As a result of Monday's lost Posts I am re-entering my question. I am doing this because I cannot remember the replies in detail. Hope the people who answered my question re-enter their info again.

I am going over to Carvoeiro in February and bringing our GSM cell phone with us. I wil be purchasing a Portugal service provider sim card. I want to know which of the three Portugal providers have the best reception in the Algarve and Carvoeiro region. This way I can be assured I will not miss any phone calls from home in Canada. Your comments are appreciated. Thanks.

My answer, as far as I remember, is :-
Are you sure you need to buy a sim card?
My provider in the uk has a roaming arrangement with Portuguese providers, so the phone just works.
I had to change from payg and for some reason not understood by my provider, texts can't be sent.

Don't you have to pay to receive calls though if you use your UK sim? I do with Orange. But that's payg.

I have a TMN mobile and that works fine. To be honest though I didn't look at the ins and outs of it I just bought a phone that seemed a reasonable price. Now I'm out here permanently though I'd be interested to compare the networks.

No, not with Virgin anyway. I just had to go onto paying monthly. It picks up different networks depending on which bit of Portugal I'm in.
Not that I am, I'm in cold miserable damp England. Dead jealous of you.

I have Rogers as my service provider in Canada. They do not allow roaming outside of Canada as I am on their Pay As You Go Plan. From what I have read, by purchasing and using a Portugal Sim card, I get FREE incoming calls from anywhere and low rates within Portugal and overseas. As I must pay for incoming calls at home I am saving already just by having people call me. These savings can then be used to buy cold beer on hot days in Carvoeiro.

Getting back to my question, has anyone ever noticed bad reception in the Algarve or is it good all over?

Cant give you any guarantees about calls from Canada but I have found no problems with reception in most places in the Algarve from the UK and other parts of Europe - in fact its Portugal Telecom landlines that seem to have more problems

Have a great visit

It is your distance from the Portuguese transmitter that's important. The origin of the call doesn't matter. Not specifically relevant to Canada but useful info re SIMS www.0044.co.uk/portugal.htm

I bought an Optimus mobile phone in Portugal, since we now visit often. On my UK mobile it cost me £10 to receive a 10 minute phone call from the UK! It is free with the Optimus network. My brother-in-law also visits frequently and uses Vodaphone. We have had no problems with either network. I purchased from Wortons (hope I've spelt it correctly) in Algarve Shopping. They have a customer help desk, where a very helpful young lady set my phone up for me, including converting it to English. If you are pay-as-you go you can also top up in Algarve shopping.
Hope this helps,
Ben

Whoops, the last post was from me. Can't afford not to log on if I'm going to become a Senior Member - I'm much too old to be a Junior!
Ben

You have to pay for incoming calls in Canada! Seriously strange.

My phone has not been used a massive amount in Portugal, but I've never had a problem with signals.