If one is learning Arabic for a full year (therefore having a residence visa) what kind of phone plans are available? The "pay as you go" type or monthly etc.
There are three cell phone companies in Yemen: Spacetel, Sabafon, and Yemen Mobile. Spacetel and Sabafon provide GSM services on the 900Mhz band while Yemen Mobile uses CDMA. Spacetel and Sabafon have similar prices and Yemen Mobile is slightly cheaper. There are two ways to pay for cell phone calls - pre-paid (scratch cards), and post-paid (monthly bill.) The following prices are for Spacetel because it is what I use.
Pre-paid is pretty simple - you buy a SIM card for about 1200YR, and buy scratch cards whenever you run out of credits. You need to keep recharging your phone once every month or so otherwise your number will expire. Phone cards can be purchased from any phone booth. The downside of scratch cards is that the calls are more expensive and you may run out credits in the middle of a phone call. It's a better choice if you don't make a lot of phone calls.
Post-paid costs 4000YR to set up and requires a 4000YR deposit. You need to buy a SIM card, then pay 8000YR initially to have it switched from pre-paid to post-paid. There is a 500YR monthly fee whether you make calls or not. You get an SMS every month telling you how much your bill is and you need to go to one of the offices to pay your bill. The per-minute charge is about 60% of the pre-paid system so if you plan to make a lot of calls, the post-paid system makes more sense.
?New cell phones cost as same as anywhere else, meaning you can probably find phones cheaper in your home countries when they are on sale. Generally speaking, if you live in Europe, Asia, or Africa, you can use your phones in Yemen and only need to buy a SIM card. If you are coming from N. America, S. America, Japan or S. Korea, your phone will not work in Yemen unless you have an unlocked tri, quad, or super-duper phone that has different bands.
The following info is for students coming from the U.S.:Most phone companies in the US use the 1900MHz band and some use the 850MHz band in rural areas. Yemen and most Asian and African countries use the 900MHz band. Most European countries use both the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands. The two most important bands to have are 1900 and 900. Not all triband phone cover these two bands, so you need to read the fine print to see which three bands the phone covers. Phones that have 900, 1800, and 1900MHz bands are excellent internationally and very good in the US. Phones with 850, 1800, and 1900Mhz bands are excellent in the US, useful in some European countries, and
useless in Yemen. Quadband phone cover all four bands, so you should be fine.
In addition to the band confusion, most phones that come free or at a discount with a calling plan are locked which means that you can't use it with a different service. You can flash the firmware to unlock it, but you need to know what you are doing. The last catch - phones bought in the U.S. do not display Arabic so you won't be able read or type Arabic SMS's. It is especially frustrating when your Yemeni friend sends you a message in Arabic and all you see is garbled symbols. You can flash your phone to have Arabic installed, but it's a task for people with too much time on their hands.
If you read this far and aren't confused yet, you are definitely a phone geek. If you have no idea what I was talking about, buy a cheap phone in Yemen, which is what I did, and live happily ever after.
Canada and S. America use the similar system as the U.S. so you may find the above information useful.
Japan and S. Korea use some kind of super advanced CDMA system that is way ahead of the rest of the world.
