Kinshasa - Post Report Question and Answers
Do you have any recommendations regarding mobile phones? Did you keep your home-country plan or use a local provider?
Google Fi works okay here. Others report that AT&T has decent service. There are local options but not very reliable. Contact CLO to see what the current recommendations are. - May 2024
You can bring your own and use a local SIM card. The Embassy, USAID, CDC will help you with that. - Aug 2022
We have Google-Fi. It works great here! - May 2022
We went with the local provider. I can't really advise as I suspect others are doing it better. - Aug 2019
I had a local SIM for a while but you have to add credit in-person at stores, which is time-consuming and annoying. I switch to GoogleFi, which allows you to use any of the local providers. This is great, because various companies often have temporary outages or random slow-downs. It was also much cheaper than paying for local data, which runs $50-$100/mo depending on how much data you use. - Apr 2019
Come with an unlocked iPhone or equivalent. Most people communicate locally via WhatsApp which works well. - Dec 2017
Get one through the US embassy if you are an employee. - Dec 2017
Everyone ends up with 2 phones. Work phone (or Embassy provided for spouses) and personal phone. Must be unlocked to use a local SIM card. - Mar 2017
The best local provider depends on your specific location/building. Most people use Airtel, Vodacom, or Orange and refill credit monthly. You can try them all out since SIM cards are cheap. Bring an unlocked phone. - Jan 2017
Vodacom had the best network. - Sep 2016
Airtel, Vodocom and Orange are all here. We brought our own phones (one Android and one iPhone) that were unlocked and bought SIM cards here - we refill them monthly and the cost is not prohibitive (I put US$40/month on my phone for calls and 3G). The Embassy also provides phones to both employees and EFMs here (with a small monthly allowance for the EFM - USG employee gets work calls paid for and gets a monthly bill for personal calls). We used Airtel and have been very pleased. - Apr 2016
Embassy personnel, direct hires and family members, are assigned cell phones for business and personal use. There are no landlines in homes. - Jan 2014
Most people who work have two numbers with either Vodacom, Tigo, or Airtel, as network coverage varies. - Nov 2012
We had Vodacom, provided through the embassy. There aren't many options. - Feb 2012
Vodacom -- very pricy. - Nov 2011
Buy your simcard and start calling: it's cheap and network coverage is surprisingly large. Don't forget to bring your blackberry to have instant mails - Aug 2011
There basically no landline phones here. What ones there are are limited to specific locations: inside the Embassy or JAO. Everyone (locals and non- Mission people) here has a cell phones and uses phone cards/SIM cards. Everyone has at least one cell phone. - Jan 2011
There are a few cell phone companies; service is good. - Jan 2009
