Lisbon Guide (2 of 9): Communication

LISBOA 

An informal guide by & for Erasmus Mundus students 

 

Collaborators: Alessandra Gallerano 

Becky Chen 

Izabela Araújo 

Lorenza Tiberi

 

COMMUNICATION 

 

SIM Cards 

The SIM card with the cheapest rates is certainly UZO. If you top up at least with €15 every month, a SMS will cost you only 6cents and a phone call 12cents/min. Even if you don’t top up 15€/month you still get quite cheap rates: SMS for 16 cents and calls for 8 cents/min. It can be easily purchased at newspaper stands and Tabaquerias; at Papelerias Fernanda or wherever you see a ‘Pay-Shop’ red sign or a ‘UZO AQUI’ blue sign. You can buy it directly upon arrival at the airport. Other options are TMN, Optimus, and Vodafone. 

 

Internet access 

Even though it is getting increasingly popular to have internet access at home, not every flat in Lisbon has one.  

@ University: you will find some computers which are available to students but speed and functionality seem not to be priorities. In our faculty, two Gabinetes de Informática are on the 2nd floor in Torre A, one in a separate building next to NovaCopia photocopy centre. A Wi-Fi access is available inside all the university buildings. In order to obtain your Wi-Fi password, you must get in touch by mail with the Gabinete de Informática attendant (a sample of the information you should provide is hanged on the door of the Gabinete de Informática next to NovaCopia.  

@ Libraries: libraries offer internet access for free but very often you can not access you 

email account, etc.  

@ Cafés: several internet cafés are spread all over the city and prices vary from €1,50 to 

€2,50 per hour.  

 

 

How to cope with expensive books, photocopying, and printing 

Unfortunately not all the books you will need will be available at the library (very few of them, actually). Here are some options for you to find them: 

• Use Lisbon’s extensive Library network. You can look for books at the city’s library network (Rede Municipal das Bibliotecas de Lisboa at blx.cm-lisboa.pt), at the National Library (www.bn.pt), at Biblioteca da Faculdade de Letras (www.fl.ul.pt/biblioteca), or at Fundação Gulbenkian (www.gulbenkian.pt). 
• We managed to download some of them (particularly the books of Portuguese for foreigners) on this web site: www.libreremo.org.  
• Discounts of 10% on books are available in the bookshop inside the campus. 
  
• If you wish to print something while you are in the campus you have two options: 
  

- Buy a 5€ pre-paid card, which allows you to print 100 pages from the printer situated in the Gabinete de Informática at the B2 building (the one next to NovaCopia). 

- Go to one of the two NovaCopia shops (one is in the tower close to the student union, the other as above) and ask them to print for you from your USB memory stick, CD, or floppy disk. 

• As Portuguese law is very strict regarding copy-right, no copy shop will photocopy entire books (maybe parts of it). Again, there are two possible solutions:  

- Buy a 5€ pre-paid which allows you to do 100 copies card and use the self-service machines available at the first floor of the tower on the right-hand side.  Go to NovaCopia and ask for their pre-paid card, you have to pay a 2€ as a deposit and then you choose the amount to charge on the card. Each copy costs 0.04 cent. 

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