China Unicom

China Unicom is the other big national telecom operator people turn to for mobile service, broadband and enterprise connectivity, especially when comparing the large carriers in China. By our assessment, it is most convincing as a broad network operator with a large footprint and the usual range of voice, data and business lines. Its weakness is the familiar one for big carriers: it rarely feels personal, and service plans can look interchangeable unless you care about coverage or bundled offers. In practice it is a matter of SIMs, contracts, account handling and signal maps, which is exactly the sort of thing a telecom giant lives on. It sits in the same heavyweight group as China Mobile and China Telecom, with no attempt to be a niche player. China Unicom is for people who need a mainstream carrier and do not mind a large, bureaucratic system behind it.