At JNB airport there's a place that rents out mobile phones - in the arrivals hall turn right, no idea of prices. Using your own phone and getting a SIM is easy and probably much cheaper - R1-2 at any supermarket or other large chain store. Top it up with R50 and you're set.

Has anyone used international calling cards to call UAS from Africa?

USA not UAS

We have spent several months in Cape Town for the last few years, and found it was easy and cheap to buy a phone in one of the big discount stores - Target type. Then get a SIM card and some time.

The only difference in the last year is that you have to have identification - passport is fine - so they can record your ownership of the phone. That has somewhat limited the sale of SIM cards, as vendors don't necessarily want to make the investment in technology/time for the security process. But we still got a SIM card for about 20 rand - 2 Euros.

An unlocked quadband phone can be had for less than $50 these days. Check ebay, tigerdirect, dell, amazon, etc. Also, most of the pgones sold by tmobile and AT&T these days are quadband. They both will provide the unlock code upon request.

BTW, there are 2 versions of the nokia 1100. The USA one with 850/1900 bands, and the Europe/Africa/Asia one with 900/1800 bands.

Lastly, nobody should rent a phone in this day and age, where phones are quite cheap and sims can be had easily and almost free.

Update - the phone my friend loaned me is a Cingular phone made by Samsung. I first tried to get a SIM card from Vodacom, but it would not work with my phone (although it would work with the clerk's phone). So I went across the mall to the MTN store, and their SIM card worked in my phone with no problem. SIM cards at both stores were R5 (about US$0.75).

FYI - Cingular changed its name back to AT&T, so Cranachin's phone was an AT&T phone. Don't want any more confusion.

Thanks for the info, Cranachin. I will be in exactly the same situation.