Hacker News Reader

Comment by tucaz | Hacker News Reader

Brazil has around 190 million people[1] with about 249 million mobile phone lines enabled [2].

People that have more than one line usually buy one line from each provider so they can talk "for free" between the same providers. It is not uncommon for people to ask you what is your provider so they will mark it and call from a phone that uses that provider when trying to reach you.

We also have a high number of people with phones that allow multiple providers with one device.

Business and personal cellphones are not uncommon either.

[1] http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/censo2010/... [2] http://extra.globo.com/noticias/celular-e-tecnologia/quinto-...

View on HN

To make a example as brazillian:

My close family is 4 people (my dad, mom, me, sister).

We have 6 lines from one carrier (we got it in a special package, we use 1 line per person + 2 backup lines for whatever we need, since those lines can call very cheap each other, one use for backup line for example is borrow it to extended family)

Also my dad has one workplace line with another carrier, and a Nextel Android.

And I had for a while a extra line to communicate cheaply with people of the same carrier, thus in total we have 9 mobile phone lines for 4 people.

Sometimes you see particularly important business people (like a CEO) here walking with 4 or 5 phones on his belt (one of each carrier + 1 for strictly personal stuff)

A CEO is carrying 5 phones on his belt so he can save a few pennies using same-carrier free calling? What, does he have those 5 numbers also printed on his business card?

In most countries the caller pays, not the callee. So he is saving his callers money, not himself.

Depends.

First, there is the issue that here in Brazil previously we had a government monopoly on telephony, and the breakup was made along geographic lines, those are not strictly enforced anymore, but carriers sometimes still don't work at all in certain states, while other carriers work in those states (And don't work in other states), thus people that travel a lot have no choice but to own multiple lines.

Also, carriers here tend to have wildly different packages, that are advantageous in different situations.

And yes, sometimes people DO put several phones on their cards, usually whoever deals directly with sales (ie: salesmen, marketing, or CEO of small companies)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com