Claro Puerto Rico

Last updated
Telecomunicaciones de Puerto Rico
Company type Subsidiary
Claro Puerto Rico
PredecessorPuerto Rico Telephone Company (Telefónica de Puerto Rico),
Puerto Rico Communications Corporation (Autoridad de Comunicaciones)
Founded1914;110 years ago (1914)
Headquarters Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
Revenue$1.2 billion USD
Number of employees
4,649
Parent ITT Corporation 1920–1974
Government-owned corporations of Puerto Rico 1974–1998
GTE 1998–2000
Verizon Wireless 2000–2007
América Móvil 2007–present
Subsidiaries CoquiNet Corporation, Puerto Rico Telephone Company, Inc.
Website claropr.com

Claro Puerto Rico is the largest telecommunications service provider in Puerto Rico. It is headquartered in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, and has operated for almost a century offering voice, data, long distance, broadband, directory publishing and wireless services for the island residents and businesses. It was founded by the Behn brothers, Sosthenes and Hernan in 1914. [1] Originally, Puerto Rico Telephone Company eventually spawned ITT Corporation, which was founded by Sosthenes Behn. The company was a public corporation of the government of Puerto Rico for many years until the majority stakes were acquired by GTE in the mid-1990s. It was a subsidiary of Verizon Communications until it was fully acquired by América Móvil in 2007.

Contents

Present Day

Claro in Morovis, Puerto Rico Claro in Morovis, Puerto Rico.jpg
Claro in Morovis, Puerto Rico

On April 3, 2006, Verizon Communications announced it had agreed to sell its stakes in Telecomunicaciones de Puerto Rico, Inc. (TELPRI) and their sole ownership of the main Dominican telephone company Verizon Dominicana, now Claro República Dominicana, to América Móvil of Mexico. [2] [3]

On December 31, 2006, Verizon and América Móvil completed Verizon Dominicana ownership transfer into Mexican hands. After another three months and various litigations upon the Federal Communications Commission, which had advised from the Puerto Rico Telecommunications Board, on March 30, 2007, TELPRI assets were completely acquired by América Móvil. The purchase was closed after an agreement to purchase from Popular, Inc., the government of Puerto Rico and the telephone company employee stock ownership program, the remaining stocks of TELPRI at the same price as Verizon.

Currently, América Móvil is the 100% owner of the company [4] and has rebranded the wireless arm of the company -formerly Verizon Wireless- under their international Claro brand. [5]

As of February 2011, America Móvil has rebranded its wireline (fixed line), broadband DSL, television and dial-up services as Claro. The only services that, for now, remain branded as Claro - Puerto Rico Telephone are business, government or corporate.

Effective March 2013, all Claro Puerto Rico have been rebranded. Services to business, government and enterprises are now offered under the Claro Empresas brand.

Relationship with Verizon Wireless

Until 2014, Claro continued to offer a CDMA network for Verizon Wireless customers as well as legacy Claro customers. The CDMA network appeared as "Extended Network" coverage on Verizon [6] - meaning the majority of Verizon customers were able use it at no extra charge. Prepaid providers like Page Plus Cellular however had to pay roaming in Puerto Rico.

Data access for Verizon customers was at full speed. However, Claro deployed EV-DO before launching its GSM/UMTS network. As a result, Claro had the slowest CDMA coverage on Verizon Wireless at sub-3G 1xRTT speeds, peaking at 144-230 kbit/speed. Roaming customers would not access the EV-DO local network.

Data, like voice, was Extended Network coverage which had per-KB roaming charges on some older plans.

As of 2014, the former Verizon CDMA network has been shut down with Claro now using GSM, UMTS, and LTE exclusively. Verizon has since signed a 2G and 3G CDMA roaming agreement with Open Mobile, where Verizon customers can use its network without charge. Later on, Verizon has also signed another agreement with Claro to also allow customers to use their LTE Network.

See also

Related Research Articles

The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP, UMTS is a component of the International Telecommunication Union IMT-2000 standard set and compares with the CDMA2000 standard set for networks based on the competing cdmaOne technology. UMTS uses wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technology to offer greater spectral efficiency and bandwidth to mobile network operators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AT&T Mobility</span> American telecommunications company

AT&T Mobility, LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the third largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 116 million subscribers as of September 30, 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TracFone Wireless</span> Mobile virtual network operator

TracFone Wireless, Inc. (TFWI) is an American wireless prepaid service provider. It is a mobile virtual network operator offering prepaid and no-contract services on the Verizon network under multiple brands, including TracFone, Straight Talk Wireless, Total Wireless, Simple Mobile, SafeLink Wireless, Page Plus Cellular, Net10 Wireless, GoSmart Mobile, and Walmart Family Mobile.

United States Cellular Corporation is an American mobile network operator. Its stock is publicly traded, but Telephone and Data Systems Inc. owns a controlling stake. The company was formed in 1983 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. UScellular is the fifth largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 4.5 million subscribers in 21 states as of October 31, 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sprint Corporation</span> Former American telecommunications company

Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before being acquired by T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. The company also offered wireless voice, messaging, and broadband services through its various subsidiaries under the Boost Mobile and Open Mobile brands and wholesale access to its wireless networks to mobile virtual network operators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telcel</span> Mexican wireless telecommunications company

RADIOMÓVIL DIPSA, S.A. DE C.V., doing business as Telcel, is a Mexican wireless telecommunications company, owned by América Móvil, founded in 1984 and based in Mexico City. Telcel holds concessions to operate a wireless network in all nine geographic regions in Mexico using both the 850 megahertz and 1900 megahertz radio spectrum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claro Company</span> Mexican wireless operator

The Claro Company, or simply Claro, is a Latin American telecommunications company, part of América Móvil, a Mexican telecom group. Claro serves customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. Its Mexican operations are branded as Claro Mexico. The company's name means "bright," "clear," and also "of course," in both Portuguese and Spanish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">América Móvil</span> Mexican multinational telecommunications company

América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican telecommunications corporation headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the 7th largest mobile network operator in the world in terms of equity subscribers, as well as one of the largest corporations in the world. América Móvil is a Forbes Global 2000 company. As of 31 December 2023, América Móvil had 310.1 million wireless subscribers, and 73.7 million fixed revenue generating units.

Centennial Communications and its subsidiaries provided wireless and broadband telecommunications services to wireless telephone subscribers in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. On March 13, 2007, Centennial Communications completed the sale of Centennial Dominicana to Trilogy International Partners for approximately $80 million in cash.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claro (Dominican Republic)</span>

Claro is the largest telecommunications company in the Dominican Republic and provides local, long-distance, and wireless voice services, as well as Internet and IPTV services, to approximately four million customers.

Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) is a wireless telecommunications spectrum band used for mobile voice and data services, video, and messaging. AWS is used in the United States, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. It replaces some of the spectrum formerly allocated to Multipoint Multichannel Distribution Service (MMDS), sometimes referred to as Wireless Cable, that existed from 2150 to 2162 MHz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3 (company)</span> Global telecommunications brand

Hutchison 3G Enterprises S.A.R.L., commonly known as Hutchison 3G and trading as 3 (Three), is the owner of a brand name that operates several mobile phone networks and broadband Internet providers in Hong Kong, Macau, Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MagtiCom</span> Georgian telecommunications company

MagtiCom, LLC. is a Georgian telecoms company founded on February 12, 1996 by Dr. George (Gia) Jokhtaberidze. On September 22, 1997, the Company made the first commercial call from its mobile network. The services offered by MagtiCom involve as follows: mobile telephony; mobile internet - embracing different technologies of mobile network development, such as: 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, 4.5G and 5G; Cable fixed telephony (VoIP); internet television (IPTV) and fiber-optic internet. Since 2016 MagtiCom started to provide IPTV, VoIP and fiber-optic internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open Mobile</span> Defunct telecommunication company in Puerto Rico

Open Mobile was a mobile network operator that offered mobile phone services exclusively in Puerto Rico. The company was established on June 12, 2007, as a relaunch of NewComm Wireless Services. Its new owners, M/C Partners and Columbia Capital, acquired Movistar's assets for $160 million USD after Movistar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2006.

Huawei SingleRAN is a radio access network (RAN) technology offered by Huawei that allows mobile telecommunications operators to support multiple mobile communications standards and wireless telephone services on a single network. The technology incorporates a software-defined radio device, and is designed with a consolidated set of hardware components, allowing operators to purchase, operate and maintain a single telecommunications network and set of equipment, while supporting multiple mobile communications standards.

3G mobile telephony was relatively slow to be adopted globally. In some instances, 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G so mobile operators must build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies, especially so to achieve high data transmission rates. Other delays were due to the expenses of upgrading transmission hardware, especially for UMTS, whose deployment required the replacement of most broadcast towers. Due to these issues and difficulties with deployment, many carriers delayed acquisition of these updated capabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voice over LTE</span> High-speed wireless communication functionality

Voice over Long-Term Evolution is an LTE high-speed wireless communication standard for voice calls and SMS using mobile phones and data terminals. VoLTE has up to three times more voice and data capacity than older 3G UMTS and up to six times more than 2G GSM. It uses less bandwidth because VoLTE's packet headers are smaller than those of unoptimized VoIP/LTE. VoLTE calls are usually charged at the same rate as other calls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AT&T Mexico</span> Mexican division of the American telecom company AT&T

AT&T Mexico, S.A.U., also known as AT&T Mexico Wireless and AT&T Mexico Mobility, is a Mexican mobile telephone operator and subsidiary of AT&T. AT&T Mexico is headquartered in Mexico City. Its mobile network is available in 90% of Mexico, serving 13% of the Mexican wireless market. AT&T is the third-largest wireless carrier in Mexico, with 22.636 million subscribers as of July 2024. AT&T Mexico operates under the AT&T Latin America division.

This list contains the mobile country codes and mobile network codes for networks with country codes between 300 and 399, inclusively – a region that covers North America and the Caribbean. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are included in this region as parts of the United States.

References

  1. "PRT | DMAX | CLARO | Historia". 2010-09-19. Archived from the original on 2010-09-19. Retrieved 2023-05-20.
  2. Verizon Communications Completes the Sale of Its Interest in Puerto Rico Telephone. Verizon International-Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
  3. "Verizon Communications Completes the Sale of Its Interest in Verizon Dominicana." Verizon International-Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
  4. "América Móvil acquires PRTC, Inc.." Cellular-news.com April 2, 2007.
  5. América Móvil completes takeover of PRT, rebrands mobile arm as Claro." Teleography's CommsUpdate April 2, 2007.
  6. "Better Matters - Verizon Wireless". www.verizonwireless.com.