I have two mobile phones. One a 4G EE phone from the UK and the other a 3G Vivo phone from Brazil. In general mobile phone plans are quite a lot more expensive in Brazil than most other countries. But what staggered me and made me write this article was the difference in roaming in Europe versus Brazil.

I arrived back at GRU airport in Sao Paulo early Saturday morning a week and a half ago and turned on my Vivo phone but the data was not working. My cousin who was picking me up at the airport had sent me her new number by a message on Facebook so I was trying to get the number to call her and let her know I was early.

So I turned on my UK phone and the text came through giving me the data prices. I had just been at meetings in UK, France and Germany and had been using my UK EE mobile to roam from a data perspective on the continent.

I had been paying £10 for 50mb. To my surprise the same 50mb in Brazil was going to cost me £195 – so that is NINETEEN AND A HALF TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE!

I decided to wait for my cousin and sat down in the cafe and drank some coffee.

The moral of the story is DO check your data roaming prices as even 50mb is not too much once you get into it so BEWARE and try to find wi-fi spots. Do not just leave your phone on data roaming with all it’s usual functions of pushing and pulling information left on or there might be a surprise.

 

See below for the actual data charges:-