CarolJean

I have read that you can buy a cheap cell phone at grocery stores or phone 'boutiques.' is there a place at the airport to buy a cheap prepaid phone? Thank you!

Sarastro

The phone boutiques in France are gone, Phonehouse being the largest and most well known. The Mobile phone business became a mature business as more and more people were no longer first time customers and phones became plentiful. What is left is FNAC or the service provider stores such as Orange, SFR, or Bouygues.

I know of no place at CDG where one can purchase a cheap mobile phone, or a mobile phone at any price. SIMs can be purchased at magazine stores such as Relay and virtually anywhere selling anything offers talk credits for sale.

CarolJean

Thank you for the info! That's what I needed to know.

pariswat

I recently bought a cell phone for 55 € in Orly, when my smartphone was dead.
I had my own chip, so didn't need a prepaid.
Might have been a FNAC.

If there was a possibility to buy a cellphone in Orly I guess it could work in CDG too.

I still have it - handy when going far away to have a back up cellphone.

tomboy

You can have my 10 year old Nokia 2285 for $5 + postage. You'd need a SIM card from an airport shop. (there may be a miniscule amount of time on the existing card).

Andrew

tomboy: <i>You can have my 10 year old Nokia 2285 for $5 + postage. You'd need a SIM card from an airport shop. (there may be a miniscule amount of time on the existing card).</i>

Probably completely useless in Europe. It appears to be a CDMA phone, and in Europe they use GSM.

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=277

pariswat

Which is why Belgians call a cellphone 'GSM', btw.

Handy in Germany, telefonino in Italy, portable in France, Komurka in Poland.

But we chose to call it according to technology. The day the technology changes we'll be stuck with GSM though...

tomboy

Andrew: NOT

I bought it for use in Europe, and it worked fine there. But hey, I guess I was wrong, because you know a lot about technical stuff.

The OP could also buy my Nokia 5110 same deal. I haven't used that since I bought an HTC smartphone for Euro trips.

Otherwise, I've got two cell phones gathering dust. Can't donate them to a battered women's shelter, since they don't work in the US.

Andrew

tomboy: <i>Andrew: NOT

I bought it for use in Europe, and it worked fine there. But hey, I guess I was wrong, because you know a lot about technical stuff.</i>

Sorry, you are mistaken about which phone you used in Europe. Unless all of Nokia's documentation about the 2285 is wrong. Show me *ANY* website that shows the 2285 having GSM capability.

It doesn't even have a SIM slot. Here's a user on Howard Forums asking about a lot on his 2285 - but it's not a SIM slot:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...t-for-sim-card

You might as well be swearing you played 8-track tapes in a cassette player and telling me I'm wrong because your memory is infallible.

In the era of that 2285, phone makers made models specific for each carrier. If Nokia made a model for say AT&T or T-Mobile (GSM), it would be a different model number than the Verizon or Sprint (CDMA) version.

I'm guessing you have/had another phone you forgot about and used in Europe - or you have the model number wrong.

<i>The OP could also buy my Nokia 5110 same deal. </i>

That one *IS* GSM and in theory it might in Europe...but it would probably be a complete waste of time, as the phone was introduced in 1998 (and looks like it, complete with the hard antenna sticking up - google it). I wouldn't bother with a 17 year old phone - the battery is probably completely dead. I'll stick with my 3 month old Moto E 2nd Gen 4GLTE quad core CPU Android that I paid $25 for on sale. That would will work in Europe, too. ;-)

xyz123

The reality is that smart phones are available on ebay for very basic models starting as little as $47 up through top of the line phones which are unlocked (usable on any gsm network as almost all are in Europe). If your carrier in the USA is gsm, some of these are actually good buys as by switching the sim cards, you can use the same phone in the USA (I assume you are from the USA) and with a local (Orange, SFR, for example) in France. Believe it or not, the t mobile USA deal, if and I know it's a big if you live in an area well servied by t mobile, is a phenomenal deal doing away, for the most part, with the need for local carriers. It is cheaper to use T Mobile's 20¢ per minute call rates to make both domestic calls in France and back to the USA (there are also cheaper alternatives using the internet). All these are things worth looking into.

kerouac

I think the Relay news shops still sell Bic phones for 24.90€ including 1 hour of calls.

ssander

CarolJean...

Did I miss something? I don't think you told us what kind of phone you currently have.

We've used our unlocked iPhones with European SIMs (Lebara in France and GiffGaff in UK as well as in France.

The SIMs are free...but somewhat of a chore to get in the US. You add money to them (GiffGaff at a shop, Lebara online through PayPal).

You can activate the SIM before you leave the US and swap it into your phone while on the plane, so you're good to go as soon as you land at CDG. Have a small envelope to carry the SIMs so you don't lose either one.

The rates are amazing to anyone who is used to our US carriers' outrageous overseas rates.

If you are interested, I'll try to track down the Fodors threads that explain the process. If not, please ignore this post.

ssander

xyz123

ssander...lebarra, for example, does indeed have very low rates for a local sim, granted. But...I have found for non geeks, it is hard to beat if you factor in convenience the fact that with many t mobile USA plans, you get unlimited texts, unlimited data (albeit not necessarily high speed) and calls for 20¢/minute while in 130 countries around the world including the UK, France and even Russia. (Yes I know voip and the like can be cheaper but have to be set up). What could be simpler? I was amazed this past summer when I realized just how useful the t jobile plan was as I had always been a proponent of local sim cards. Slow data, true. But wifi in most hotels today. Sat back and watched the Stanley Cup playoffs on my smartphone. As clear as day. Walked around Paris using google maps and gps and was amazed at getting directions even with the slow data. I have a dual sim phone and installed the lebarra french card just for the heck of it and used that to receive some calls (free to receive although my calle might have to pay but I have an account which allows me to set a local US number to ring to the local sim). To me it's amazing. No other US carrier, at least to the best of my knowledge has such a plan.

I do get it that t mobile domestically does not have the greatest of coverage but its basic plan we're talking about includes in North America unlimited calls, texts and a generous amount monthly of high speed data and note I said North America which includes Canada and Mexico. Now I know I sound like a troll for t mobile but to me this, compared to what once was, this seems awesome and easy. For an extra $10, I think but am not sure as I don't need it, you get calling from within North America to all over the world.

AT&T has taken some tentative steps in the same direction. Neither Sprint or Verizon are gsm carriers and coming up with such plans is a bit more problematic although I understand sprint does have low cost calling using lte within many of the same countries.

ssander

xyz123...

I think you are right about t-mobile being good. We actually looked at it when we got our phones, and were leaning towards it, but they wanted us to wait 45 days before unlocking them, and we were going to travel in less than a month. (Should have planned ahead, I guess. )

We ended up buying unlocked iPhones outright and going the SIM-swap route. A little more complicated, granted...but I thought I'd throw that option out there for consideration.

Probably not the best option for most regular folks...though the GiffGaff SIM (for the UK) was a snap...much easier than Lebara (France).

The cool thing was that my wife (who hardly uses her phone when we travel) had a bunch of money left on the GiffGaff SIM after London, so we used it on our Paris trip. The Continental roaming rates were still cheaper than the rates in ATT's international package. (She only used her phone about three times in Paris.)

SS

StCirq

I live in France. I have a $25 phone that holds 3 SIMs that I bought online on amazon.com before moving here. I have an Orange subscription, but obviously you don't need that. Just come with an unlocked cheap phone and buy a pre-paid Orange or Lebara or whatever card to get hooked up.

T-mobile seems to be a good solution for those who don't want to deal with the delicacies of getting an actual French phone.

Andrew

ssander: <i>I think you are right about t-mobile being good. We actually looked at it when we got our phones, and were leaning towards it, but they wanted us to wait 45 days before unlocking them, and we were going to travel in less than a month. </i>

I'm not sure I understand. You didn't move to T-Mobile because the phones you would have gotten could not be unlocked so you could buy local SIM cards in Europe, too? If you wanted to use only T-Mobile roaming in Europe with your US SIM cards, unlocking your phones was not needed.

I used T-Mobile roaming twice in Europe and it was great for what it was (in May, I could not use the roaming in Slovenia, Montenegro, or Bosnia, however, but it was great for Croatia and - briefly - Amsterdam). But T-Mobile's Simple Choice plan costs $50/month USD, and I've since moved to cheaper service ($30/month unlimited talk/text with Gosmart Mobile). To me, it isn't worth an extra $20/month just to use roaming a few weeks a year when I travel in Europe - for that savings, I'm happy to buy a SIM card or two when I get there - and on my recent trip I bought SIM cards in Montenegro and Bosnia, anyway, even with T-Mobile. I'm not a "power user" with my Android phone so don't need other features T-Mobile's $50/month plan might offer.

xyz123

The only problem with local sims, and I have in the past always been a fan of them, is that while the eu has been very successful in reducing and by next year eliminating roaming fee within the eu, even with local plans that have very cheap rates to call North America from their home country, calling North America from outside that country becomes very very expensive. For example, I have an O2 UK sim that has survived for a while. Costs me 2p/minute to call the USA from the UK but well over £1 to call the USA from other eu countries and it costs 40p/minute to call othe UK numbers from the UK more than the 20¢/minute making the same calls on T mMobile USA but of course everybody's call patterns are different.

Andrew

Anyone US visitor to Europe who is worried about the cost of calling the US from Europe can make most/longer calls for free on WiFi using for example Google Hangouts. Limit US calls made using the local SIM to short calls, and make longer calls on WiFi.

xyz123

...and what Andrew if your hotel or restaurant does not have wifi? (Although I will readily admit there are fewer and fewer such places.

Andrew

xyz123: <i>...and what Andrew if your hotel or restaurant does not have wifi? (Although I will readily admit there are fewer and fewer such places.</i>

As I said, you can make short calls on the local SIM card and use WiFi when it is available to make longer calls.

If you choose a hotel that does not offer WiFi, then you can pay more to make calls using the local SIM. If you need to make a long phone call at a restaurant, choose a restaurant that has WiFi or pay extra to make the call with the local SIM.