GETTING YOUR PHONE CONNECTED
There is only one local phone company in Cochabamba, ENTEL, and it is a cooperative. ENTEL was nationalized by the Bolivian government in 2008 and provides long distance and cellular phone services in Cochabamba. There are other cellular phone service providers, but only ENTEL provides land lines.
You can set up your service ('servicio de telefonía local') in one of two ways: you can either purchase your own line and corresponding number (for about $1300 payable in one lump sum or monthly over several years) or you can rent your line ($20-$25 per month).
If you purchase your own line, once you have completed payments you will not have to pay for it ever again. You will pay only additional services you request (call forwarding, message center, etc.). You will also be free to sell your line to someone else (or leave it to an heir in your will) as you would any asset you own, or you can rent it to someone else for a monthly fee.
These are the requirements to purchase your line (PLAN SOCIO):
1) If you pay it cash in one lump sum, you pay only $1250 U.S. Dollars
2) If you pay it monthly, the total cost will be $1300 U.S. Dollars
3) If you choose the monthly payment plan, you must pay $150 cash initially and the remaining payments will be charged to your monthly phone bill at 12% interest (you’ll pay $25.80 month)
4) Either plan you choose, your monthly bill will include an additional charge of Bs. 50 for the use of the service. You get 60 calls free per month. After these 60 calls, you’ll be charged Bs 0.70cents per call
5) To set up your service, you’ll need to go personally to one of the ENTEL offices and bring with you a copy of your I.D. (carnet or passport), a map showing the location of your home or office (you can draw one), a water or electricity invoice showing the exact location of your home or office (these contain the location in a code which ENTEL uses to ensure the connection is done correctly)
6) If you are sending someone from your company to do this, they must take with them legal documents showing they represent you legally
7) You must have no pending (unpaid) invoice with ENTEL from prior lines you’ve owned or rented
8) ENTEL will give you a Directory and a phone (the actual apparatus)
If you choose to rent your line from ENTEL, you pay your bill monthly, and when you don’t need the service any more you simply give 30 days written notice prior to returning it before you leave.
FINDING PHONE NUMBERS
ENTEL also prints out the yearly phone directory and yellow pages and distributes them as one of its basic services (SEARCH Páginas Amarillas at www.amarillas.bo).
PUBLIC PHONE BOOTHS
ENTEL operates city phone booths. Some public phone booths accept coins, others cards, others both. Cards for specific money amounts may be purchased at any phone company or branch office, cellular phone company or branch office, and even from the candy ladies on street corners.
You will have long distance service ('servicio de telefonía de larga distancia') once you have set up your ENTEL local phone service. To call long distance nationally, you dial 012 before dialing the number. To call long distance internationally you dial 0012 before dialing the number.
OTHER COMPANIES, CELLULAR PHONES, LONG DISTANCE CALLS
There are other companies that provide phone service, but they are only allowed to provide cellphone, long distance and internet services. They are (Cotas), Telecel (TIGO cellphones, Nuevatel (VIVA cellphones) and a few others. Again, as with all utilities you must call in each month to find out how much you owe, then pay at their offices or at your bank or credit union.
viva nuevatel phone santa cruz bolivia Each company that offers long distance or cellular phone service is assigned a 2-digit code. Cotas is 12, Entel is 10, Nuevatel is 14, for example. Each time you are going to make a long distance call, you have to first dial the code of the long distance company you want to be charged by, for that call.
Our country code is 591 and each city has its own city code. La Paz is 2, Santa Cruz is 3, Cochabamba is 4, and so forth. Each household or business has a 7-digit phone number (which starts with the same number as the city code in which it is located). For example:
A La Paz number would look like: (591-2) 2ab-cdef.
A Santa Cruz number looks like: (591-3) 3ab-cdef.
A Cochabamba number looks like: (591-4) 4ab-cdef.
For local calls it is only necessary to dial the 7-digit phone number and not the preceding country and city codes. To call long distance from one department to another (national long distance) you dial 0, then the LONG DISTANCE COMPANY'S 2-DIGIT CODE, the city code, then the 7-digit number. For example to call La Paz using COTAS long distance, you would dial 012-2-244-4444.
To make an international call out, you have to dial '00' then the LONG DISTANCE COMPANY'S 2-DIGIT CODE, then the country code, city code and phone number of whomever you are calling. For example, let's say you are going to use Entel to make a long distance call to the US. You would dial like this: 00-10-1-555-555-5555. (00 to dial international calls, 10 to be charged by Entel, 1 is the US country code, 555 is the area code, 555-5555 is the 7-digit phone number).
Nationwide, all cellphones have 8-digit phone numbers, beginning with the number 7. (The number 7 replaces any city code). For example, a cellphone number would look like this 7ab-cdefg. Locally, this is all you need to dial.
However if you are calling a Bolivian cellphone from overseas, you must dial the country code first (591)7ab-cdefg. You don't dial a city code because cellphones already have an eight digits. (Just think of the 7 as a city code for all the cellphones in the country).
Now, let’s say for example that you are going to call a cellphone in Bolivia from the U.S. You would dial:
011-591-7xx-xxxxx
