Brazil loses 9.9m mobile phones after interconnection costs dropped
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Brazil loses 9.9m mobile phones after interconnection costs dropped

The number of mobile phone connections in Brazil has dropped by 9.9 million in the past year, according to the industry’s regulator.

At the end of August there were 242 million connections, a drop of 3.9% on the year before, according to Anatel. All states of Brazil showed a drop, with Bahia and Rio de Janeiro losing most.

Anatel blames the fall on the ending of interconnection tariffs, which meant customers no longer need a range of SIM cards to call their contacts.

“Thus, the consumer no longer needs several cell phones or multiple SIM cards in one phone to make calls to several carriers,” said the regulator.

Of the total mobile lines in the country, 158,482,969 are prepaid and 83,684,535 are postpaid. In the 12 months to August 2017, the prepaid total fell by 10.05% while postpaid connections grew by 10.27%, says Anatel.




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