The Malaysian telephone sector is dominated by Telekom Malaysia. The communications infrastructure is highly advanced and you can get all the service you are probably used to from your home country.
The telecommunications network, certainly landlines but also internet, is widely spread throughout the country. So you probably will not end up anywhere without the possibility to communicate with the outside world.
If you are making long-distance calls (any call outside your area code) you have to dial the STD (Subscriber trunk dialling), which in Malaysia, as in many other countries, is 0. This is followed by the different area codes. The codes in Peninsular Malaysia have only one digit (3 to 7 and 9) whereas East Malaysia has two digits, all beginning with the number 8.
Telephone numbers in Penninsular Malaysia, excluding prefixes, consist of 7 digits (the exception being Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Putrajaya which have 8 digits) and 6 digits in East Malaysia.
In practice this means if you want to make a national long-distance call to Kuala Lumpur (area code 3), you have to dial: 0 + 3 + 8-digit phone number.
A call to a city in East Malaysia would be: 0 + 8x + 6-digit phone number.
The country code for Malaysia is +60. To dial to Malaysia from a foreign country dial: 00 (IAC-International Access Code) + 60 + area code + phone number.
Although fixed line services in Malaysia are affordable, a better, because free, alternative is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) such as Skype or MSN Messenger.
To make free internet calls both you and the person you are calling must have the same programme installed. In addition you need of course internet access, headphones and a microphone. It is also possible to use VoIP to call mobile and fixed line phone numbers. Whereas this service is not free the fees are still cheaper than using a phone.
Other alternatives are pre-paid IDD (International Direct Dial) cards. They are abailable in handphone shops. Use your Malaysian fixed line to make the calls. Dial the code you can find on the card followed by country code, area code and phone numbers.
If you have no own fixed phone line use the public phones which are accessible in many supermarkets and post offices.