Cell Phone Solution for Paris
 

I don't know if there is a good solution for what I would like to do, let alone an affordable one.

My wife and I will be in Paris for 6 days (then to Belgium for 3). We will be together most of the time, but will take several hours on a few days to part ways and explore different interests on our own in Paris.

When we've done this in Rome in the past, she had a calling card and would call my cell phone to let me know where she was or where we should meet or whatever. That's an expensive inbound call. You can easily incur $50 in charges before you blink doing it that way.

I am curious if there are affordable solutions for what we do. Basically, we'd need two cell phones and a calling plan or pre-paid solution. I'm not sure where to even start looking; it doesn't look like ATT Wireless is the right spot for this.

I believe both of our phones are capable of operating on the European networks if that helps me at all.

Basically, we'd like a way to stay in touch when we split up for a while so we can make the most of our time both apart and together.

Can anyone point me to information or a company that does what I'm looking for?

Are you from the USA? Is your carrier either AT&T or T Mobile USA? Apparently you do and from your story about Roma,you've used international roaming...

Unfortunately French prepaid mobile carriers are among the most expensive in the world and there is no really cheap solution I could give you which I can with the UK....

Calling using an American roaming carrier is expensive...a ridiculously high 99¢/minute (T Mobile) or $1.29/minute (AT&T which drops to 99¢/minute if you pay an extra $6.99/month) to both make and receive calls so you would have a double whammy....but text messaging is not terribly expensive so if it's a case of wanting to be able to rendez vous or I'm going to be late or meet me in St. Louis Louis, you can text message between yourselves.

Others have suggested you look into Roam simple (www.roamsimple.com)..if you already have gsm unlocked phones (if they're locked you can call your carrier to get the unlocking code)..$9 for a French sim card, not prepaid calls are billed to your credit card, you get the free reception of calls within France and you would be making a local call which cost only 59¢ (US) per minute and only one would pay as while in France, receiving calls is free...this seems to be the best solution...not terribly cheap to call the USA ($0.79) but you could fool around with my old friend enlinea which offers a callback service (they give you a US number to call, you ring the US number, the call is not completed so no charge, you hang up, they call you back and you enter the number followed by the number sign key now, and the call goes through..price is 28¢/minute (US) and remember you don't pay on the French end since you are receiving the call which triggers the international call..the more I think about this, the more I believe this is by far the best solution....(they have similar services for Germany and Italy; I wouldn't use their UK solution as there are very very very cheap ways to call using a mobile phone from the UK to Canada or the USA for as little as 3p/minute with a free sim card.

Hope that helps.

The cheapest way I find is to just buy a French simcard when I get there - I am going to try my old one from 2 years ago first and if it doesnt work will renew it.
I've been told the 'roaming' option is very expensive.???

French sim cards are among the most expensive in the world...and the thieves in France steal your credit after a specified number of days and then invalidate the card six months after they steal your credit...unlike sim cards from many countries, you can't keep the card active by simply making a transaction (I do it with web browsing although sim messages work too)...if you top up a French card for €10, after 15 days, they steal your remaining credit unless you top up again and while the card remains valid to receive calls, six months later, if not topped up, the card is history...with a €15 top up you get a months, €25 you get two months...what a bunch of thieves.

I can't see a down side to the roam simple solution above...for $9 you don't have to worry about renewing it every 60 days (according to the web site at the end of a year, they bill you $9 again and the cards are post paid not pre paid...is there fine print I'm missing????) or try www.tinyurl.com/37cpvh although somewhere in there is some fine print about paying $60/year....

Thanks for that info mdtravel - We are in Paris for 7 nights and aim to just use one phone. If we get seperated we usually have a pre-arrangement on what we will do.

xyz123 (or anyone else), can you say more about texting being cheaper than calling when overseas? I was not aware that this was the case. That is, if I do not have a text messaging plan, do normal texting rates apply, or is there some special overseas "text roaming" as with calls? Thanks.

I pay around 75 cents (aust) for a text message when I'm overseas.

You have to check with your carrier on their specific text messaging plan...I know I have T Mobile US as my US carrier...they charge me 35¢ for a text message while travelling and nothing to receive...but I have a grandfathered unlimited text messaging plan...I think the norm is 50 free incoming text message a month and certain fees to send text message...as always different carriers have different policies and different add ons!

I believe T-Mo charges a flat 35¢ within or without Europe with no charge for incoming - my kids used this method to talk incessantly from Europe to US last summer - with T-Mo Family Unlimited texting.

I was in Paris year before last and just used my phone...AT&T. It was .99 per minute with a 5.99 fee. Sounds like it's gone up. I was there for nine days and my charges were about 50.00 when I got home. I'm not a talker and just had it with me incase my SO needed to contact me in emergency. I checked in with him about every other day. I could certainly see where this wouldn't work so well if you were making a lot of calls, or talk a long time, or using it daily to make dinner reservations etc, but in my case, it was the easiest way to go and wasn't all that expensive.

Within the past week I purchased two reconditioned Motorola V180 phones and two $9 France SIMs from Roam Simple. They arrived within two days, from Toronto to San Diego!! One of the batteries wouldn't charge, so Adam immediately sent a replacement phone and battery, which charged just fine.

I haven't used them in France yet, but I had numerous questions before purchasing, and Adam answered my e-mails the same day--sometimes within the hour. When I e-mailed him about the defective battery/phone, he called me so we could try various things in real time--and then said he would send a new set.

I will post an update about the use of the phones when we return in early June. So far, the Roam Simple customer service has been very responsive.

One more thought--for the few days in Belgium, calls made using the France SIM card would cost more than they cost in France, but using a Europe or World SIM from Roam Simple would make ALL calls in Paris more expensive. And the roaming cost of using the France SIM in Belgium is not too different from using a World or Europe SIM.

So the France SIM would be your best bet is you used the Real Simple product.

I think in this case - the best option for the OP would be stick w/TXT messaging. It is definitely cheaper than calling.

I know of 2 very reasonable options for a solution, one free and one very modestly priced.
www.talkster.com is the free solution (a dial-in service)

www.callineurope.com is the low-priced solution based in the US! a cheap SIM card with incoming calls free and outgoing calls 0.39 per min.

bookmark.

Are the days of buying a cheap calling card at a tabac and using payphones in France over? It used to be the cheapest way to make local calls and calls to the US were not too bad, either. Doesn't work between two tourists, however.

Thank you every body.

My wife and I both have ATT as our carrier and both have Razr phones; one is about a month old and one is about a year old.

So if I go with the text message route, I don't have to have my phone unlocked, I don't have to change SIM cards, I don't really have to do anything...true statement?

And text messages are 75 cents per text message, from the last report?

mdtravel--Last summer we used our Razr phones from AT&T with no problems. We did the $5.99 for the international plan, which made the rate .99 per minute. Texts were .50 per sent text, but there was no charge for incoming. I didn't do anything except go to my local AT&T center, have them put in their system the international plan, and we were set to go. Our phones were both about a year old at the time.

T-Mobile:

Voice 99¢/min, no monthly charge.
Text 35¢ outgoing, 0¢ incoming
International Roaming must be activated (can be done on My.T-Mobile.com for free)

You may think the cost of sending or
receiving text messages is small...
have a read of this article!

http://gthing.net/the-true-price-of-sms-messages/

What a crock.

I pay $20 for unlimited messaging for my family of five (individuals are $10), no qualification.

The article author should ask T-Mo - it's a competitive market out there.

Robespierre,

You missed the point. What the author
is pointing out is that the actual
cost of texts to the carriers is
infinitesimally small and the charges
insanely high.

So even if you are paying 20 bucks
it's basically costing T-mobile nothing, you're adding to their
bottom line nicely.

Rob

With AT&T sending texts while roaming is $0.50. Receiving comes out of your text plan, so in essence it's free. However, if you do not have a text plan, or have used up all the texts in your bucket (unless you have unlimited of course), then it also costs $0.50 to receive.

I contacted Roam Simple and learned that a French SIM card costs $19 to buy. The per call and per minute charges are below, and are paid AFTER you perform the action...it is not pre-paid.

Costs:
Incoming: $0 while in France
Local calls made within France: $0.59 / minute
Calls to North America: $0.79 / minute
International Calls to Other Countries: $1.49 per minute


This doesn't sound too bad for what I want.

We'd likely still use a calling card that we buy in Paris for calling home...seems like a better rate.

I just wonder if I would be better off buying the card in France as it seems like $19.00 is a bit high. It is an Orange/France Telecom card.

I speak zero French; that makes me nervous to walk into an Orange store and try to communicate what I want to do.

Guess I'm just posting this to see if there are any thoughts on the rates and costs, and my situation.

As I posted earlier (3/29), we bought two phones and French SIMs from Roam Simple. Fortunately, we bought at the previous price ($9 per SIM card), so it was an even better deal. Because we had a problem with one phone, I am able to report that Adam did a great job of making sure the problem was solved--and all of our earlier questions were answered.

d claude bear,

I also have the Roam Simple and $9 France SIM. I bought all a few months ago. I am leaving on Tuesday. I charged the phone and had a few questions, so called them. They are so nice. While talking with him, he asked when I had bought it and wanted me to check something, as some tri bands were mistakenly sent out, rather than quads....sure enough, mine was one. He is sending the new quad, overnight. The phone will look the same etc..number is with the SIM, not the phone...Good thing I called!!

Hello Gracejoan3--

Did you buy the Motorola V180 phone? How did you check to see if it was triband or quad?

Follow-up to previous message:

I e-mailed Adam (at Roam Simple) and got step-by-step instructions on how to go through several screens to find the type of phone. Both of my (our) phones are, in fact, quad band.

As before, his attention to messages requesting help is spectacular; prompt, easy to understand, responsive to the request.

Yes, mine is the Motorola V 180. He told me that it was Motorola who did the mix-up. They had no way of knowing who might have the wrong ones til they ran into problems in Europe.

He walked me through the process to check them..I guess you have all that taken care of now. I will receive my new one overnight. Glad I called with some questions. They are nice people.

Europelover2--

I bought two phones and France SIMs from Roam Simple because my wife and I want flip phones; the SIMs cost (at that time) $9 each; we expect primarily to call each other and places like restaurants while we are out wandering; we don't expect to call the US (calls to the US are free from our apartment); and we don't expect to make many calls. In addition, no one could be more helpful than Adam, at Roam Simple.

d claude bear,

My phone arrived..overnight. Adam had the battery all charged and everything ready to go!

I will be back on May 1st. I will let you know how everything went. Will you still be here?

Gracejoan3--

Assuming American Airlines is able to resume its schedule to DFW, we will leave on 29 April and, by 1 May, will have discovered how well our phones work in Paris.

Because the SIMs can access T-Mobile in the US (at a very high per-minute rate!) we used each phone to call the other's Paris number, and it worked both times: the phones rang (and we tried to avoid the charge by not answering).

I am very confident the phones will work well and meet our needs in Paris (30 April -- 1 June). Thanks for the offer.

By the way, we are bringing a laptop and should have internet access at our apartment, so I should be able to read your posts as they occur.

Bon voyage!!

d claude bear

I broke down and bought a laptop, too. This will be my first trip with it. This is my last trip for less than a month. That flight is just too miserable to make it any shorter!

I have a place rented for a month Sept/Oct and another April/May, 2009 and then 2 places in Brittany of 2 weeks each for Sept/Oct 2009...Brittany is large and you need to re-locate.

From here (Asheville, NC) I use Delta..either shuttle to ATL or CVG (Cinn).

They are saying that some other airlines are going to have some of these inspections..who knows, who will be next...if all MB 80's, I should not have a problem.

Good luck with AA..have a good trip..

If the FAA requires replacement (re-spacement) of every cable tie in their MD-80 fleet, it will get very, very expensive for whoever has to do it (probably Boeing).

<i>p.s.<i> Given that the correct distances were spelled out in the documentation, how were the aircraft in question certified (by the FAA) in the first place?</i></i>