While we were traveling, we found our unlocked cellphone really useful. We basically just bought a prepaid sim card in each country that we visited, used it to call hotels, tours, and restaurants, and then ditched the card when we left. It worked really well, but was also quite funny, because almost no one knew what an unlocked phone was.
There are two primary cell service providers in most south American countries:
- Telefonica (movistar) – more recent entrant
- Claro – usually has better coverage
Their icons and messaging were usually the same cross-country, at least in the following countries:
- Ecuador
- Peru
- Chile
- Argentina
- Uruguay
We tried both companies in different countries; here’s what we found:
- Movistar beat out Claro in Ecuador and Peru. Not only were their cards cheaper, but I even got Movistar to set up complete Internet access for the phone in Ecuador – which Claro outright refused (and yes, I spoke with the techs in each of their respective national service centers).
- Claro provided better coverage in Chile. Not much more to say about that, especially because we only spent two weeks total in mainland Chile.
- Claro had the best service in Argentina. Not only was the coverage awesome, but Claro included WAP profiles on the prepaid SIM card, so I could automatically get mobile web on the phone. Quite cool!
It’s funny that both companies (subsidiaries of European conglomerates) operate across most of the countries; what’s more interesting is that the prepaid cards are sold through convenience and telephone services stores across the continent.
Of course, nobody understood what an unlocked phone was, so every time that I told them I could get a card from either Claro or Movistar I had to prove it to them – by opening up the phone and inserting each SIM separately.
