janmatant
Casual Member
Hi.
Im new to this forum, so ill introduce myself quickly.
Im Jan, Im interested in telecommunications and such, especially mobile networks.
I also collect SIM cards, just for the physical designs, or sometimes to test out roaming and such.
I recently ordered 2 CTExcel SIMs. There seems to be a slightly old thread on here about it but noone actually tested it there and I thought it would be a better idea to make a new thing,
It seems to have first been a thing around the early 2010's as a MVNO for Chinese in the UK, which it has continued to be in contrast to something like CMLink which now has expanded to a general UK audience.
The website was always ctexcel.com even when they had the "biz" suffix
EE document about the launch
An old video showing something related to the network
People in the old thread seemed to not trust the company very much.
Probably a good thing, I gone ahead though.
China Telecom is a large and established company. There is of course a chance of some sort of Chinese government tracking or such involved, but I didn't personally let that bother me.
I placed my order for the first sim, 4.90 with 3GB of UK data (1.5 of that usable in the EU too) on the 8th of September.
It came on the 13th, the cancelation of the stamp said it was sent on the 12th.
It's interesting they still use stamps instead of some sort of meter or prepaid postage label, CMLink does the same thing.
As visible, all text on the Starter pack is in Chinese. This continues to the inside, even though I ordered mine on the English language portion of the website (which often doesn't work very well or just puts random Chinese text or errors)
After I ordered that one, it turned out that if you follow a link on their instagram, you can get a "free" SIM (which actually costs a pound, similarly to CMLink). That part of the site is completely in Chinese. I managed to still order one using some google translate.
I'll say more about actual usage in a response, as I can't add any more attachments here.
Im new to this forum, so ill introduce myself quickly.
Im Jan, Im interested in telecommunications and such, especially mobile networks.
I also collect SIM cards, just for the physical designs, or sometimes to test out roaming and such.
I recently ordered 2 CTExcel SIMs. There seems to be a slightly old thread on here about it but noone actually tested it there and I thought it would be a better idea to make a new thing,
It seems to have first been a thing around the early 2010's as a MVNO for Chinese in the UK, which it has continued to be in contrast to something like CMLink which now has expanded to a general UK audience.
The website was always ctexcel.com even when they had the "biz" suffix
EE document about the launch
People in the old thread seemed to not trust the company very much.
Probably a good thing, I gone ahead though.
China Telecom is a large and established company. There is of course a chance of some sort of Chinese government tracking or such involved, but I didn't personally let that bother me.
I placed my order for the first sim, 4.90 with 3GB of UK data (1.5 of that usable in the EU too) on the 8th of September.
It came on the 13th, the cancelation of the stamp said it was sent on the 12th.
It's interesting they still use stamps instead of some sort of meter or prepaid postage label, CMLink does the same thing.
As visible, all text on the Starter pack is in Chinese. This continues to the inside, even though I ordered mine on the English language portion of the website (which often doesn't work very well or just puts random Chinese text or errors)
After I ordered that one, it turned out that if you follow a link on their instagram, you can get a "free" SIM (which actually costs a pound, similarly to CMLink). That part of the site is completely in Chinese. I managed to still order one using some google translate.
I'll say more about actual usage in a response, as I can't add any more attachments here.
























