This summer the Olympic games in Rio are planning to be exciting, not just for the tournaments but for all the sport fans that are going to be filling up the big city of Rio. That’s why they should be assured of what are going to be paying off for this holidays. The main concern? “Roaming mobile phone charges” which can be expected to be around $3,000 to $4,000.
América Móvil for instance, is a sponsor and official supplier of mobile services in Rio. For this event, the group will have a ‘backbone’ 374km fiber optic. With other networks such as Vodafone customers will be satisfied that the teleco’s $5/day roaming deal will still work all around the country and during all year after the Olympics.
In the case of company Optus when travels to Brazil normally the cost for customers will be at $2/minute to make calls, $1 per SMS and $1 per MB. However, during the period of August 1st and September 28th 2016, this tariff will change to $10/day for the Travel Pack which will cover the Olympic host country as well. This means users will get unlimited local and international calls plus unlimited SMS whilst visiting the country for $10/day. Adding also a daily data allowance of 50MB, letting customers use it at their leisure across multiple days.
T-Mobile goes all in for the games. The carrier said “domestic customers traveling to the games will have access to unlimited “high-speed” data in Brazil throughout August, though with the fine print stating “primary usage must occur on the U.S. Sprint network” and “service may be terminated or restricted for excessive international use.”
Also, customers must be on the Sprint Open World plan, which is available at no charge for postpaid customers, and have a roaming capable device. Those users also will have access to the plan’s regular unlimited calling and text messaging features, with the data bonus over the standard 1 gigabyte of unthrottled usage.
On the other hand, another option for sports fans would be thinking of buying a Brazilian SIM card instead. This wouldn´t been allowed before programing the Olympic Games in Brazil, only residents were allowed to buy and register local SIM cards, basically the people who have a Brazilian CPF (the country´s version of a tax file number). Although that is possible now, the best option regardless a SIM card would be the TIM Visitor Prepaid ´chip´, which is fully designed for international visitors.
Therefore, if you are attending the games in Rio make sure you get an add-on roaming tariff, otherwise you will be overcharged and that could cost you at least $3,000 easily. Bear this in mind and enjoy the Olympics without paying too much.