[assohillA]

0.27 mbps seems like you are on EDGE not on 3G. verify your cell coverage, what it says on the display. Doe sit indicate 3G?

No I'm definitely on 3g. When I run speed test it spikes up to over 1mbps and then drops immediately to the .26-.27 range so apparently they are throttling to 256kbps. The upload speed is between 1-2Mbps. Every so often it gets unblocked and I have amazing speed for a little while. I have tried buying by the day, by the week, as well as buying "full" instead of social but the speed is the same. Better than nothing but not great by any means. Claro seems to really restrict data as most of their "illimitado" data plans either give you 1-5GB of download per month and then block you or they only allow 500mb and then throttle you to 256kbps. At least Orange only throttles to 384kbps but they have oversold their service to the point that it is unusable in my area (Samana'). If Claro had an actual "illimitado" plan I would gladly pay to get the kind of speed they are capable of here.

[Quigoxito]

I tried this with my iPhone 4 but when I dial *111# and then reply with option 2 i get a message back that says "su suscripcion no es BlackBerry Prepago". Know how to get around this? When I bought the sim card I specifically asked for a sim for a blackberry.

I have the same problem with my iphone 4 when dialing *111# with option 2 Blackberry Prepago. It seemed to me that Claro has fixed this loophole to prevent iphone users to buy BB prepago package.

Any workaround on this? Thanks

[ElcinBoris]

Hi there. Pls i would like to know how i can activate my claro sim for bis in brazil. i use a blackberrystorm

[anaisdannyxys]

Hi there. Pls i would like to know how i can activate my claro sim for bis in brazil. i use a blackberrystorm

A) Make sure phone is unlocked/have it unlocked.
B)Go to Claro store in Brazil, or any other carrier, I like Oi. buy a new SIM card!
(You need a copy of passport)

[gydrorway]

Ok I got this to work on an android. I no longer have an iPhone but it should work fine there too. You need to go to Claro and get a sim card for a blackberry and buy some prepaid days or a week of BB Social in the store so you know they actually set it up to work for a BB. If you have an old BB or a friend with one take it in and then you can verify before you leave. I just went to several different shops until I found one that would do it for me without physically having a BB with me. The only caveat is that the data speed seems to be capped at .27Mbps. The first two days it was unlimited (3-5Mbps!) then it dropped and has remained throttled ever since. I'm still trying to find a way around that.

I am in Sosua right now and can confirm that this post by tjsadler works. I brought an old Blackberry Storm 2 with a cracked screen with me, and took it to the local Claro store to buy a SIM and have them activate it. It was a bit of an ordeal that killed the better part of an afternoon, but I finally got it done. Both the language barrier and the Claro employees unfamiliarity with the plans and how they work slowed things down. I went to the Music Store first, and the guy flat out told me that it was impossible to buy a prepaid data plan for a Blackberry. So then I went to an actual Claro store, and the girl there said she could fix me up with a Blackberry Social Plan. She said it would cost RD$ 175 for 7 days plus RD$ 150 for the SIM card. So she set me up, but by the time I got back to my room at the Terra Linda, I realized that the plan she had set me up with was very limited and did not accomplish what I wanted. It only gave me access to things like Facebook and a few other social networking sites, but there was no general internet access. I couldn't access things like GoogleMaps and couldn't even access my Gmail. I know there are some previous posts saying that the Blackberry Social Plan will have full Internet access when you transfer the SIM card to a different cell phone but, due to all the conflicting messages, I didn't want to take a chance. I knew that I had to cut the SIM card in order for it to fit into my iPhone 4s, and I didn't want to risk finding out that it doesn't work after cutting the card. So I went back to the Claro store to request that they upgrade my plan from Social to Full. The girl said she didn't know how to do it and told me to come back later when someone else was there. So I returned a couple hours later, and the guy upgraded my SIM card to the Blackberry Full plan. Since the Claro website states a price of RD$ 25 for the Social Plan and RD$ 50 for the Full Plan, I figured that the upgrade would cost me additional RD$ 175 for 7 days. But the guy insisted that the upgrade was RD$ 350. I tried to tell him that made no sense and he obviously wasn't giving me credit for the RD$ 175 that I had already paid for the Social Plan. But he insisted he was and, due to my poor Spanish and his even poorer English, I finally realized that it simply wasn't worth arguing about for such a relatively small amount of money. So I paid him the extra RD$ 350 and left.

After verifying that my Blackberry now had full Internet access, I went back to my room and removed the SIM card from my Blackberry. I cut it down to micro-SIM size with a pair of scissors and slipped it into my unlocked iPhone 4s while holding my breathe. I tuned on the iPhone and viola - it worked like a charm. I know have full 3G Internet access on my iPhone for everything. And so farthe speed is great. I'm consistently getting download speeds in excess of 3 Mbps and upload speeds in excess of 1 Mbps. Hopefully that will continue.

I probably made this more difficult and more expensive than it needs to be, but I just wanted to let everyone know that it does work. A SIM card set up for a Blackberry works fine in an iPhone. You just need to cut the card down to size but, with reasonable care, it's no big deal.

[Sellorect]

I can confirm that a recently activated Claro prepaid card worked like a charm on an Android phone. Activated, paid social, voila working...you just have to enter correct APN. You MUST enter APN. Because BB Social has open APN same as BB Full, it's waste of money to activate BB full. I use BB social on my BB and I CANNOT use native browser but OPERA MINI works fine and is better than native browser. I cannot use GMAIL app, but LogicMail works great and better than gmail app. I cannot use GoogleMaps but I don't need them. I can use Facebook. And that's all I need to do on the BB. And best of all, when i travel I can tether my laptop while on BB social and navigate from my LAPTOP to any and all Internet services.

[gydrorway]

I can confirm that a recently activated Claro prepaid card worked like a charm on an Android phone. Activated, paid social, voila working...you just have to enter correct APN. You MUST enter APN. Because BB Social has open APN same as BB Full, it's waste of money to activate BB full. I use BB social on my BB and I CANNOT use native browser but OPERA MINI works fine and is better than native browser. I cannot use GMAIL app, but LogicMail works great and better than gmail app. I cannot use GoogleMaps but I don't need them. I can use Facebook. And that's all I need to do on the BB. And best of all, when i travel I can tether my laptop while on BB social and navigate from my LAPTOP to any and all Internet services.

Oh well, it appears from rubio's post above that there was no need for me to spend the extra pesos and hassle of upgrading to Full service. But I've got no complaints. I'm now using my iPhone as a Personal Hotspot for my iPad to send this message. The tethered iPad is 5 times faster on the Claro service than it was on my hotel's WiFi. But unlike rubio's experience with his Android, I did not have to adjust any APN settings on my iPhone. I don't even know how you would do that on an iPhone. I simply inserted the cut-to-size Claro SIM card, turned on the iPhone, and gave it about a minute to find the new service.

[GotActichwicy]

I can confirm that a recently activated Claro prepaid card worked like a charm on an Android phone. Activated, paid social, voila working...you just have to enter correct APN. You MUST enter APN. Because BB Social has open APN same as BB Full, it's waste of money to activate BB full. I use BB social on my BB and I CANNOT use native browser but OPERA MINI works fine and is better than native browser. I cannot use GMAIL app, but LogicMail works great and better than gmail app. I cannot use GoogleMaps but I don't need them. I can use Facebook. And that's all I need to do on the BB. And best of all, when i travel I can tether my laptop while on BB social and navigate from my LAPTOP to any and all Internet services.

Could you do the same with Orange ?
I have a BB with Orange Social... And would love to perform your APN trick on it...

[GotActichwicy]

I read:

Orange Dominicana
Network Name: ORANGE
Network Number: 37001
APN: orangenet.com.do
no autenticantion or any other setting
1900 Mhz GSM/ 900 Mhz 3g

How do I set it up (BlackBerry Curve 9300 on an Orange Social plan) ?

[GotActichwicy]

Rubio, is this how you did the APN trick: How to Configure the APN Settings on BlackBerry

???

[GotActichwicy]

I am trying:

APN: orangenet.com.do
no autenticantion or any other setting

and I am getting nowhere...

[wonceinee]

Reading the thread I am a bit confused about one thing, do you need a special pre-paid Claro SIM for Balckbery (with Social package activated) or can you just use any pre-paid Claro SIM and then go through the "*111#" menu to subscribe to the BB Social package !?

This will be very useful and important info if anyone knows !?

[GotActichwicy]

Now that I reread the whole thread, I realize the trick doesn't apply to Orange users at all, so I apologize for the hijacking... I plan on leaving BB for Android as soon as possible, and will ditch the Orange Social plan, whenever I complete the 18 months... Then, I'll debate if I want to stick to wifi only or shell out the big bucks for a Leopard plan...

I the mean time, I really appreciated the infos on this thread, and I am very jealous not to be able to perform the APN trick !!!!

[gydrorway]

Oh well, it appears from rubio's post above that there was no need for me to spend the extra pesos and hassle of upgrading to Full service. But I've got no complaints. I'm now using my iPhone as a Personal Hotspot for my iPad to send this message. The tethered iPad is 5 times faster on the Claro service than it was on my hotel's WiFi. But unlike rubio's experience with his Android, I did not have to adjust any APN settings on my iPhone. I don't even know how you would do that on an iPhone. I simply inserted the cut-to-size Claro SIM card, turned on the iPhone, and gave it about a minute to find the new service.

After my 6th day here in Sosua, I noticed that my download speed is now only 150-300 Kbps (upload speed is still over 1 Mbps), even though my iPhone is still showing a strong 5-bar 3G Claro signal. So apparently they have throttled back my speed as tjsadler described in a previous post. But unlike tjsaddler, I think I got about 4 or 5 days of fast speed at 2 to 3 Mbps before the speed got throttled. Interestingly, I thought I had been cut off altogether last night because my phone wouldn't do anything and was showing "no service". I thought at first that perhaps Claro was experiencing a temporary service outage. But this morning I still had no service until I cycled the phone on and off. Then suddenly the service was back, but still only at speeds of 150-300 Kbps.

One topic that I haven't seen addressed in this thread is how this prepaid data plan integrates with voice minutes. I ran out of voice minutes after only a couple of days and less than 10 minutes of voice time. I was going to try to recharge my phone for voice minutes by going through the *111# menu until I realized that I would probably have to give them a credit card number. The more I thought about this, the more I convinced myself that offering my credit card to Claro might not be a wise thing to do. So I have simply continued using data (which is primarily why I wanted the plan anyhow), and I have a MagicJack app that I use for calling whenever I'm in a wifi zone. By the way, that MagicJack app works great. Calls back home to the United States are free, and calls to mobile phones in the DR cost 16 cents per minute.

[ElcinBoris]

really, its so messed up in brazil and most of dem that even work in claro does not have a knowledge of activating a blackberry internet service. i have to hold onto ma bb phone for 2months before i could finally get a solution. they are so f...king used to smarthphones but not bbs... i wish they could even speak english.. most of them are messed up... only portuguese... i just encountered a problem after which they included 9 to dem telephone numbers.. i subscribed to the full bb service and i have not been on EDGE for the past weeks and dey already took ma money and sent me a success msg.... brazil is so so f...kced

I am in Sosua right now and can confirm that this post by tjsadler works. I brought an old Blackberry Storm 2 with a cracked screen with me, and took it to the local Claro store to buy a SIM and have them activate it. It was a bit of an ordeal that killed the better part of an afternoon, but I finally got it done. Both the language barrier and the Claro employees unfamiliarity with the plans and how they work slowed things down. I went to the Music Store first, and the guy flat out told me that it was impossible to buy a prepaid data plan for a Blackberry. So then I went to an actual Claro store, and the girl there said she could fix me up with a Blackberry Social Plan. She said it would cost RD$ 175 for 7 days plus RD$ 150 for the SIM card. So she set me up, but by the time I got back to my room at the Terra Linda, I realized that the plan she had set me up with was very limited and did not accomplish what I wanted. It only gave me access to things like Facebook and a few other social networking sites, but there was no general internet access. I couldn't access things like GoogleMaps and couldn't even access my Gmail. I know there are some previous posts saying that the Blackberry Social Plan will have full Internet access when you transfer the SIM card to a different cell phone but, due to all the conflicting messages, I didn't want to take a chance. I knew that I had to cut the SIM card in order for it to fit into my iPhone 4s, and I didn't want to risk finding out that it doesn't work after cutting the card. So I went back to the Claro store to request that they upgrade my plan from Social to Full. The girl said she didn't know how to do it and told me to come back later when someone else was there. So I returned a couple hours later, and the guy upgraded my SIM card to the Blackberry Full plan. Since the Claro website states a price of RD$ 25 for the Social Plan and RD$ 50 for the Full Plan, I figured that the upgrade would cost me additional RD$ 175 for 7 days. But the guy insisted that the upgrade was RD$ 350. I tried to tell him that made no sense and he obviously wasn't giving me credit for the RD$ 175 that I had already paid for the Social Plan. But he insisted he was and, due to my poor Spanish and his even poorer English, I finally realized that it simply wasn't worth arguing about for such a relatively small amount of money. So I paid him the extra RD$ 350 and left.

After verifying that my Blackberry now had full Internet access, I went back to my room and removed the SIM card from my Blackberry. I cut it down to micro-SIM size with a pair of scissors and slipped it into my unlocked iPhone 4s while holding my breathe. I tuned on the iPhone and viola - it worked like a charm. I know have full 3G Internet access on my iPhone for everything. And so farthe speed is great. I'm consistently getting download speeds in excess of 3 Mbps and upload speeds in excess of 1 Mbps. Hopefully that will continue.

I probably made this more difficult and more expensive than it needs to be, but I just wanted to let everyone know that it does work. A SIM card set up for a Blackberry works fine in an iPhone. You just need to cut the card down to size but, with reasonable care, it's no big deal.

[Sellorect]

Just want to tell you that the "Social" plan from Claro is no longer working with Open APN as of July 1, 2012, it charges and charges big!

The only working plan is BB Full (RD$50 per day) and it still has Open APN. You can still use phone a s a modem activating BB Full plan on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

[ElcinBoris]

Oi. i have been using the bb plan of $R39.90 every month on ma bb. but suddenly it stops working and i subscribed just two weeks.. it worked for the first day and i was giving a confirmation to that and suddenly the next day, it never gets to give me the big EDGE,,,, and all this started after the addition of 9 to the telephone numbers. do you know what the problem could be or how to rectify this?

[Sellorect]

@hadewhole, this thread is for Claro Dominican Republic, not for Brazil

[rorsvierwelia]

Does this also work for the iPhone?

And will it also allow cheap EDGE?

i have a iphone 4s and just purchased a sim card on the street for 100 pedos,had the seller cut it down there for 100 pesos,then purchased a month of unlimited internet for a little less than a mil.This is claro,and i now have internet on my phone and use it as modem with my pc at home.My original contract with claro wasfor about 4500 pesos a month for 2 years.The new sim is of course a different phone number.
bob