Cell Phones in MOZ

While there are lot of things that people don’t have here in Mozambique that we would consider necessities in the States (although they are certainly not), a Cell Phone is not one of those things. 

Almost everyone past the age of 15 has a cell phone here.  It may not be the nicest phone…almost no one has a blackberry or iphone, but they do have a simple cell phone that they can receive and accept calls and texts, which are called SMS here. 

What people don’t have here is phone credit.  Let me explain.  In the States most everyone has a cell phone and connected to that cell phone is a contract, normally for 2 years with one of the various cell phone providers.  Shout out to Sprint! They are the best!  Under the contract the person pays a monthly fee for various services they want for their phone. 

In Mozambique no one has a contract.  Instead people have a cell phone, with a removable sim card, that is provided by one of the 2 cell phone providers here, mCel and VodaCom.  Each sim card has a phone number connected with it.  You put the sim card into your phone and then your phone is connected with that particular phone number.  But to send SMSs or to call out you have to buy phone credit.  Phone credit is sold on literally every street corner in various amounts.  You buy the credit and then upload it onto your phone. 

Because phone credit is expensive and using that credit to call people is every expensive, people rarely call each other just to chat.  Most people just text message each other.  This system works great for a country like Mozambique.  It allows almost everyone to have a phone and they just buy phone credit when they can afford to.  The major problem with it is that most people don’t always have enough money to buy phone credit, which means, even if they have a phone they can’t call out.  And because most people don’t have a lot of credit they often turn their phone off, which makes it virtually impossible for people who does have phone credit to contact them. 

In short…everyone here has cell phones but they certainly don’t use them as much as we do in the States.    

ps… they don’t have voicemail on their phones either…it would probably be lots more credit.