Are there land line telephones in China?

[Doug01]

I have been in contact with a young Chinese woman. She is from Tianjin, China. From what she tells me there are no land lines at all, and she is COMMPLETELY unable to make an international call from ANYWHERE. She says the only way she is able to call me is on her mobile and that she doesn’t have the ‘international’ function yet, and has to wait a number of months before she can get it.

I am simply asking, is it impossible to make a international call in China? This seems illogical and boarder-line absurd to me. I simply can not believe China has no ‘land-line’ network, and that these people are simply unable to make any international calls. How can this possibly be so??

Could someone please adequately clarify this for me, I would be very grateful…

[admin]

Hello Doug,

Thank you for posting your inquiry.

While I can’t possibly speak for this girl you have been in contact with, I can provide some information and references you can check out yourself to shed some light on this issue.

China is a technologically advanced nation. Landline usage has been declining over the past 10-15 years, but still there are over 250 million landlines in the country according to online resources. Landlines are used less in all countries nowadays, the US included.

China has the largest mobile phone population in the world: over 1 billion. Of course that’s also because it is the most populous country in the world.

Regarding Internet usage: according to a recent study 53% of China’s population or 731 million people had Internet access at the end of 2016. Many cell phones are also connected to the Internet. As you probably know there are a plethora of VoIP international calling services available for use with a computer or telephone connected to the Internet. Maybe this girl isn’t very tech savvy.

Here is more info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_China

[Author]

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