to safety. I appreciate the name China Mobile will put a lot of people off.

Just had a quick look over on TrustPilot. It appears the transferred message is when they tried to call their own number during an issue with their number being ported. If their phone number is in a black hole during a split port fault then it could be getting routed literally anywhere but it will only be routing within the UK. While you're connected within the UK a CMLink SIM is processed domestically using EE's own systems, servers and APN. Only fairly basic details are handled over in Hong Kong for the purpose of customer service as far as I am aware.

As for what pushed me towards them - CMLink's customer service seems to be more responsive and proactive than 1P Mobile. The 24/7 support with Asian values is something I appreciate. Similarly the online account website feels a lot more like it belongs in 2024 unlike 1P's who's is painfully ugly and dated. And at the time, the packages that CMLink had available were better value than 1P for what me and others in my circle were looking for.

If you're happy with 1P Mobile and have concerns over the security of China Mobile stick with what you know. But if you fancy a change then I don't really have anything bad to say about them.
 
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No spam calls as soon as I transferred my own number to them. And they have mostly fixed this now anyways by assigning a random number to their SIMs upon activation rather than having a fixed number range.

North America got carried away with the banning of Chinese companies which started with the whole Huawei thing. I'm not personally concerned about dealing with these companies but everyone has their own opinions and approaches to safety. I appreciate the name China Mobile will put a lot of people off.

Just had a quick look over on TrustPilot. It appears the transferred message is when they tried to call their own number during an issue with their number being ported. If their phone number is in a black hole during a split port fault then it could be getting routed literally anywhere but it will only be routing within the UK. While you're connected within the UK a CMLink SIM is processed domestically using EE's own systems, servers and APN. Only fairly basic details are handled over in Hong Kong for the purpose of customer service as far as I am aware.

As for what pushed me towards them - CMLink's customer service seems to be more responsive and proactive than 1P Mobile. The 24/7 support with Asian values is something I appreciate. Similarly the online account website feels a lot more like it belongs in 2024 unlike 1P's who's is painfully ugly and dated. And at the time, the packages that CMLink had available were better value than 1P for what me and others in my circle were looking for.

If you're happy with 1P Mobile and have concerns over the security of China Mobile stick with what you know. But if you fancy a change then I don't really have anything bad to say about them.
Brilliant! I think I just needed a bit of comfort.
Have you used it roaming yet. I am assuming its a case of stick £5-£10 in it. To use the tiny 6p a text etc (my mum lives in dark ages with a Nokia phone and won't go beyond it) but 4GB seems reasonable on the £11pm for 60GB to do maps in Copenhagen and out and about for a few days and when venture out of hotel (full wifi) when in Turkey. What I hate is arriving in country with no Internet or sitting at airport with limited WiFi bored and the wife then goes shopping.... if I can tether her up to me it might keep her in the one spot
 
Brilliant! I think I just needed a bit of comfort.
Have you used it roaming yet. I am assuming its a case of stick £5-£10 in it. To use the tiny 6p a text etc (my mum lives in dark ages with a Nokia phone and won't go beyond it) but 4GB seems reasonable on the £11pm for 60GB to do maps in Copenhagen and out and about for a few days and when venture out of hotel (full wifi) when in Turkey. What I hate is arriving in country with no Internet or sitting at airport with limited WiFi bored and the wife then goes shopping.... if I can tether her up to me it might keep her in the one spot
I haven't so far, but my partner has been roaming with both the CMLink UK SIM and the CMLink Global Data (e)SIM and had no issues with either. They had an earleir plan that included minutes and texts on the CMLink UK SIM so didn't need to top up but everything just worked.

One thing I will say about the global SIM though. It is cheap and works well, but with that one, everything really does get routed through China Mobile servers back in Hong Kong - But it was a hell of a lot cheaper for roaming in Egypt for example when compared to CMLink UK Roaming rates.
 
Dose the voicemail on CMLink UK mention the name or is like 1p mobile just a generic welcome message.
 
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Brilliant! I think I just needed a bit of comfort.
Have you used it roaming yet. I am assuming its a case of stick £5-£10 in it. To use the tiny 6p a text etc (my mum lives in dark ages with a Nokia phone and won't go beyond it) but 4GB seems reasonable on the £11pm for 60GB to do maps in Copenhagen and out and about for a few days and when venture out of hotel (full wifi) when in Turkey. What I hate is arriving in country with no Internet or sitting at airport with limited WiFi bored and the wife then goes shopping.... if I can tether her up to me it might keep her in the one spot
If you put the £18 annual plan on this gives you 200 roaming mins/texts and 12GB data. Believe you can run this concurrently with one of the monthly plans.

If you're cheap and don't mind running a second SIM the Talk Home 1p 4GB deal is still running and the calls work in the EU (both EU to UK and EU to EU).
 
No spam calls as soon as I transferred my own number to them. And they have mostly fixed this now anyways by assigning a random number to their SIMs upon activation rather than having a fixed number range.

North America got carried away with the banning of Chinese companies which started with the whole Huawei thing. I'm not personally concerned about dealing with these companies but everyone has their own opinions and approaches to safety. I appreciate the name China Mobile will put a lot of people off.

Just had a quick look over on TrustPilot. It appears the transferred message is when they tried to call their own number during an issue with their number being ported. If their phone number is in a black hole during a split port fault then it could be getting routed literally anywhere but it will only be routing within the UK. While you're connected within the UK a CMLink SIM is processed domestically using EE's own systems, servers and APN. Only fairly basic details are handled over in Hong Kong for the purpose of customer service as far as I am aware.

As for what pushed me towards them - CMLink's customer service seems to be more responsive and proactive than 1P Mobile. The 24/7 support with Asian values is something I appreciate. Similarly the online account website feels a lot more like it belongs in 2024 unlike 1P's who's is painfully ugly and dated. And at the time, the packages that CMLink had available were better value than 1P for what me and others in my circle were looking for.

If you're happy with 1P Mobile and have concerns over the security of China Mobile stick with what you know. But if you fancy a change then I don't really have anything bad to say about them.
Chinese Spy! Be gone!

On a serious note, they do seem pretty good but I dont know if I would want to hand my mobile services over to a Chinese Company...
 
testing out the £1 CMLink sim, there seems to be no VoLTE toggle nor APN settings. Am i missing something?
 
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