Need to make a phone call? You can use the payphones or a mobile phone. Payphones can be widely found in the big cities. They are red, green, blue or gold. Using the red phones, it is only possible to make local phone calls while with the other ones international calls can also be carried on. Depending on the type of the phone coins, telephone cards as well as credit cards can be used for payment. The most common coin, accepted by the payphones, is 50 cents since Australian 50 cents have a unique shape that is unlikely to be faked by using a foreign coin that has a less value.

And mobile phones... Two mobile standards are being used in Australia. GSM is widely used at the coastal area while the coverage weakens pretty fast outside the cities and in the outback. Therefore, CDMA is being used in the areas that are not covered by GSM. It is planned to switch from CDMA to UMTS in the rural areas in the near future.

It is possible to buy a mobile phone from Australia as well as using an Australian SIM card on a foreign mobile phone. To be able to do this, the phone should not be sim locked. If it is, it should be unlocked in advance. There are many options for obtaining a SIM card. Prepaid cards are preferred by those who do not talk on the phone so much as well as by those who plan to stay in Australia for a limited amount of time. Some service providers also give the possibility to rent a SIM card for upto 1 month. The rental contract can be extended accordingly.

Dialing an international phone number from Australia is a bit tricky. Normally the country code and the phone number follows a double zero ('00') pattern all over the world. In Australia '0011' should be dialled before the country code instead. So to be able to call 08151 270148 in Germany the phone number should be dialled like below:

0011 49 8151 123456

It may also be useful to know the code numbers of each capital city in Australia as well as of Australia itself:

Australia	:	(61)
Adelaide	:	(08)
Brisbane	:	(07)
Canberra	:	(02)
Darwin	:	(08)
Hobart	:	(03)
Melbourne	:	(03)
Perth	:	(08)
Sydney	:	(02)