There are three GSM service providers operating in Armenia. It is strongly advised to acquire a temporary prepaid SIM card as they are cheap and convenient, allowing both local and international calls, no charge for incoming calls and no monthly fee. Mobile internet and UTMS are also offered from all companies, as well as the normal full range of wireless services.
VivaCell and Orange have booths offering free SIM-Cards to incomming visitors at the airport. They are also easiest to top-up (at pretty much any store or kisok in the country!) and have better English service, rates and coverage.
Majority of foreign visitors find their unlocked mobile phones compatible with Armenian SIM cards (GSM 900/1800). GSM coverage maps of Armenia: .
VivaCell(Armenian, English, and Russian) is the leading GSM service provider in Armenia and offers quality service at reasonable rates (owned by the Russian giant MTS). They have the best coverage outside of Yerevan. VivaCell pre-paid SIM card ("ALO" card) costs AMD 1100-7000 (USD 3-20) depending on how much starting credit you want. At their flagship store off of Republic Square, VivaCell is very helpful to forgeiners and will make sure that you understand everything in English, French or Russian. They offer very low prices for international calls from your phone via a VoIP (be sure to dial 77 00+country code+the number, i.e.77001... for US or 770048... for Poland!), infact it is much cheaper per minute to call the US or Canada(13AMD/$0.03) or Russia(30AMD/$0.08) than it is to dail Armenian networks.
Beeline(Armenian and Russian) (formerly ArmenTel but have switched to the Russian brand) also have a pre-paid card. Note: this option may no longer be available to those without Armenian residency, although Russians and Ukrainians seem to be exempted.
Orange(Armenian and English) (The French multi-national is a newcommer, in the country since mid-2009) offers a pre-paid card called Let's Talk with complicated but competitive rates. All networks in Armenia(35AMD/$0.09) lower rates may apply within the network or for night-time calls, US or Canada(15AMD/$0.04), Russia(30AMD/$0.08).
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Yerevan
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Yerevan - updated Apr 2024
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Yerevan Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
