You can choose between prepaid options (where you use your own phone and buy a ‘Pay as You Go’ starter pack, and you get a sim card onto which you can load airtime when and as you need it); and a contract (where you enter into a 24 month contract, choose a specific cell phone (which is free) and you receive a specified number of seconds or minutes of peak or off-peak airtime per month, sometimes with extras thrown in).
If you are from another country and wish to make international phone calls, once you’re in South Africa with your own cell phone, you will need to contact your provider to set up international roaming. Bear in mind, however, that if you are going to make calls within South Africa it will be more cost effective to get a prepaid contract with a South African provider (see above). For international phone calls, it is often cheaper to purchase a prepaid international calling card. If you have a PC then consider using VoiP, such as Skype, to call overseas at a very cost effective rate.
e-mail
If you have your own PC/laptop
Email is probably the cheapest way to keep in touch with friends and family back home. Email will also enable you to upload and email photos from a digital camera or your phone. If you do not have an email account, it is free and easy to set one up on many websites (eg. hotmail, gmail). Once you have an email address you can link up to one of the many social networking sites available, such as Facebook, MySpace, Bdoo, Boomj.com – click here for the Wikipedia list of active websites available to you.
Find out where there are wifi hotspots, usually at coffee shops (such as Seattle Coffee), and you can then use their internet connection for free via your wifi-enabled laptop whilst you enjoy their coffee!
If you don’t have your own PC/laptop
You will obviously need internet access in order to use email. Some hotels and lodging facilities have internet access for which you usually pay per hour. If you are not staying at a hotel or residence with such facilities there are many internet cafes in all the major towns and malls where you pay for the time that you are online.
There is also the option of using live messaging. This is when you, and whoever you are talking to, are online at the same time, enabling you to send messages and get replies immediately. You and the person/people you will be chatting to need to set up an account with the same live messenger provider, such as Skype, ICQ or MSN Messenger.
When you make friends in South Africa and would like to chat with them often, via your mobile, there is a fun, cheap solution called Mxit, which is used by many people. You need to have a WAP enabled phone and it needs to be activated. You can go to www.mxit.co.za from your mobile phone and download the programme. Both you and the people you want to chat to need to have Mxit loaded on your cell phones. When Mxit is running your phone will be online, but you will not be charged for it. The cost is based on the amount of data sent and not for how long you are connected, and typically runs at a cent or less per SMS.
