Vivo ( Portuguese for 'Live', as in Live Broadcasting, or 'Alive') is a brand of Telefônica Brasil, a subsidiary of

Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...

and the largest

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that ...

company in Brazil. It is headquartered in the Brooklin Novo neighborhood of

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaW ...

History

The company was originally formed as part of

Telebrás Telebras is a Brazilian telecommunications company which was the state-owned monopoly telephone system. It was broken up in July 1998 into twelve separate companies, nicknamed the 'Baby Bras' companies, that were auctioned to private bidders. The ...

, the state-owned telecom

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

at the time. In 1998, Telebrás was demerged and

privatized Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

bought Telesp, the São Paulo division, and rebranded it to Telefónica. On 15 April 2012, all Telefónica services were rebranded again to Vivo, using the same strategy of unifying all its services in a unique brand, like

Movistar Movistar () is a major telecommunications provider owned by Telefónica, operating in Spain and Hispanic American countries. It is the largest provider of landline, broadband, mobile services, and pay television ( Movistar+) in Spain. Movistar ...

(Hispanic America and Spain) and O₂ (rest of Europe).

Merged companies

The following operators merged to form Vivo: ''Owned by Telefónica'' *Telefónica Celular (

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

, Espírito Santo,

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a state in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth-most-populous state and the ninth largest by area. Located in the southernmost part of the country, Rio Grande do Sul is border ...

) *Telebahia Celular (

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-larges ...

) *Telergipe Celular (

Sergipe Sergipe (), officially State of Sergipe, is a state of Brazil. Located in the Northeast Region along the Atlantic coast of the country, Sergipe is the smallest state in Brazil by geographical area at , larger only than the Federal District. ...

) * Telesp Landline (

) ''Owned by Portugal Telecom'' *Telesp Celular (

) *Global Telecom ( Paraná, Santa Catarina) *Norte Brasil Telecom (a.k.a. NBT) ( Amazonas,

Roraima Roraima (, ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil. Located in the country's North Region, it is the northernmost and most geographically and logistically isolated state in Brazil. It is bordered by the state of Pará to the southeast, Amazonas ...

Pará Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana a ...

Amapá Amapá () is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is in the northern region of Brazil. It is the second least populous state and the eighteenth largest by area. Located in the far northern part of the country, Amapá is bordered clockwise by Fr ...

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins a ...

) ''Acquired by the joint venture'' *TCO Celular (

Goiás Goiás () is a Brazilian state located in the Center-West region. Goiás borders the Federal District and the states of (from north clockwise) Tocantins, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul and Mato Grosso. The state capital is Goiâ ...

, the

Federal District A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they ...

Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

Tocantins Tocantins () is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is the newest state, formed in 1988 and encompassing what had formerly been the northern two-fifths of the state of Goiás. Tocantins covers and had an estimated population of 1,496,880 in 20 ...

Mato Grosso Mato Grosso ( – lit. "Thick Bush") is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest by area, located in the Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 1.9% of the Brazilian GDP. Neighboring ...

Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul () is one of the Midwestern states of Brazil. Neighboring Brazilian states are (from north clockwise) Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay, to the southwest, and ...

) *

Telemig Celular Vivo Minas (formerly known as Telemig Celular) was a regional Brazilian telecommunications company headquartered in Belo Horizonte. The company used to be one of eight wireless telephone companies that emerged from the break-up of Brazil's gover ...

(

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literall ...

) ''New operations in the Northeast region'' *Vivo (

Ceará Ceará (, pronounced locally as or ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is the eighth-largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the ...

Alagoas Alagoas (, ) is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco (N and NW); Sergipe (S); Bahia (SW); and the Atlantic Ocean (E). Its capital is the city of Maceió. ...

Rio Grande do Norte Rio Grande do Norte (, , ) is one of the states of Brazil. It is located in the northeastern region of the country, forming the northeasternmost tip of the South American continent. The name literally translates as "Great Northern River", re ...

Pernambuco Pernambuco () is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it seventh-most populous state of Brazil and with around 98,148 km², being the ...

Paraíba Paraíba ( Tupi: ''pa'ra a'íba''; ) is a state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and it is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Paraíba ...

Piauí Piaui (, ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP. Piaui has the shortest coastline of any coastal Brazilian state at 66& ...

), since October 2008.

Vivo brand

The Vivo brand was launched on 13 April 2003, as a

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

service provider. It's the largest provider in Brazil with over 76 million users. It originated from the

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspec ...

of several Brazilian mobile phone operations under a joint-venture owned equally by Portugal Telecom (PT) and Spain's

. Until 2006, the group was composed of six holding companies which, as announced in November 2005, merged into a single holding company, "Vivo Participações". The operation was concluded on 22 February 2006. In July 2010, Telefónica bought PT's shares. Today Vivo operates an

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the In ...

, 3G networks and bands 1, 7, 3, 28 4G LTE in most Brazilian cities. Initially, the network was based on analog AMPS ( IS-95) and parts (resulting from acquisition of other companies), using TDMA ( IS-136). These were all converted to GSM beginning in 2006, when, after years being the only

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...

network. For some years, GSM and

networks coexisted. In the second half of the 2000s, the CDMA network was gradually converted to

CDMA2000 CDMA2000 (also known as C2K or IMT Multi‑Carrier (IMT‑MC)) is a family of 3G mobile technology standards for sending voice, data, and Signaling (telecommunication), signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. It is developed by 3GP ...

in the major cities. The CDMA network was discontinued in November 2012. In 2012, the fixed services in the state of São Paulo were rebranded from Telefónica to Vivo, unifying the brands for fixed and mobile services since then.

Vivo brands

Loja da Vivo, no Botafogo Praia Shopping

Vivo owns the following brands: * Vivo Móvel (mobile service) ** Vivo 4G ( 4G LTE) ** Vivo 4G Plus (4G LTE Advanced Pro) * Vivo Fixo (landline service, formerly ''Telefônica'') ** Vivo Internet (

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

broadband, formerly ''Speedy'') ** Vivo Internet Plus (Cable broadband, formerly ''Ajato'' and ''Vivo Speedy'', being discontinued) ** Vivo Fibra (

FTTH Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber optic ...

broadband, as of 4Q2020, +50% of broadband users) *

Vivo TV Vivo TV is a Brazilian pay television provider, owned by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, through its subsidiary in the country, Vivo. It provides digital cable, satellite and IPTV services. Grupo Abril's TVA was founded in 19 ...

(initially

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna com ...

, DTH, formerly ''Telefônica TV Digital'') ** Vivo TV ( satellite TV) ** Vivo TV Plus (

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

, formerly ''TVA'', being discontinued as of 4Q2020) ** Vivo TV Fibra (FTTH television service)

References

External links