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Telephones in Morocco

Telephones

The easiest way to call within Morocco or abroad is to use a public phone booth (cabine), which takes a phonecard (télécarte) issued by Maroc Télécom. The cards are available from some news agents and tabacs, and from post offices, and come in denominations of 18dh, 30dh, 60dh and 99dh – the higher denomination cards give you more units per dirham. Card phones are now widespread throughout the country, and you can usually find a number of them by a town’s main post office if nowhere else. Unfortunately, they are not very well maintained, and often don’t work. Not infrequently, they dock a unit or two from your card and fail to connect you, but they are still the best and most convenient way to make calls.

téléboutique

An alternative is to use a téléboutique, which you’ll find in abundance in all towns, great and small. You can dial abroad from almost all of these. Some use coins – 5dh and 10dh coins are best for foreign calls (you’ll probably need at least 20dh) – others give you a card and charge you for the units used. In big cities, you’ll find a telephone section in the main post office (PIT centrale), often with its own entrance and long hours 24 hours a day in some places. Alternatively, you can make calls through a hotel. Even fairly small places will normally do this; however, it’ll cost you, so be sure to ask in advance both about possible surcharges and the chargeable rate. Note that international calls from a PTI or a hotel are usually charged for each three-minute period. If you go one second over, you’re charged for the next period. If phoning from a PTI, you can request the operator to cut you off after a three-minute period.

Some téléboutiques will send a fax for you – and, by arrangement, receive one for you. A few also have a photocopier, but they are not well maintained and you may have to visit several to find one which works well. Newsagents, stationers and bookshops may also do photocopies.

Mobile phones in Morocco can be used from most places (the country now has about 90 percent coverage), and populated areas of the Western Sahara, but note that prepaid cards from abroad cannot be charged up or replaced in Morocco, so remember to bring enough credit with you. One or other of the Moroccan mobile service providers Maroc Télécom and Méditel will probably have a roaming agreement with your provider at home, but calls are expensive, and you pay to receive them as well as to make them.