I have a question. Are the pay phones at the CDG airport like the ones in the FRA airport and they take Euros so I can call to the States. (It has like a pink box on the top with a "T"). I have a ATT prepaid phone card to. Can I just use that? If I do have to buy a phone card, where would I get one and are they easy to use?

A few years back I got a phone card at the Relais store at CDG. I asked for local versus international calls.

I've never looked for a pay phone at Roissy airport, but IME it's been years since pay phones of the type you actually put coins into were to be found anywhere in France. I wouldn't count on finding one (and if you go to the official CDG website and search under Services there's no mention of them that I can find). Just go to the Relais and get a télécarte.

I have used public phones at CDG on a few occasions. As I recall, none of them accepted coins as StCirq mentions. I am not sure if your ATT prepaid card would work; you could always try, and if unsuccessful pop in the Relais store (book/magazine/confectionary) and purchase a télécarte from the cashier. It comes with a toll-free number to dial and I found that even a 5 euro one allows fairly lengthy calls to North America.

FWIW, I also have a calling card which gets billed to my home phone that normally works from overseas also using toll free local access numbers. If you have one of those, it might also be worth a try.

not 100 pct sure, but I don't think the pay phones at CDG take coins any more. Another vote for that.

I'm pretty sure of two things: I put coins in a payphone at CDG within the last three years, and I do recollect kerouac posting a couple of years ago that there were still coin-operated pay phones at CDG.

Mind you, things do change.

Paging kerouac ...

It's been quite a while since I used a pay phone at CDG but IIRC with a calling card like AT&T one first dials a toll free local access number and doing that does not require payment. Perhaps someone with more recent experience can verify.

After seeing kerouac's earlier post, I made special note to find the coin pay phones at CDG and they are there. It would be a lot cheaper to simply purchase an international calling card sold at any airport tabac or magazine store.

You could purchase a Lebara SIM for your mobile phone. Lebara charges .09€/minute for calls to North America.

I use the phones there as I call the shuttle company upon arrival. Once I bought a calling card at one of the nearby kiosks. But, from what I remember, there are also coin phones. There were two different kinds of phones. One was the big, silver ones and the other was a smaller one that I think was a yellow color.

On one trip, I needed to call the toll free number to the shuttle company to inform them that I had arrived. I tried calling from the small phone (yellow?), but the number wouldn't work. I tried all of the phones in that area of the same type.

I then went to information and was told to buy a calling card which I shouldn't have needed to make a toll free call. I bought one and then saw the silver phones and tried the toll free number on one of those and it worked fine and without having to use the calling card. Go figure. Happy Travels!