A friend of mine, a medical student, will be spending about a month in Kenya. She's quite keen to phone home on a regular basis. I've done some preliminary research and turned up two different Kenyan GSM carriers: KenCell and SafariCom. Both operate at 900MHz. I've got an old Ericson T28 World that should make a perfect phone for her to use (assuming she's anywhere near a cel tower -- most of the country has no service).

My question, which neither the local Kenyan embassy nor any web pages have been able to satisfactorially answer, is how she can use my spare phone in Kenya. In particular, I'm curious how she goes about getting a SIM card that will get her a local Kenyan phone number. The web sites for both firms talk about "scratch cards", which appear (so far as I can tell) to be single-use numbers that you punch into your phone to enable pre-paid phone service.

Anyone with any experience in these matters?

A friend of mine, a medical student, will be spending about a month in Kenya.

Only in Kenya?

Damn you!

If the cards are anything like the prepaid cards we have in Europe (Sweden more specifically), they're prepaid with a given amount of credit, and when that is consumed you can reload it by entering codes that you get either off a scratch card that you buy, or from a machine that prints it out after you feed it, or its owner, money or your CC. Here, these cards can be purchased most everywhere.

If she passes through Nairobi I'd think it'd be easy to find a place to buy one - and a couple of "recharges" if she's fond of phoning home...

/Michael

If your friend plans to spend any time in Europe before proceeding to Kenya, it could be more convenient to take a short-term contract with some of European operators. They are very likely to have roaming agreements with their Kenyan counterparts (e.g. both Croatian operators have them with both Kenyan ones). That way she would avoid search for 'scratch cards', and calls would be charged to her European phone bill (and so, presumably, to her CC). Further, intra-country roaming agreements are rare: if using local Kenyan pre-paid service she would have to choose one of their operators. With SIM belonging to an out-of-country operator with good roaming agreements, she would be able to connect using whichever local operator has coverage at the location. This is not an issue in Europe where 95%+ coverage is the norm, but could be in Africa.

Ask her to post some photos!

I compared roaming rates with a U.S. SIM card with local rates for Kenyans. If she had a T-Mobile SIM, she'd be paying $5/minute. Ouch. If she went with a local SIM card, she would spend roughly $2/minute to call home to her husband, who could then pay $0.67/minute to return the call. At that point, she would only consume her prepaid air minutes.

As far as I can tell, "scratch cards" are sold all over the place in Nairobi. The hard part is finding a SIM card. It looks like she would need to find a dealer for one of the local GSM providers.

you can reload it by entering codes that you get either off a scratch card

How, precisely, does this work? Do you send an SMS message to a special number?

Yes, I think that's the way it's done - or by dialling a special number connected to a service that reads your button presses directly (that's how Telia does it if you get the code from for instance a teller machine). I'm a bit sketchy on the details as I've never had one of these myself - I've always been on a monthly basic rate (then pay off anything over that basic the following month) and currently my employer covers my phone.

/Michael

If she's non-African, she will be beseiged from the moment she steps off the plane with people trying to sell her stuff. (If she's African, same thing if she's wearing western clothes and generally looks like a visitor). Phone cards etc will be one of the many items on offer.

What she needs to ask for first is a 'starter pack'. This will include a SIM with a local number, and a certain amount of air time credit. After that she needs recharge packets which have no SIM, just credit. Any shop based seller (as opposed to street tout) will have starter packs.

The SIM just goes in the phone and starts working (it is an unlocked phone, isn't it ?). The air time cards have a scratch-off area on the back. This reveals a 16 digit number, which is keyed into the phone along with a network sequence. The network sequence is usually printed on the card. So something like *23456*<16 digit code># <send>, and you should get an immediate ack that the code has been recvd and the phone has been credited.

As you've already identified, by far the cheapest usage is to have someone call her from abroad.

Regards

Mark

Fantastic. Now I just have to deal with unlocking my phone. I found a website with all the L33T codes for the phone and determined that the phone is, indeed, locked. I just called T-Mobile, and they should be e-mailing me the unlock codes for the phone within 24 hours (or, so they claim).

I would be surprised if T-Mobile doesn't send you the code, but let me know if they don't.