cellular ´phone obsession

granca · #1 05-10-2008, 07:46 PM

What is it with the Dominican Republic and this obsession with voice calls on mobile ´phones? Try and get almost anybody to send you an SMS or even better an email and they go deaf or something . You explain that you live in a bad signal area and that you can only receive SMS and they still leave messages on *777 which , of course, you cannot pickup until you go into town. It can´t be just down to the level of illiteracy because even lawyers, banks and government officials do it disregarding the obvious problems of mishearing or mistranscription. I note now that even the American Embassy is doing it . They have NO email address for Visas. I love the place but for some things its a sad, sad country where even those who should know better set no good example.

lollipop · #2 05-10-2008, 09:39 PM

That's culture thing like many more here. I don't see the big inconvenience of a voicemail and totally HATE those txt messages.
Why don't you get a phone from a company that actually has service at your house?

GringoCArlos · #3 05-10-2008, 10:56 PM

granca, I don't think it's entirely a culture thing - I think it's also a MONEY thing.

First, go to Jodetel and try to get a telephone in your house. Bad credit - you'll need to pay a deposit, and then wait until they decide to show up and install it (sometime in the future)....

Second, try living in a typical dominican house with your family - ALL of them, and everyone will want to use the telephone if you are not there, meaning a big bill at the end of the month for thousands of minutes of local calls everyone else made (hey, if you're not paying the bill, it's FREE right?) which you can't or wouldn't want to pay.

Third, if you lived in a small house/apartment with 8 or 10 other family members, would you stick around for much of anything other than showers or sleeping? I wouldn't want to. You would hit the road as soon as you could every day. Can't take the phone with you if it's a land line.

Fourth, cell phones are cheap and easy to get here in the DR. Almost free, and then all you have to do is punch in a new card for a few pesos to keep it going. Meanwhile, you can still receive calls for nothing. That's why almost all dominicans HAVE a cellphone - it's not that they are loaded, they just have their phone as a mobile.

Most dominicans don't HAVE internet service in their homes, which means they have to go to an internet cafe to send anything. Texting burns up their phone cards too. (I gave a niece a $300 phone card so I could make two calls, thinking I would be nice and it would last her the rest of the month. She immediately started texting with her friends, and burned the darn thing up in a few hours). Calling and leaving you a message to call them back burns up YOUR cell bill, not theirs.

Just one of those dominican things. Gotta love it, right? It's easier to adopt an attitude that if it was really imnportant, they would come looking for you, instead of just calling. Stop losing sleep over messages you can't get right away. Ask yourself, do you have the telephone for their convenience, OR YOURS? (dominicans or anybody else in this world)

lollipop · #4 05-10-2008, 11:06 PM

GringoCarlos, when a person lives a voicemail he/she's spending at least one minute or two to do so. txt messages are cheaper than that.

GringoCArlos · #5 05-10-2008, 11:14 PM

OK, now I know. I am just still scratching my head over how at least $295 disappeared with my niece in a few hours when she didn't make a single call. That's probably more than she spends of her own money on phone cards in a month, but hey, it WAS free (to her).

I had a cellphone for about 2 months, gave it up, and you know what - in the following 7 years, nobody complained, and if it was important, they came looking for me. In the meantime, it was like going on a vacation if I left, because the darn phone wasn't begging me to answer it, and I got a break. Everyone survived, nothing burned down, and nobody died while I was out of touch.

Would you agree that my other points about why dominicans have cellphones are valid?

lollipop · #6 05-10-2008, 11:20 PM

Did the cellphone had a camera? sending pictures is more expensive.

And I totally agree with you in the rest.

GringoCArlos · #7 05-10-2008, 11:45 PM

As far as I know, she wasn't sending any photos either, she was just jiggling away on the keys for 3 hours.

lollipop · #8 05-11-2008, 12:04 AM

Damn she's fast! LOL. Teenagers have that strange quality of spending money like running water.

rubio_higuey · #9 05-11-2008, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GringoCArlos

Second, try living in a typical dominican house with your family - ALL of them, and everyone will want to use the telephone if you are not there, meaning a big bill at the end of the month for thousands of minutes of local calls everyone else made (hey, if you're not paying the bill, it's FREE right?) which you can't or wouldn't want to pay.

Oh, there exists something like outgoing call blocking (on a landline). You have to dial a code to make a call, after dialing a number you get a special dialtone where you must enter the code, otherwise the call does not complete... it costs like 30 pesos per month.

granca · #10 05-12-2008, 06:00 PM

Ha,ha,ha lollipop! You tell me who does have a service at my house and I will gladly order from them. Vivo is supposed to but try getting one. Neither of the two Viva tiendas has any information and Viva don´t answer emails!!.