Thanks "car" , you answered a question I have been worried about. I'm tied to a cell phone at home and I don't want to see one on holidays but I need that apt. contact as well-

Goatee, I can't answer your question, as I don't really know what's available in what stores - I'll find out more when I get to France this coming week. I think there may be a difference between where you can get a SIM card, which has a computer chip on it, and where you can get a recharge card, which is just a paper card with a number under a scratch-off coating. (By the way, "SIM" stands for "Subscriber Identification Module".)

My original impression was that you have to go to a phone store or a large store like FNAC to get a SIM card, while you can get a recharge card at pretty much any tabac.

Then a message was posted by "carcassone" on this thread that said, "We landed in CDG two weeks ago and found a place that sells SIM from SFR. We came in on American Airline and after we exited to the public area, we turned right, went passed the airport information center and next to it, there is a booth that sells magazines/postcards/tabac and SIM cards. It has pictures of different cell phones hanging above its cash register."

That implied to me that at least some of the tabacs actually sell SIM cards, in addition to the recharge cards. But perhaps this one does just because it's at the airport, or perhaps it's atypical, carrying SIM cards as well as the usual recharge cards. So in the final analysis, I don't really have any firm information about where you can buy the SIM cards (as opposed to the recharge cards).

Some other comments: In general, a new SIM card arrives with some token amount of minutes on it, to get you started. If you buy a French SIM card in the US from some outfit like telestial, you'll pay $59, but get $10 worth of minutes on the SIM (see "http://www.telestial.com/products/france_sim.htm". After you use that up, you'll have to recharge.

But my daughter was recently in Hungary, and I got the impression from her experience that if you purchase within a European country, the trend now is to include with a SIM card an amount of euros which is close to, if not equal to, the face value of the SIM card. In other words, you no longer pay much of a premium for the SIM card itself. I think she bought a SIM card in Hungary for around $20 that had $20 worth of calling on it. If this is true for France, it means that telestial is charging $49 extra for the SIM card over what you'll pay in France. But I don't know if this is true for France. Carcassone's posting above speaks of a "Starter Package" for 20 Euros, but doesn't say how many Euros worth of airtime you get for that.

- Larry

Larry...

What you get with the purchase of a SIM pack has nothing to do with where you buy it. The rip off places such as Telestial simply are selling the same exact package you would get if you bought it in the country of origin and when you register the card or whatever in the country of origin for the first time, you will get the time the company's policy gives you.

You are much much wiser to wait till you get to a country to buy a SIM pack than to pay the obscenely rip off prices these American companies are charging where they triple the local price.

Thanks Larry, the reason I was asking about buying a card in the airport was because I'll be arriving in Paris on a Sunday morning and I believe that if I waited to buy it in the city, I would have to wait until Monday as most stores I would imagine are closed (although I have heard that there are parts of Paris where stores are open, perhaps in the Marais or Les Halles?). I guess I could live without cell phone access to a day.. hehe Anyway, I hear from my contacts in France that SFR is preferable to Orange for some reason (price?).

Hi Larry,

The 20e starter kit we tried was a SIM card (with a chip) not the recharge card. It was from SFR; came in what looks like an off the shelf SFR blister package with a booklet. We don't know how many minutes of phone time it comes with since it didn't work with our phone. Maybe the SFR web site would have info.

We had an unlocked Sony Ericsson GSM Tri band (850/1800/1900) but it couldn't pick up any provider signal when we tried it at the tabac stand. A newer quad band might have worked. Also it might have worked once we're in Paris with more coverage.

I think SFR is better than Orange since Orange is relative new (started this year) and coverage might not be as good as the old timers.

Sorry to disillusion you but Orange France which was originally French Telecom has been around at least as long as SFR if not longer and its coverage is just as good if not better than SFR.

Now here is what might be the problem...you have an American tri band phone as America, as you may or may not know, is contrary minded when it comes to mobile phones and GSM frequencies. 99% of the world operates on both 900 and 1800. USA GSM operate on 850 and 1900. Now T mobile operates only on 1900 and when it sells tri band phones, they operate on 900/1800/1900 which means you will be fine in Europe whether the country uses 900 or 1800.

Cingular and AT&T Wireless use both 850 and 1900. The tri band phones they sell, use 850/1800/1900. Purely and simply you might have been in an area where SFR only uses 900 and your phone lacks this vital frequency so you were up the creek without a paddle as they say. Yes it might well have worked in downtown Paris but as you say you didn't have time to give it try.

SFR (La Carte) and Orange FR (mobilcarte) are pretty much equal in penetration and their rates are very close; there are subtle differences which you would have to research by consulting the respective web sites.

But the most important thing is to make sure you have an unlocked phone with both the 900 and 1800 frequencies for use in Europe to be on the safe side. That is not to say there aren't some regions of various countries which don't have 1800 service but it could be a problem.

Tri band phones sold by Cingular and AT&T WS are inadequate for use in Europe. Only tri band phones sold by T Mobile will work on both frequencies; one of the advantages of T Mobile over Cingular and AT&T. That and the fact that T Mobile provides unlocking codes for its phones after 3 months while AT&T adamantly refuses to give unlock codes for their phones. Some Cingular phones come unlocked; others don't and they aren't loose with unlocking codes.

Finally quad bands are very new and have had a lot of bugs. As a matter of fact, Cingular no longer sells the Motorola V600 one of the first quad bands as it is full of bugs and the V600 T mobile sells has had 850 deactivated as T mobile never uses 850.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, Carcassone, for the clarification, and thanks, xyz123, for clearing up who uses what frequencies!

I should be all set. I bought an Orange SIM card on eBay, and my phone is a Motorola TimePort tri-band that covers 900/1800/1900 (I don't use it in the US). We'll see when I arrive on Friday.

Carcassone, the only thing I don't understand is how you were able to try the SIM card before buying it, since you said it comes in a "blister pack". Ordinarily, you have to purchase a blister pack before you can open it, because once you open it, the store can't re-sell it. If a SIM card comes in an open pack, for all you know someone has used up all the initial minutes.

- Larry

Hi Larry,

My husband was handling the whole transaction while I glanced over from the back. I think he indicated to the clerk he wanted to try it first and the clerk agreed. They then proceeded to open the package and put the SIM in. After they fiddled around and couldn't get any signal, the clerk gave the quintessential "no possible" and shrugged. I think he was even thinking about opening another package when my husband stopped him since he speculated it was his phone. The clerk never asked us for the money and didn't seem annoyed at all. Maybe this happens a lot at the airport?

The Orange SIM card you bought on eBay, is it the kind that you can check the minutes left via a web site?

Do let us know the outcome as this is a frequent question on the board.

Have a good trip!

Carcassone, you asked, "The Orange SIM card you bought on eBay, is it the kind that you can check the minutes left via a web site?"

The answer is yes. But of course, I think you can ALWAYS check the minutes left FROM THE PHONE. We had a Vodaphone SIM card in Spain, and it would give us our minutes via an SMS text message. The guide for my French Orange card specifies how to get your balance two different ways: either by an SMS text message, or a computerized voice.

The instructions also say you can get your balance over the internet, at "http://www.orange.fr/", so I tried it. You click on the tab "Mon compte" (My account). This takes you to a screen where you enter your phone number ("No. de mobile"), and a password ("Mot de passe"). I don't know the password for my SIM card (I suspect that the original user never used this feature), so I clicked on "Mot de passe oublié?" That gives you a screen where you can enter your phone number, and they'll send your password to the phone in an SMS text message. So I won't be able to take this any further until I'm in France.

By the way, they call getting your balance "suivi conso". It took a slang dictionary of French to figure out that "conso" is short for "consommation", and is most commonly used to refer to a bar tab. So "suivi conso" means following your consumation of minutes.

And there you have it.

- Larry

Mystery solved! I bought my SFR card at Terminal 1. Proceed to the bottom level and go to the Relay store. They sell SFR and Orange SIM cards there. They will have you fill out a form and you're all set. The card cost €30, which included some bonus time.

topping for selfish purposes :)...I want to be able to reference this later.

Thanks, goatee!

I just got back from France, but didn't spend enough time in CDG to do any looking around - just moved hastily between terminals.

The main thing I wanted to add to this thread: when I recharged my phone at a <i>tabac</i>, I asked whether the <i>tabacs</i> carry SIM cards in addition to recharge cards. The answer was &quot;no&quot;. You typically have to go to a phone store, or an outlet like the Relay store you found, to get a SIM card. The <i>tabacs</i> only carry the recharge cards.

While in France, I recharged the phone twice. The first time, I was sold a scratch card with the 14-digit recharge number under a scratch-off coating. That's the system I was familiar with from past usage. The second time, the salesman went to some sort of electronic register or terminal and entered a code and the amount of the recharge I wanted to buy. The terminal printed a slip, much like a sales receipt, with the 14-digit recharge number on it, and instructions on how to enter it (in French). It warned you to enter the recharge number into your phone soon, since otherwise there would be a risk of loss or accidental erasure of the slip (like most thermally printed sales slips, it doesn't stand up to much abrasion or sunlight).

With the <i>Mobicarte</i> (Orange), if you buy a 30 euro card, you get an extra 5 euros credit as a bonus.

We found <i>Mobicarte</i> to have good coverage everywhere we went (Lyon, Roanne, and multiple sites in Provence), with one exception: the signal at the <i>Abbaye de Senanque</i> was zero.

I also forgot to get my SIM card's web password while I was in France. See my post of 9/16 in this thread; I could have had them send it to the phone as an SMS text message. Oops. Now I'm back, and it's too late. But I DID get the balance on the SIM card just before leaving, and the expiration date for that balance. I forgot to change the recorded greeting for my voicemail to say &quot;don't leave a message here, because nobody will get it.&quot;

- Larry

Hi Larry...

My mobilcarte works in the US to a degree..I can receive calls at astronomically high roaming rates and also text message. So I was able to register on their web site www.orange.fr as they sent the temporary password to my mobilcarte in the US as a text message and I was able to access the web site from here to get my information.

Of course, the mobilcarte will expire 6 months after the last recharge expires and unfortunately I am powerless to recharge it unless I go back to France. I don't understand why in this modern world, mobile phone companes to not accept credit cards to recharge prepaid plans. Some do but invariably they require a home country bank card. Thus SFR another French mobile carrier whose prepaid plan is called La Carte does allow you to recharge with a bank card but insists it be a bank card issued in France. What a moronic restriction; the whole purpose of bank cards is to make borders invisible.

I did notice that they have established with other carriers recharge services in a couple of European countries but not in the UK. I will be in the UK in February and would like to keep my French number till my next trip there in June. Perhaps by then, I will be able to do something about it.

I do know Vodafone allows you to recharge SFR phones with a Vodafone UK voucher (or any other vodafone voucher). Perhaps Orange will start a similar process.

Just go to the Information desk and they will call for you.

Who can tell me about the cost per minute for someone from America to call a cellphone that is using a simcard (in France,or another European country)?
Thanks, Andrew

There are people on this board that have a lot more knowledge than I, but I believe most incoming calls in Europe with SIM cards purchased in Europe have free incoming calls.
But your cost from America would be determined by which carrier you use. Also the country you are calling may make a difference to your cost, or if they are using a country specific SIM (the number they are assigned). But the other person using a cell phone does not necessarily enter into your cost.
I hope this helps.

Basically European GSM carriers operate on a caller pays basis to wit..

1. While in the country of issue, receiving calls on a GSM mobile carrier is free. Thus with a French sim, while in France, receiving calls on your mobile are free.

2. The caller pays a premium to call a mobile phone and that carriers over th ld carriers in North America so you will see usually 2 rates listed. Sometimes a surcharge is buried in fine print.

#xample: AT&amp;T long distance advertises a rate of 8¢/minute for calls to the UK..but buried in fine print is the fact there is a 22¢/minute surcharge for calls to UK mobiles....that being said, you can figure that most ld plans in North America would charge between 30 and 40¢/minute to call a mobile in France.

Be aware that if you leave France with your French sim, then you are roaming and will pay upwards of &euro;1/minute to receive calls while your caller willpay the rate to a French mobile no matter where you are.

My recommendation currently is riiing which allows roaming in every western European country(except Liechtenstein) and almost all Central European countries and up to the borders of Russia with free incoming to the recipient but rates to Liechtenstein which is what the caller pays vary humongously...example AT&amp;T long distance charges 10¢/minute for calls to Liechtenstein and a surcharge, readhy for this, of 1¢ (that's right one cent)/minute for calls to Liechtenstein mobiles making it a great buy although some carriers have recently increased the surcharge to Liechtenstein because of riiing to amounts close to 75¢/minute trying I guess to discourage people from using riiing.

So to summarize, figure between 30 and 40¢/us per minute to call French mobiles.

Of course, other factors to look into are billing cycles. Some carriers bill in 1 second increments; others in 1 minute intervals. Difference? A 61 second call costs the same as 2 minutes if billing in 60 second intervals but only a penny or two more than a 1 minute call on a 1 second interval calling plan.

Finally, 1016868 prefix charges 20¢/minute to call French mobiles (60 second intervals however)