Cheapest way to text UK from Kenya

steve0161

Hi everyone,

I have a friend that is travelling round Kenya for the next 5 months, and i was wondering whats the cheapest way to stay in touch. she has a nokia n70 phone and is on orange payg. ive done some research and found things like smsplanet etc, but im really not good with this kind of thing, im hoping some kind souls will help me stay in touch with her does she need a new sim card ? is smsplanet the cheapest/ best way, all advice really would be appreciated.

redux

I hadn't heard of smsplanet, and am just reading about it now.

There are some other mobile Java programs that send over wap/gprs, discussed in this thread

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=367721

For use for only data abroad, another SIM might not be necessary, although Virgin has slightly better tariffs for this, and if it is set up with a direct debit that would remove worries about organising top-ups.

For actual phone calls, roaming using the Orange or Virgin SIM would be much too expensive, and it would be worth looking into local SIM cards. Even so, they don't have brilliant tariffs, especially not international calls, so it would be better to use a calling card or callback service with it. Then the incoming calls are free, and you could call her using cheap calls providers in the MSE Callchecker, though 8 or 10 pence a minute isn't quite as cheap as I was hoping.

Perhaps she'd settle for just sms anyway, especially for only a couple of pence each


In case you want to read more on roaming though, see Martin's article and its discussion thread. You'll see discussion of some global SIMs with free incoming calls in several countries, but I don't think that Kenya is one of those places on any of them. I'm still checking ...

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1119870249,48922,

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=2530781#post2530781

redux

I've just found tariff details for one of the Kenyan networks, and the data rates are much better - 20 Kenyan shillings per MB, about 15p, compared to Virgin's 0.5p/kB = £5/MB

Even international sms sent directly are only 10 Ksh, about 7.5p

http://www.ke.celtel.com/en/phone-services/celtel-access/index.html


The other network's website seems to be offline at the moment

http://www.safaricom.co.ke/