In Germany in 2006, I brought my RAZR phone with me and bought a SIM card from the European operator O2 for it. It is simple to switch them out and you pay by the minute, adding more minutes as you go. I had a German phone number too. It was a great way to stay in touch with people, and I am hoping to do the same thing in South Africa.

The South African cellular operator MTN has exclusive mobile content rights to the 2010 Cup in that country. I saw it suggested elsewhere that this includes broadcasting live matches over phones. If that is true, that makes them the operator I will be looking to sign up with. They had mobile content rights for Germany too, so they are not new to this.

South Africa uses the GSM standard. If your US phone plan is through AT&T/Cingular or T-Mobile, you've got GSM too. If not, you can probably pick up a cheap used RAZR (make sure it is a v3 model; look for "quad band GSM") from eBay. Whatever you do, you need to make sure the phone is unbound from your provider, or unlocked. I'll be posting more on this topic at a later date.