China High-Speed Train Wi-Fi: Getting Online on Bullet Trains

China bullet train Wi-Fi: which trains have it

Fuxing bullet trains were built with Wi-Fi, and some older Hexie trains were fitted with it from December 2019, but not every train has it.

When Fuxing trains reached Guangzhou in September 2017, China Daily noted full Wi-Fi coverage on board. In December 2019, the operator’s chief technology officer told The Paper that its free Wi-Fi covered every Fuxing train in China, including the 160 km/h models, and that the equipment was installed at the factory. The first Hexie train with Wi-Fi entered service from Hangzhou East on December 6, 2019, Jiemian News reported. The company aimed for 1,500 trainsets with Wi-Fi by the end of 2020 and every bullet train by 2022 or 2023. Whether it met that target is not confirmed.

In June 2021, People’s Daily Online reported that the 17-car versions of the upgraded Fuxing smart trains used 5G-based Wi-Fi.

Some trains have none. The South China Morning Post reported that the first high-speed sleeper trains from Hong Kong to Beijing and Shanghai, in June 2024, had no Wi-Fi, and passengers relied on SIM cards with unstable connections. Trip.com, which sells train tickets and eSIMs, says in an August 2026 guide that free Wi-Fi is usually only on the newer Fuxing trains and that regular long-distance trains generally don’t have it. Wander in China, a travel site with affiliate links, says in July 2026 that most G trains and many D trains offer it.

China rail Wi-Fi on bullet trains has been run by China Railway Gecent Technology (国铁吉讯科技有限公司), set up in 2018 by China State Railway Group, Geely and Tencent. Jiemian reported in 2019 that the railway group held 51%, Geely 39% and Tencent 10%. China Railway’s 12306 English FAQ, checked Oct 22, 2026, doesn’t mention onboard Wi-Fi.

China train Wi-Fi login and password

No source we found gives a password for China train Wi-Fi. Reports describe logging in on a Chinese-language welcome page or through the operator’s app, 国铁吉讯, which was called 掌上高铁 until November 2022.

In December 2019, Jiemian wrote that you joined the network, which it called 高铁WiFi (“high-speed rail Wi-Fi”), through the 掌上高铁 app or a WeChat mini program. The current network name is not confirmed. In 2019, the operator’s chief technology officer said every connection included an identity check.

Reviews of the app on Apple’s App Store describe what foreign users ran into:

• 2019: a reviewer on China’s App Store who took several foreigners on a Fuxing train to Beijing wrote that connecting meant downloading the app and registering an account, which they all found too hard. The developer replied that its 国铁出行 WeChat mini program connects in one tap.
• 2020: a reviewer wrote that passengers got three minutes online to download the app for the free Wi-Fi, and the connection was so slow that the time ran out first.
• 2023: a reviewer wrote that iPhones have to use the app, while laptops and Huawei phones log in on the welcome page. The reviewer couldn’t install the app from the welcome page because the non-Chinese App Store wasn’t reachable, and said the welcome page and the app were entirely in Chinese.

Zonglan News reported in April 2024, in a story carried by The Paper, that passengers used the 国铁吉讯 app to connect to the train Wi-Fi and to complete real-name verification. That month an offensive pop-up appeared in the app during both steps. 12306 confirmed that the app is officially authorized, but said the problem belonged to a different section and that it couldn’t handle it.

Chinese phone number for train Wi-Fi

Travel guides say the train Wi-Fi login needs a Chinese phone number. Trip.com’s August 2026 guide says it asks for a Chinese mobile number to receive a verification code, and Wander in China says the registration page often requires one. A 2019 App Store reviewer wrote that the app wasn’t usable by a foreigner without a Chinese SIM number. We found no login rules published by the operator, so whether a foreign number works is not confirmed. Ways to get a number are in our guide to a Chinese phone number for foreigners.

12306 and the QR code on your seat

We found no source saying 12306 handles the Wi-Fi login. The 铁路畅行码 (railway travel code) on the seat armrest shows your train and seat details and opens 12306 services such as meal orders, seat upgrades and lost property. Jiangxi Radio and Television reported this in August 2022, when the code came to Fuxing trains in the Yangtze River Delta. Wi-Fi isn’t among the services it lists.

Is there free Wi-Fi on China high-speed rail?

The train Wi-Fi launched free, but since 2022 Chinese press and passengers have described it as barely usable, and whether it still works in 2026 is not confirmed.

What the Wi-Fi was like

• 2018: Fuxing passengers got 600 MB of free data. Most passengers Jiemian interviewed said the speed was fine for Weibo and 480p video, and a few found it unstable.
• 2019: Jiemian’s reporter on Fuxing train G266 found it good enough for messages and web pages, with occasional dropouts.
• 2020: an App Store reviewer on train G6166 wrote that it was too slow to load any media.

The operator’s chief technology officer said in 2019 that each train’s Wi-Fi ran over nine data SIM cards, three from each of China’s three carriers. He said speeds varied because base-station coverage along the lines is uneven, high speed causes Doppler shift, and hundreds of passengers share the connection. He said the system gave WeChat messages priority.

Reports since 2022

In November 2022, Jiemian reported that passengers called the train Wi-Fi 形同虚设 (there in name only). Many couldn’t connect, and several said that even when connected it worked only inside the app, with no internet. The films in the app were stored on the train’s local network, and most cost money. Jiemian added that most passengers now use mobile data on trains.

In February 2024, a reviewer on China’s App Store wrote that the train Wi-Fi offered a network upgrade, that they paid 10 yuan for it, and that there was still no internet.

Reddit users report the same. In October 2023, one wrote that G trains between Shanghai and Hangzhou had “free wifi” but no internet, and several others in that thread said their trains had no Wi-Fi at all. In August 2025, another wrote: “Most G trains have it but it’s much worse than your own internet.”

The operator has shrunk. China Business Journal found that its staff paying social insurance fell from more than 300 at the peak to zero in 2024, IT Home reported in May 2025. IT Home, citing the company, still listed high-speed rail Wi-Fi among its services, and the app said it would close some trip-sync services on June 15, 2025. Honor, the phone maker, told its users that 国铁吉讯, its former partner for train-trip features, would gradually stop service from January 1, 2026, and asked them to link 12306 instead.

The app’s App Store description, checked Oct 22, 2026, lists tickets, e-tickets, a shop, hotels and keepsake tickets, and doesn’t mention Wi-Fi. We found no notice that the train Wi-Fi has ended.

China high-speed train internet: mobile data on board

China high-speed train internet usually means mobile data. Carriers have been adding 4G and 5G along the lines, but the signal still drops in some tunnels and rural stretches.

In December 2023, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 10 other bodies, including China State Railway Group, set a target of continuous mobile coverage on more than 30,000 km of high-speed lines by 2025. The notice defines continuous coverage as 95% of the area along a line meeting the coverage standard. China’s high-speed network passed 50,000 km in December 2025, Xinhua reported. In April 2026, the ministry said 654,000 km of roads and railways had continuous coverage, without a separate figure for rail.

Carriers report upgrades on major lines:

• Beijing–Zhangjiakou: in September 2019, Hebei Mobile was building 72 5G sites along the line, with continuous 5G planned for the whole route, the Beijing Tourism Network reported.
• Beijing–Shanghai: C114, a telecom trade site, reported two upgrades. China Telecom’s Anhui branch and Huawei said in January 2025 that 5G covered 98% of the line’s Anhui section by distance, up 9.4 points. China Mobile said in June 2026 that it had upgraded more than 3,000 base stations along the line.
• Other trunk lines: China Mobile told C114 it planned faster 5G-A on nine trunk lines by the end of 2026, including Beijing–Guangzhou, Shanghai–Hangzhou and Guangzhou–Shenzhen. ZTE, an equipment maker, wrote in November 2025 that China Telecom and China Unicom had launched a joint 5G-A service for high-speed rail, citing results on the Beijing–Guangzhou, Hangzhou–Huangshan and Xuzhou–Lanzhou lines.

The carriers are also adding rail add-ons that give their own customers priority. C114 reported that China Mobile planned one for August 2026, and ZTE describes premium packages on the China Telecom and China Unicom service. ZTE says passengers without one still get basic 5G. Whether roaming visitors get any priority is not confirmed.

Where the signal drops

Tunnels, rivers and crowded trains are the weak points, according to Pan Jinzhu, a wireless network expert at China Mobile. He told C114 in June 2026 that Fuxing car bodies block radio signals strongly, with signal loss through the carriage nearly 1,000 times that of a normal outdoor setting. He said the signal breaks easily where lines run through tunnels or cross rivers and lakes. A train can carry more than 1,000 people, so a base station it passes can be pushed close to full load within seconds, causing lag or dropouts.

Railways and carriers are still filling gaps. In May 2025, China Railway Nanning Group said it was working with telecom companies to bring 5G to 556 tunnel chambers and 586 tunnel sites on seven lines in Guangxi, aiming for full 5G coverage that year, IT Home reported. In April 2026, Xinhua reported that China Telecom had put 72 base stations along about 65 km of the Guangzhou–Zhanjiang line to keep the signal through the Zhanjiang Bay undersea tunnel.

Travelers report gaps on longer routes:

• Tunnels: a Reddit user who often works on high-speed trains wrote in August 2024 that tunnels mean “a minute or two” without data.
• Western Gansu: the same user found 4G coverage “really bad” between Dunhuang and Zhangye.
• Chengdu–Xi’an: in August 2025, a Reddit user wrote that mobile internet was “almost not existent” for two hours of the trip. Another wrote that even Beijing–Shanghai is often unstable, “whether wifi or 5G”.
• Near stations: in October 2023, a Reddit user put the downtime at about 10% and said it was worst approaching a stop.

A roaming eSIM on the train

A roaming eSIM connects to one of the Chinese carriers’ networks, so the same gaps apply to it. Airalo’s China eSIM page lists China Unicom as its network. A Reddit user wrote in October 2023 that the signal faded in and out on rural stretches with both Chinese and US SIM cards.

What the eSIM changes is the filtering. Airalo says its data is routed through gateways outside mainland China, so Google and WhatsApp work on it without a VPN. Each provider’s routing is compared in our China eSIM comparison.

What works on China railway Wi-Fi

Google, WhatsApp and other apps blocked in China generally don’t work on China railway Wi-Fi, because it’s a Chinese network. The operator said in 2019 that the Wi-Fi runs over SIM cards from China’s three carriers, and Airalo says Google (including Gmail and Maps), Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube and WhatsApp are generally inaccessible on local networks in China.

Some passengers couldn’t reach Chinese apps either. A 2019 App Store reviewer wrote that without a Chinese SIM number, the Wi-Fi worked only inside the app, not in WeChat or Baidu. Another 2019 reviewer wrote that WeChat didn’t load messages and that even the unstable 4G on the train worked better than the Wi-Fi. A third, that year, wrote that WeChat and Baidu worked well, though it was “pretty slow”.

Whether a VPN can connect over the train Wi-Fi is not confirmed. NordVPN’s help center says auto-connect stops a Wi-Fi login page from loading and its kill switch blocks the page, and it tells users to finish the login with the VPN off before connecting. More on login pages and VPNs is in our guide to using a VPN on hotel Wi-Fi in China.

Airalo says its roaming eSIM gives full access to blocked sites “as long as you are using your eSIM data (and not the hotel Wi-Fi)”. The same limit applies to train Wi-Fi: traffic that goes over the train Wi-Fi doesn’t use the eSIM’s data. More in our guide to whether you need a VPN in China if you have an eSIM.

Can you video call or livestream on a bullet train?

You can on mobile data, but expect breaks: reports range from an hour-long video meeting without a drop to signal that cuts out in tunnels and rural areas.

Video calls

• Beijing–Shanghai, June 2026: a C114 reporter on a media tour of China Mobile’s upgraded network held a Tencent Meeting video call for nearly an hour on train G733 without lag or dropouts.
• Shanghai–Hangzhou, October 2023: a Reddit user wrote that the signal was fine most of the time for extended WeChat video calls on a roaming SIM, but to expect “a few hiccups”. Others in the same thread told a traveler to reschedule a Teams call on the Shanghai–Beijing train because the signal drops.

Livestreaming

Chinese state media say IShowSpeed streamed from a bullet train during his 2025 China tour. A Xinhua commentary said his footage included a network speed test on a high-speed train. People’s Daily’s overseas edition wrote in October 2025 that he showed the camera his phone’s full-bar 5G signal in a tunnel. A China Daily opinion piece said that at 350 km/h his 5G connection “stayed rock-solid” and his livestream “never even skipped a beat”.

In a promotional article on China.com, TVU Networks says his crew used its TVU One backpacks, which combine several 4G and 5G connections. It lists high-speed train scenes at 300 km/h among the network conditions the crew faced, and says its system overcame them. None of these accounts gives the route, the date or the train. How his video got past China’s block on YouTube is not confirmed. More in how IShowSpeed streamed in China.

In January 2022, CGTN said its parent, the state broadcaster China Media Group (CMG), had opened a 5G livestreaming studio on a Beijing–Zhangjiakou high-speed train for the Winter Olympics, with China Railway, China Unicom and China Mobile. CGTN said CMG president Shen Haixiong spoke of how hard it is to keep 5G signals reliable in a fast-moving carriage.

Airalo says YouTube is generally inaccessible on local networks in China and that blocked sites work on its roaming eSIM’s data. Platforms, routes and the upload speeds you need are in our guide to livestreaming from China.

Power sockets, quiet carriages and phone calls

Fuxing trains have power sockets and USB ports at the seats, China Railway says, and quiet carriages ask you to set your phone to silent and make or take calls outside.

Power sockets

China Railway’s June 2024 guide to charging on trains gives these positions:

Train	Business class	First class	Second class	Elsewhere
Fuxing CR400BF	On the armrest	Between the two seats	Under the seat	Washbasins, accessible area, carriage end walls
CRH380B	Below the armrest	Under the seat	Under the seat	Carriage end walls, washbasins, accessible area

If you don’t know your train type, scan the 畅行码 QR code on your seat to find the charging points, China Railway says. The sockets are for low-power devices such as phones, tablets and laptops. Power strips and high-power appliances such as hair dryers aren’t allowed. People’s Daily Online reported in 2021 that upgraded Fuxing smart trains had added USB charging ports to second-class seatbacks.

Power banks of 100 Wh or less with clear markings can go on the train, China Railway says. Details are in our China power bank rules.

Quiet carriages

China Railway said that from February 1, 2026, quiet carriages would be extended to D and G trains with distributed power, except sleeper trains, bringing the total to more than 8,000 trains. Trains of 8 or 16 cars get one quiet carriage, and 17-car Fuxing trains get two.

On 12306, trains with quiet carriages are marked 静. You have to accept the quiet pledge to buy a quiet-carriage seat. The pledge asks you to:

1. Keep quiet and move gently.
2. Set your phone and other devices to silent or vibrate.
3. Leave the carriage to make or take calls, or to talk.
4. Use headphones, or turn off your device’s speaker.
5. Keep children from shouting and crying.

Staff give friendly reminders to passengers who break the pledge, and hand out disposable earplugs on request.

Before you board

Install the apps you need before you fly. Our apps to download before China checklist covers them. For getting online when you land, see our China airport Wi-Fi guide.