Sooosally

I'm looking at this company to rent a cell phone to use in Paris. Has anyone ever used them before? Any other suggestions?

http://www.cellularabroad.com/

chapla

Why rent when you can buy a cheap cell phone.In July I bought a cell phone at the Orange store for 20 €. It came with free minutes which I never used up the month I was there but cheap/easy enough to recharge! Remember -all incoming calls are free-even if you use up alll your minutes

Sarastro

As chapla says you can purchase a phone for a fraction of the price of renting. Virgin also has a phone one can purchase for 29€ ($41) from Virgin (stores all over France). There is no setup fee and it comes with a SIM and 12 free call-out minutes. Additional minutes are available in increments of 5€ with some plans starting at .27€/minute. There is no charge for inbound calls.

www.virginmobile.fr/

Sooosally

Thanks. I'm so confused about the whole international cell phone issue. So can you make calls to the US with these cheap phones

Dukey

What you need to do first, IMO, is determine whether or not uyour own cellphone will work in Europe. if it will, then find out how much your current calling plan charges for international calls. then figure how many of those calls ytou really think you need to make. Add up the totals..is it that much more expensive?????

xyz123

If you have an unlocked gsm phone (if you are from the US and have either AT&T or T Mobile US as your carrier you have a gsm phone; both have policies that will allow the phone to be unlocked i.e. have the ability to accept sim cards from other companies) and it has at least the 1800 mhz. band (many do. 1800 will do for France but for other European countries you would want both 900 mhz and 1800 mhz if possible) the phone portion is set. If you don't, such unlocked gsm phones with 900 and 1800 are readily available on ebay for $40 and more depending on the bells and whistles you want. In that case the phone portion is met.

A very viable alternative, today is also availabe on ebay. It is called e-kit simple....on ebay the sim card is available for $9 with $3 shipping and comes with $10 credit. Today, it is a great buy; whether it will be tomorrow is always open to question. But with this sim you get both a US called a +1 number and a British called a +44 number. Calls from France to the USA are 49¢ (US currency) per minute although there is a 35¢ set up fee for each call but still far far cheaper than either T Mobile USA and AT&T rip off international roaming rates. Calls received in France (and many other European countries) are free if dialed to the +44 number (although the caller pays for a call to a UK mobile as opposed to a UK number) or if calls are made to the US +1 number, the caller pays for a US call (many people don't pay ld charges these days in the US) and you pay a mere 19¢/minute...there are also provisions for callers to call a US toll free number which you can read about. It's dirt simple, it works and the reviews on prepaidgsm.net have been pretty solid. (How can you go wrong for $12 anyway?)....now if you were going to either Britain or Germany, I might make other suggestions but for France it's very simple and you get, if from North America, a USA number to have people call you and you pay a mere 19¢/minute. Hard to beat that, really.

xyz123

BTW, the above referenced sim card can serve as a very neat prepaid card for visitors to the USA....calls you make and/or receive in the USA are 9¢/minute (although there is a 50¢ set up fee per call).....calls made to the USA number from Europe get that charge but calls made from anywhere to the +44 number are free to receive without the 50¢ set up fee in the USA and Canada! Really it seems to be a good deal.

xyz123

Being the wonderful human being I am, here is the link for the sim card referred to above:

http://tinyurl.com/pen5ln

Sooosally

Thanks for all that info.

I go crosseyed reading it.

I have Verizon. I don't think that is useable in Europe. I haven't actually asked them, just seemed that I read that somewhere. My traveling companion has AT&T and they have told her that her phone will work. I think she may not totally understand all the caveats though. Or maybe I don't. She seems to think it will be seamless. From the things I have read, it doesn't seem so. At a minimum I'm afraid it will be very expensive for her to call the US with her phone so I will be hesitant to use her phone I think.

I will need to check my voicemail here in the US at least once a day and potentially return some messages. I'm going to be there 6 days. I don't anticipate giving the number to anyone here to call me with. I will probably give the hotel phone number to family members for emergencies. I don't expect to make more than 2 or 3 calls a day...and potentially only 1 per day. Most people I work with and talk to on a daily basis will know that I am gone so they won't be calling me.

billyb68

actually im going in november...
i have verizon and you can call verizon wireless and ask for verizon wireless international and they will GIVE u an international phone as a loaner....it will be programmed to ur existing number...( u do that b4 u leave )
ok, so it costs $10 which covers the delivery to u and back to them....
then u have an option to purchase a $5 a month plan which calls will cost 99 cents a min or if u dont have a plan 1.29 a minute....texts also 50 cents outgoing etc....
i dont have the number but dial 611 on ur verizon cell and ask for intl dept....i have already done this....

Sooosally

Thanks. I will call Verizon.

nukesafe

Bookmarking

nukesafe

Whoops, XYZ, that particular link to ekits on eBay has been withdrawn.

kerouac

It costs almost nothing to call the U.S. -- unless you are using a U.S. cell phone.

xyz123

No surpriser, the thread is over a year old.

xyz123

But I am still a wonderful human being and despite the fact janisj might yell at me for responding to an old thread, why don't you try this link:

http://tinyurl.com/33syr5e

nukesafe

You are indeed a wonderful human being, xyz. Opinionated, but wonderful, none-the-less.