Pre- Paid GSM plans?

Question

Which operators are providing Pre-Paid GSM services in Brazil?

Can you alos send me details?

Answer 1

Brazil has many cellular providers.  I use TIM in when I'm in Brazil because they offer service in the most cities.  They offer several plans based on what hours of the day or night you plan to make the most calls.

Answer 2

The major ones are TIM (Telecom Italia), Vivo (Telefonica de Espanha), Claro (from the Mexican Carlos Slim) and Oi (also the largest phone provider)

The chip costs around 10 dollars (pre-paid) and you can get credits everywhere, newstants, lottery shops, markets...

Reception is pretty good since there are more cel phones than normal lines here (last count was 95 million cell phones or numbers).

The best coverage in my opinion is Vivo, which only recently became GSM, used to be CDMA, but migrated)

For long distance calls depends a lot where you are in Brazil.

For best prices I mean.

Usually the best long distance carrier is either 21 or 31 (Embratel or Oi)

Answer 3

You're getting pretty good information above.  I just returned from 5 weeks in Rio, Brazil and I use TIM while there.  In the USA I use T-Mobile.   I use the same phone for both locations.  But, I use different chips (SIMS) and, obviously, have different phone numbers.

Before going to Brazil I called T-Mobile and asked them to give me the unlock code for my phone.  In short, I wanted to use my GSM phone in Brazil (with the TIM chip).  But, from what I saw, buying a phone in Brazil isn't that expensive.  Maybe $30 - 100 USD for a decent phone.

I had a Brazilian friend acquire the TIM chip for me prior to my arrival in Brazil.  I'm not sure if I could have done this or not.  He said that he was required to use is Brazilian ID to get the chip/number.  But, maybe I could have done this myself.  I just don't know.

I went through pre-paid "credits" fast.  I would pay about R$50 per 10-12 days it seemed.  That's about $25 per 10-12 days.  I did a lot of text messaging to friends in Rio.  Incoming calls are always free.

There are TIM stores in several of the shopping centers around Rio.  When I ran out of credits I would just go to one of these stores.  I would struggle to explain (in broken Portuguese) that I needed more credits.  They did all the work for me.  I think if you go to a local drugstore (to buy credits) you'll have to dial in the numbers/codes yourself.  At least at the TIM store I knew they'd do the work for me.

Having a local number in Rio was great.  Using my T-Mobile number in Brazil is essentially financial suicide.  Be very careful: even turning your USA phone on (in Brazil) could potentially cost you.  T-Mobile said that by doing this (turning on my phone in Brazil) that I'd have to pay extremely high per-minute rates for even calls going into my voice mail.

TIM coverage in Rio was excellent for me.