4G in Brazil: what operators forget to tell you

O 4G in Brazil and in the world it allows incredible browsing speeds, which many do not even have in their fixed broadband (depending on the contracted plan, of course).

In theory, the 4G reaches navigation peaks of up to 150 Mbps. In practice, I have reached variations of 50 Mbps a 99 Mbps with the plan 4G Max da Clear the city of São Paulo. Apparently this is great. After all, it is being delivered far beyond what the operator sells in the contract and also far beyond what the plan 3G from the company (3G Max, which promises speeds of up to 5 Mbps).

But then the 4G you are in the right way? Maybe not. Understand why:

Discover VoLTE

No Brazil, and in much of the world, the Volta (Voice Over Long Term Evolution, a kind of Voice over IP over network LTE). This technology has costs 10x higher than the 3G, demonstrably, when it comes to smartphone battery consumption. This happens because the voice does not travel in a common way, but via data, generating much more energy expenditure compared to the GSM / WCDMA.

Still, the Volta, which began to be developed in 2010, has already been adopted by more than eighty operators, such as AT&T e Verizon Wireless, both American, in addition to manufacturers such as Nokia e Alcatel-Lucent. On Brazil, Volta has not yet been standardized or implemented.

With that, we have a problem. As it has been structured so far, the Brazilian 4G it does not allow you to make or receive voice calls, nor does it send or receive SMS messages. These features remain available only by connecting GSM/3G/WCDMA.

But then, how to make calls and send SMSs on my 4G plan?

For more than a week and until the present moment, I have been experiencing a problem, shall we say, unusual in Clear. I don't make or receive calls when I'm in 4G. Contacting the operator, I had my suspicions confirmed. Even though the plan I chose is marketed as a 4G plan linked to a plan VOICE/SMS, these last two services are apparently not offered as advertised.

On the operator's website Living, TIM e Oi, the plans 4G are offered in such a way that at no time does the question of the non-existence of Volta is cited. already the Clear seems not to be afraid to offer what does not exist. On her website, she announces that “the 4G allows a new standard, called HD Voice, similar to the high definition images of TVs, but with sound”. Look:

Quality HD Voice aside, the user ends up suffering with a rather uncomfortable issue: to receive SMS messages e do or receive voice calls, the carrier network forces the smartphone to cut the 4G connection, in favor of 3G, even though the first one is in use. In addition to forcing the user to restart the connection, if he wants to continue viewing a page, video or internet call, this peculiarity of networks 4G Brazilians results in the loss of calls received by the user, as I reported at the beginning of the post.

4G in Brazil is expensive

In other words, we pay dearly (one of the highest rates for telephone services in the world) for a service with more restrictions than those announced by Brazilian operators. And this, without mentioning the issue of advertised “unlimited” plans (but with data limits) offered by some national operators. (https://www.losaltosresort.com/)

Want to test if the same thing happens to you? Try making a call when you are logged into your 4G network in Brazil.

Count your test result in the fields below.