Red Pocket Mobile

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Designed for calls to Asia

Red Pocket Mobile allows you to make cheap calls to Asia and around the world. When they sold their own phones, they were configured to allow them to send SMS messages using Mandarin characters if you want. They were the only prepaid cell phone provider with that particular feature at the time. Since they provide a SIM card for their cell phone service now, I don't know if that's still possible.

What's in a Name?

Red Pocket or "Hong Bao" refers to the red envelopes used for giving gifts, usually money, on special occasions. When money is given, it should be in even denominations. This is in contrast, for example, in the easternmost part of India, near China, where money gifts should be given in odd denominations.

Perhaps this explains why when Red Pocket Mobile used to sell phones they mades sure to offer two, not one and not three, types of handsets: the Motorola Razr V3 or the basic Motorola C139.

But before we look at those familiar phones, let's check out the . . . is

Coverage

Red Pocket phones use the AT&T network with the same coverage used by Gophone customers. So the Coverage should be pretty good.

Rates and Features

When Red Pocket Mobile launched they had pretty good rates and features designed for Chinese speaking American. Their rates are still pretty good.

Pay as You Go Plan

The Pay as You Go plan lets you buy airtime refills in denominations of $10, $25, $50 and $100 for 67, 166, 400, and 1000 minutes.

They used to have a $188 refill for 1880 minutes that were good for a year. At the time I speculated that this was intentional, as 1880 was the year, the US ended the open door policy towards China.

Anyway, they're much more standard now. They also now emphasize their monthly plans.

Monthly Plans

For 59.99 a month, you get unlimited talk, text, 2 GB of data for web, and 200 international rollover minutes. If you don't need much data, you can get unlimited talk and text and 10 MB data for 39.99, and finally for 19.99 per month, you can get 250 minutes talk and 500 text messages per month.

Refill or Auto-refill

With the monthly plans, you can still buy a refill card every month or sign up for auto-refill.

International Rates

You can call these countries for no additional charge from your Red Pocket Mobile phone on the pay as you go plan: China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Canada. On the monthly plan there is a small fee (about 1 cent per minute). For other countries there is usually a small fee on the pay as you go plan and a larger fee on the monthly plans.

Calling Card Rates

You used to be able to also use your Red Pocket account as a calling card. In this case, there was a small fee of 1-2 cents per minute to call these countries. I don't know if this feature is still available. Here were the details the last time I checked:

Within the USA, you get charged 1 cent per minute, so not much difference there.

Access Numbers

Here are the access Numbers:
1-626-626-207-6037 and
1-415-620-8099

iConnect

The iConnect service allows your friends and relatives in select Asian countries to reach you by calling a local access number and then entering your phone number.

For $3 a month for iConnect Premium, you can have a personal local access number that will connect directly to your Red Pocket Mobile phone.

No Phones, Just SIM Card

Red Pocket no longer sells the phones (at least online). You have to buy their SIM card and use it with an unlocked phone. Your phone has to be an , ". . . unlocked GSM handset that supports the 850MHz/1900MHz GSM frequencies that are standard in the USA." You can even use an unlocked smartphone as long as it satisfies those requirements.

Text Messaging

One of the main selling points of Red Pocket Mobile was that you could send text messages using both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. The company worked with Motorola to implement this capability.

I wondered whether it was easier to use the actual Chinese characters or the English-character shorthand when texting.

Now that they apparently only sell the SIM cards, I don't know if this is still possible.

Chinese SMS subscription serices

You could also subscribe to for Chinese language SMS content services.

You can get an unlocked phone and buy a Red Pocket Mobile SIM card and try out their service. If you don't like it, just use the unlocked phone with another service plan from AT&T or T-Mobile or any other compatible service.

SBI!