Brasil Telecom Snapshot
Brasil Telecom keeps phones ringing all over South America's largest country. The company, now part of Tele Norte Leste Participações, provides fixed-line and mobile telephone services as well as broadband Internet services to 10 states along the western and southern part of the country. Brasil Telecom counts about 8 million landline customers, 7 million mobile customers, and 2 milion Internet subscribers. The company took on Tele Norte Leste's brand, known as Oi, in 2009, when the company acquired about 80% of Brasil Telecom's stock for almost $5 billion. Brasil Telecom is one of several fixed-line operators that formed when the Telebrás telecommunications monopoly was broken up and privatized in 1998.