GuateCalling

I mentioned this phenomenon in a previous post and some newbie emailed and asked me to explain.

Here in Guatemala there are more cell phones than there are people.  That’s because many people carry more than one phone, to use networks for different carriers.  I haven’t figured out whether this is so they can take advantage of different plan promotions, or whether there are different benefits to calling certain users on the same network, or what.

Additionally, there are about 5 times more cell phones than land lines. This is because the cell phone network began to expand in the country before the copper wire network was fully matured, and naturally it’s easier to put up towers than it is to lay cable, so the then-monopoly stopping investing in wire copper.  Finally, it’s really easy to get a cell phone whereas a land line requires deposits, contracts, and the available wire in the ground.

Anyway, most cell calls here are expensive, relative to the states, anywhere from 1-2Q per call, depending on the carrier, your plan and other factors.  That translates from 12 to 24 cents US per call.  When I recharge my phone by buying prepaid minutes, I usually buy 100Q worth of time, enough for about two weeks in my case.  However, I’m told by reliable sources that the major carriers sell far more of the 5Q cards than they do any other denomination.  That means most people here are buying enough credit to make at most 5 short phone calls.  Based on my own usage I would say it is more likely you’ll get only 2 phone calls out of 5Q.

The result of all this is that most people have phones but have no ’saldo’.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked someone why they didn’t call to say they would be late, or why they didn’t tell me they couldn’t make an appointment, or why they didn’t just call instead of getting on a bus and riding across town and the answer is always, “But I don’t have any saldo”.

This lack of saldo is common, and for a long time I thought there was something seriously wrong with my phone because I would get a call but it would only ring once.  I wouldn’t even look to see who called, and then a few minutes later it would ring again, just once.  It got to the point that I finally asked someone and he explained that the caller isn’t charged for the call until you answer, or when voicemail picks up, and so even someone with no saldo can place a call and then hang up, which gets the attention of the recipient without incurring a cost.

I know some gringos who refuse GuateCalls, on the grounds that a person basically wants you to pay for the opportunity to talk to them.  They argue that anyone worth talking to should invest the 1Q in the phone call.  Perhaps my situation is different since I’m so much more reliant on others for helping me in all the ways that I still require, what with business ventures, needy children and dysfunctional Spanish, so I usually respond to GuateCalls.

The other day I learned that one or more of the carriers now allow you to send saldo to another user, so perhaps this will cut down on GuateCalling.  I suspect the carriers will charge for this service, which is amusing to me since they’ve found a way to make money off of the fact that nobody in this country has any money to make the call in the first place.