Cell Phones in Brazil

Who has a cell phone in Brazil? It seems like pretty much everyone! But cell phone use is different here in Sao Paulo. Brazil, unfortunately, has some of the most expensive phone use in the world so the Brazilian people adapt... and use the phones differently.

Brazil has options to have a cell phone plan, like most of us have in the U.S. However, these are very pricey and most people I know do not have them. They tend to be for executives and businessmen who are constantly on their cell phones. The majority of the people have “pay-as-you-go” plans. You buy the phone (mine cost 90 R/ 50 USD and is the cheap basic model most people have), buy the company’s phone chip (5 R/ 3 USD), and then recharge the minutes every time you get low.

You can go to some gas stations, pharmacies, newsstands, lottery houses and other miscellaneous stores to get recarga (credit, pronounced hey-car-guh) for your phone. I tend to go to a little store about two blocks from my house run by a little Korean lady. I pay her, she prints out a coupon with a code on it for me, and I call a number and input my new code to get the credit.

You have to plan well with your credit, though. Since Brazil is a Catholic country, nothing is open on Sunday. If you run out of credit after around 8pm on Saturday night, you’re out of luck until Monday morning. Unfortunately I know this from experience…

And the credit runs out too quickly it seems! Sometimes it seems that I buy credit and the next day it’s gone! Why? Because calls and texts cost a small fortune here. To call someone with a phone from my cell phone company (TIM, pronounced cheem), it costs about 20 US cents a minute. To call someone outside of my company, it costs me 90 US cents a minute. And that’s only in Sao Paulo. If I call outside the city of Sao Paulo, it can be anywhere from 2-4 USD a minute…

Below is a picture of my phone type. However, this model is more expensive than my model because it accepts chips from two different companies instead of just one. The person with this advanced phone has two numbers, two types of credit to buy, and pays less per call because they can call people from two different phone companies for a cheaper rate:

Needless to say, with the expensive costs, when I take down someone’s number I ask them if they have my phone company or TIM or not! I don’t like to call people who don’t have it and avoid calling them when possible. But here in Brazil, I don’t like to call people in general. Way too expensive! I resort to a 20 US cent text when possible and avoid all calls unless absolutely necessary. However, it is free to receive calls so I don't mind when people call me!

I’ve noticed that these high rates highly encourage the “Let it ring 2 times then hang up so they have to call you back and waste their own credit instead of wasting mine” approach…