• Dial out code: 00 
• International Dialling Code: 220
Making Calls From Banjul:
You have two phone options for making calls locally.
The first is by going to a telecentre & the second
option is to buy a cellular phone (commonly referred
to as a "mobile"). A local telecentre in Gambia
is like a payphone—you can make calls from there, but
it is trickier to receive calls. Telecentres are everywhere,
especially in residential area.
Calls are bought by the unit, rather than the minute,
with local calls costing far less units than international
calls.
Approximately, local calls cost about one dalasi per
minute, while international calls cost about $0.90-$1.10
per minute. Note that in many telecentres, rates differ
depending on the hour and day—Sunday night after 11:00
pm are usually the cheapest.
The Gambia uses UK and French phone jacks so you may
need an adapter for both types of socket.
Buying a mobile phone, called a "mobile,"
is a reasonable option if you intend to stay in the
country for a while and the device (and the cost) can
be shared among several people. Mobile phones from the
United States will not work in The Gambia, so don’t
bother bringing them. Mobile phones can be bought at
many Gamtel, Gamcel and Africell offices. One Africell
office is located on Kairaba Avenue, in the large white
building at the junction with Mosque Road (number 73
on “Bakau to Serekunda area” map) Also on Kairaba Avenue,
a Gamtel Office is located slightly past the junction
with Post Office Road, coming from Fajara (number 86).
There are three parts you must buy to make a mobile
function—the actual phone, a SIM card, and a scratch
card. The cheapest phones run at about $14.00 to $16.00.
A SIM card, (a one-time purchase) plugs in to the phone,
hooking you to the network and providing your unique
phone number. Africell SIM cards run around $0.50; Gamtel
SIM cards are about $1.00.
The final component is a scratch card, which acts a
substitute for the phone plans you buy in America—it
gives you a set amount of talking time. Your scratch
cards must be bought to correspond to the type of phone;
i.e. a Gamtel phone card will not work with an Africell
phone. They can be purchased at many local shops and
telecentres—look for the signs that are usually posted
outside the building. Scratch cards can be bought in
varying amounts at the price of about $0.04 per unit,
ranging from about $1.50 to $9.00. Units correspond
to minutes by a certain variable, depending on whom
you phone—international calls take up far more units
than local ones. For instance, a scratch card costing
about $1.50 will give you about two minutes to talk
to your family in America but about 45 minutes to speak
to your friend in Serekunda. You only need a scratch
card to make outgoing calls—the best part about Gambian
mobiles is that incoming calls (including international)
are completely free.
Making Cheap Calls To Gambia:
There are now many free downloads allowing people in
the USA, UK or Europe to make cheap / free calls to
Gambia.
This can be done through smartphones, phone cards or
pc to pc or pc to landline international phone calls
over the Internet to Banjul.
Among the free calls apps for smartphones are Viber,
Vonage, Nimbuzz, Fring, Tango, NetTalk, TalkBox, Vtok
and Skype. Among the other VoIP services are London
Web, Yahoo Voice and Google Hangouts, GTalk To Voip.
The last of which allows some 'free' landline calls
as well by switching it to low cost local rates. For
more information see Voip Review (USA), voip-news.com
or voipproducts.eu which include reviews and comprehensive
resources of services available in your country.
Another budget option is to buy phone calling cards
which can be cheap compared with standard services.
Other services include:
Betamax GmbH - Sipdiscount (Germany)
Webcalldirect
Voipcheap.co.uk
Wengo
Live Messenger
Jajah
Gizmo |
