fbc34

Had a nice surprise on my January trip to Paris. My SIM card (SFR) still worked. Had to recharge it, of course, but I could use the chip and still had the same number. This was a surprise since I had last recharged it in June 2008.

xyz123

It's no surprise really...

French sim cards work differently than English sim cards...

When you buy a recharge, not only do you a certain amount of call credit, you only get a certain amount of validity....you cannot extend the validity as you can with English sim cards say by sending a text message...

So let's say in June 2008 you recharged the SFR card with a €25 top up....the top up is valid for two months and gives you €25 worth of call credit...

What I don't like about this is that at the end of two months, those sob's steal your remaining credit so that if on 01 June 2008 you purchased the top up and were in France for two weeks say and used €12, and had €13 left, on 01 August 2008, they steal your remaining credit However, the card remains valid for receiving calls for another six months. That means you would be able to use the card to receive calls in France until 01 February 2009. During that interval, if you recharge the account, your card then becomes valid for the additional time again so if in January 2009, your card was still valid under the terms of the tariff and so you would not lose your number. If it went past the six months, then your card would be history and you would need to purchase a new one.

With an English sim, say from T Mobile UK, your credit remains valid if you make one chargeable event in a 180 day period so that if you want to retain a T Mobile credit and number, since T Mobile UK allows roaming if you're say in the USA, you simply send a text message and the validity of the card extends for 180 days (and think this is one year for Orange UK)

Now an advantage of SFR is that it is partially owned by Vodafone so if you want to extend the validity of the card and you're in a country that has vodafone subsidiary, you can buy a voucher in that country and recharge the French sim card. So if you're in the UK and want to extend the validity of the SFR card you can go into any mobile phone provider, buy the cheapest vodafone voucher and top up the SFR card. You can't do this with Orange FR which has similar policies...the only way to top up is to purchase Orange FR top up vouchers before leaving France as they don't accept foreign credit cards on the web.

So, using this as an example, before leaving France, if it's important enough to retain your French sim number, purchase the cheapest voucher possible and before the additional six month period after they steal (and it is theft) your remaining credit, top up from wherever and you get whatever the time is for the top up and after that runs out, you have an additional six months.

Personally, I like the English system better because it is fairer and you can avoid having them steal your credit very cheaply with a text message (or just receiving a call if you're in another eu country because of the eu tariff rules)...I wish the eu would intervene in this theft of people's credit. German sim cards used to do the same thing as French ones but the German court ruled this practice illegal and so now you can extend the life of a German sim by simply making one text message every year...TIM in Italy has sort of the same policy as the French ones but they don't steal your credit for a year during which time you can top up if you remember to take with you an Italian SIM voucher before leaving Italy.

logos999

>you can extend the life of a German sim by simply making one text message every year

It actually depends entirely on the phone company. Some SIMs still expire, Vodafone has the most liberal policies (=make a call), but even Vodafone still deactivates SIM cards. The only thing the court ruled was that you must not lose your money on the account when the card expires. So quite a few companies let the card expire and you can claim back your money minus a usually 5€ administrative fee.

xyz123

Thanks logos....good stuff...I've had a vodafone DE card for a while and have had no difficulty keeping it alive (whether I really need it or not with the eu tariffs is another story!)...I've also had an Orange FR card which is a real pain to keep alive (and also to replace as French sims are expensive)....

I know there are lots of better German deals but at least vodafone DE allows me to set the voice menus to English and many of the MVNO German sims do not ship to the USA!

Betty1

I have a GSM phone with the appropriate frequencies and travel to France about once a year. On its face this looks like a good solution for my situation.

http://www.roamsimple.com/products/R...-SIM-Card.aspx

Am I missing something?

logos999

>lots of better German
Well, a new Vodafone SIM gives you either 60min after 8pm everyday or on weekends for free (national or Vodafone numbers), 30min surfing the internet on your laptop, one month free internet from your phone (or on your laptop, limited to web access, if you know the proper settings), 5 TV stations including CNN on your phone for one month. Accessing you emails from your phone without extra charge is quite nice.
However all those goodies need to be activated and since most people don't read the manual ;-), they'll never know about them.