China Mobile GPRS Settings for the iPhone

by John Pasden
in personal
10 Nov 2010

I switched back to the iPhone lately, but since I don’t want to leave my China Mobile number, I’m stuck with the slow GPRS (Edge) cellular data connection. Anyway, somehow I always seem to have trouble finding the proper cellular data info to get everything working, and I thought I’d share it just in case anyone needs it.

First go to Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network and then input this data:

China Mobile iPhone GPRS Settings

> APN: cmnet

> Username: user

> Password: cmnet

You don’t need to worry about the rest. Make sure that on the Settings > General > Network screen you have “Cellular Data” set to “ON.”

Obviously, you need to have already activated the cellular data service through China Mobile first for this to work.

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John Pasden

John is a Shanghai-based linguist and entrepreneur, founder of AllSet Learning.

Comments

  1. Jakob Montrasio Says: November 10, 2010 at 11:16 pm

    You need the rest if you have a digital life and want to send those MMS around!
    Here are the MMS settings:

    MMS

    APN: cmnet

    Username: Nothing

    Password: Nothing

    MMSC: http://www.monternet.com

    MMS Proxy: 10.0.0.172

    Last 2 leave empty.

    Best,
    Jakob

    Reply
    • John Pasden Says: November 12, 2010 at 11:23 am

      Thanks! I knew I would learn something from posting the little bit of information I had. Where did you get this info?

      Any idea why Julen below uses a different APN for MMS?

      Reply
  2. Julen Says: November 11, 2010 at 12:03 am

    Correct. And don’t forget to fill in the APN for MMS as well if you wish to send pictures by sms and get the daily share of spam.

    The code to insert is: cmwap.

    Reply
  3. Tweety Says: November 11, 2010 at 11:27 am

    I’m pretty sure the user/password thing here is useless (mine are empty and it works just fine).

    Reply
  4. HuShiwei Says: November 11, 2010 at 4:56 pm

    “Obviously, you need to have already activated the cellular data service through China Mobile first for this to work.”

    Yes, you need it activated if you want to use the service, but apparently not if you want to be charged for it. I have none of these settings plugged in yet somehow I owe 20RMB for using the internet on my iPhone?

    Reply
    • Tweety Says: November 12, 2010 at 1:40 pm

      It depends of you ChinaMOble’s Plan. Monthly fees can include Data access.
      And, actually, it works on any China Mobile SIM card, no need to activate anything. It is just bloody expensive if you don’t subscribe for a plan.

      Reply
  5. Gabby Says: November 23, 2010 at 2:18 pm

    Thanks for the China Mobile settings for the iphone! Really saved my day! 🙂

    Reply
  6. Adib Says: March 8, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    thank you guys!
    all of you,you really helped me with setting my iphone here in china.the settings you posted for gprs,and mms are working fine.i just added them right now and its working well.i don’t know if this is the place to ask,but since you can’t use facebook in china unless you have a program.does it also apply to iphone or does it work normaly. thank you again.you really saved me the effort and trouble of figuring out how to call the customer care and actually ask them to help
    all the best.

    Reply
  7. Tim Says: April 10, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    Thank you so much for this info! What a lifesaver considering no one spoke English at China Mobile.

    Reply
  8. Sreeram Says: May 4, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    i restored factory settings then the touch shortcuts are not working properly please help me guys……

    Reply
  9. Ankur Says: June 15, 2011 at 10:21 pm

    This setting works perfectly for me:

    Cellular Data
    APN: cmnet
    Username: user
    Password: cmnet

    MMS

    APN: cmwap
    MMSC: http://mmsc.monternet.com
    MMS Proxy: 10.0.0.172:80

    Reply
  10. SKYWALK Says: July 13, 2011 at 10:42 pm

    why i cant connet to wifi?
    any setting i need to change?
    please help..thanks..

    Reply
  11. Don't speak Chinese Says: August 4, 2011 at 12:40 pm

    Hi there,
    Help none of those worked , I didn’t activate anything just like what tweety said ,and if I must activate for Internet what exactly do I have to do ?
    Thanks

    Reply
  12. anish Says: December 21, 2011 at 12:11 am

    Please help me ..

    My frnd present me a i phone from China , plz help me hw to make my internet settings..???

    Cellular Data APN: cmnet Username: user Password: cmnet

    what should i type in NAME….??? as my provider..name..??

    Reply
  13. Me_no_one Says: January 27, 2012 at 9:16 am

    Spent all night looking googling this to no avail as every post i went to said the apn was cmnet

    Finally decided to go to china mobile HK website and found that they have changed APN, it’s now just

    peoples.net (no username or password)

    http://www.hk.chinamobile.com/images/handsets/handset_setting_en.pdf

    Reply
  14. Erik Says: March 30, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    Thank you guys… great help!!

    Reply
  15. jb Says: May 16, 2012 at 9:39 pm

    So, try APN: cmnet
    and then RESTART the telephone. That solved it for me.

    Reply
  16. Peter Says: September 2, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    wow, thanks for this information, it worked.

    Reply
  17. Py Says: September 14, 2012 at 2:58 pm

    How do I set my SMS setting coz my SMS are not sent out

    Reply
  18. Mattes Says: June 20, 2013 at 11:13 am

    Thank you so much!

    Reply
  19. John Chan Says: July 19, 2013 at 1:53 pm

    Come on guys, here is from the horse mouth.

    尊敬的客户，为了便于您手机接收彩信，请按以下步骤设置手机彩信参数。

    APN: CMNET

    彩信MMS设置步骤如下:
    设置
    ->通用
    ->网络
    ->蜂窝数据网络
    ->彩信->APN: cmwap
    ->用户名: 空着
    ->密码: 空着
    ->MMSC: mmsc.monternet.com
    ->彩信代理: 10.0.0.172:80
    ->彩信的最大信息容量: 102400
    ->退出重启手机使彩信设置生效。

    中国移动

    Reply
  20. Mujtaba Says: July 29, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    cellular Data is not opening! what should i do?

    Reply

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