Cell Phones
From Alhannah
You should check with your employer on cell phone policy. Employees of Carnegie Mellon will be provided with a cell phone and charger. They are part of our security network and are required to be left on at all times in case of emergency. Do not forget to recharge them regularly.
Each family will be provided with an additional phone for private use until residency is established. You are personally responsible for the charges on this phone. You will either be billed, or need to purchase prepaid minutes via a Hala card. Non-employees must purchase their own cell phone after they have received their residency permit. They are available fairly inexpensively at the larger “hyper marts” such as Lulu’s and Carrefour, or at the cell phone souq near the dhow round about. You have two options for service:
- You can purchase a chip to activate them from Q-Tel. The chips are QR200 for 2 months (includes a QR100 credit toward calls), or QR300 for a year (includes a QR50 credit towards calls). You can then purchase prepaid minutes and/or extend the use of your phone with Hala cards. The cards are available in almost every store around town and come in denominations of QR50, QR100 and QR200. Calls cost about QR0.70 per minute.</li>
- You can apply for a contract and be billed monthly for usage. The line charge is QR445, plus QR150 “rent” every 3 months.
For either type of service, you will need a copy of your passport and residency permit when you apply to activate your phone. Go to the Q-Tel store on the first floor in City Center mall by the ice skating rink to activate your phone.</li>
At City Center, you can also sign up for online bill payment with eQtel - something very useful when bills come periodically instead of regularly. You cannot create an account with eQtel without having first visited City Center, but after you do, you can create your own username and password in order to easily access your account balance at any time. Remember to do this even while on vacation, because you may find yourself without service upon return from a long trip!
If you ever have a question about your account, balance, or service, you can contact Qtel by dialing 120 (you still dial 9 when dialing from work).
For questions regarding DSL, contact Qtel by dialing 125 (don't forget 9 when dialing from work).
For all the new people who may not know, using a cell phone while driving is not permitted except if you are using a hands-free device.
