Updated
March 6, 2001
Gambia Tourist Support
A Better Holiday
Phoning the Gambia or any International Number
Communicating with the friends you make by phone can be very expensive, but get upto
Using phone
cards
and your calls can drop to around 12.5p a minute
based on a 30 minute call costing £3.75
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Gambia to UK
The GTS telecentre gives members a 10% discount making it the cheapest
way to phone home anywhere in the Gambia.
BUT
Phone cards have been introduced in the Gambia in 2000 by a company called "West Telecom".
Cards cost 25, 50 100 and 200 Dalasi. The 25D card buys JUST 1min international but the 50D buys 3 mins so is better value and other cards give a multiple of 3 minutes but no other advantage.
Cards can be bought at booths like the one in Kololi shown above but also increasingly at Super Markets & petrol stations.
The cards can only be used at Gamtel offices, but other outlets will become available.
If you require any further information please email us at:
PHONE
CARDS
are
a
cheap way to call The Gambia
We
review what is available BUT no longer stock cards
There are a number of phone cards available, there are big differences
so you need to know how they work.
Most come in £5, £10 and £20 denominations, the call charges are cheaper
if you have a £20 card.
If you uses a pay phone there is a BT access charge to get connect, using
a private line, the 0800 access number is FREE.
Speak N Save Type cards go under different names
Aimed at the user who will speak to the Gambia for
more than 5 minutes at a time.
The charge is a connection tariff 69p + 12p per minute you are talking, (based on £20 card)
A 5 min call costs - 26p a minute
10 min call costs -- 19p a minute and the cost then falls gradually
15 min call costs -- 16.5p a minute
30 min call costs -- 14.3p a minute
Saver Cards
There is a standard call charge of 28p a minute, so this option is cheaper for calls under 5 minutes and at 5p a minute cheaper than OneTel's 33p a minute charge is great value.
Cards MUST be used within 12 months of your first call, but can be used for many International destinations NOT just The Gambia.
To compare costs of calls using both cards see Comparisons Chart
ONETEL
If you have a phone, it is worth considering OneTel, you can register
online with them at their Website and once connected you use your normal
phone but enter a code 1877 or 1878 before dialling the number.
The advantage is that call rates are standard 24 hours, so no peak rates, you are item billed monthly by OneTel and just pay for the calls you have used with them - Current call charges to the Gambia are 33p a minute at anytime.
This worked really well during 1999 and early 2000, but recently having moved to London where we use the 1878 prefix the service is almost unuseable and regularly requires 10 or more attempts to get a connection
YOUR INTERNET COMPUTER
In theory using your computer if it is of a suitable spec you can use software like Net2Phone to call anywhere in the world at greatly reduced prices. You pay Net2phone a sum up front, connect to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and run your phone software - the person at the other end does not need a computer. It is most cost effective from other countries to the UK. I started with 'in theory' because it is by no means perfect yet - BUT is worth keeping an eye on.
EMAIL
We need to talk to GTS Kololi and have tried various methods. In general
we use Email as the cheapest method with a local call at each end, you
can pass text and pictures easily and cheaply but it isn't the same as
a chat.
The problems with this method is the reliance on technology and relatively inexperienced users, if settings are changed or a failure occurs there can be problems for months before it gets fixed.
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