My team mate was traveling to China with his Nexus 6 (with Project Fi SIM-card) and was able to access Google services. The phone uses roaming data to access Google and your phone gets IP assigned by your home mobile network packet gateway (P-GW). There is no local data break-out.
On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 6:00 PM, Sean Hunter <jamesb2...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I come to you to humbly request your assistance, on or off list. This not > an urgent technical matter, but something I'm rather fascinated by at the > moment. > > While in China recently, I noticed that my Project Fi phone was accessing > Google. Not only Google, but Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Twitter, and many > other normally perma-blocked websites. It's taken me a few days of sleep > deprived thinking to realize this, but I'm seeing the same or similar > 26.x.x.x addresses across countries I've visited, including China, Spain, > Malaysia, and Hong Kong. > > I'm not a cellular guy and I know even less about MVNO's, but I'm curious > if I'm inferring the technical operations of the network correctly. It > sounds like the local cellular companies are provisioning access upon > arrival, then packing up the packets and shipping them off at layer 2 or > below to Google, who's then handling the IP stack and up internet access. > I'm also assuming the Great Firewall then acts above these layers since > it's not blocking access on my phone. > > If my inference is correct, I'd be curious to see if those responsible for > the Great Firewall are aware of this deal Google has with a Chinese > cellular provider and the technical specifics of how it works. Might we be > seeing a softening of Great Firewall policies for foreigners, or just > another soon to be inspected or blocked flow of traffic? > > Anyway, I'd just love to hear from a knowledgeable engineer about how this > works. > > If you've read this far, thanks for your time and have a great day! > -- Best regards, Yury.
