French Cell Phone
 

The French owner of the apartement we will be staying in in Paris, has offered us the use of her French cell phone. She _thinks_ that the cheapest card is 15 euros. We would pick the phone up here, and then return it when we come home.

Does anyone know if that is the cheapest cell card and how many minutes, are on it?

We will have a regular phone where we are staying. We generally buy a phone card for pay phones, fairly cheap, maybe 7.50 euros. We will only use the cell or phone card maybe 8 or 9 times max. We just use it when we are out and about and want to make dinner reservations for that night, rather than returning home to call. I'm never sure of the exact amount, but I know that we have never used up a card yet.

If the cell card is cheaper, than we just might borrow the phone and take it with us.

I know that we would never make 15 euros worth of calls, but it might be worth it for the convenience. It may come to at least l.5 euro per call - no bargain.

I would do it for the convenience, no question. I had one from my rental in Italy. If it saves you a few hours of being lost or getting a taxi or reservation, how much is that worth to you?

If you don't use the entire card perhaps you could share it with a friend traveling soon.

I think th ecost and the charge depend on the service the owner has. We use a Mobicarte from France Telecom (Orange) and depending on the service you can get 10 or 15 euro cards. These give you a limited number of days to use them, and so you couldnt pass it on to someone else.

On the basic plan we use calls are 55 centimes a minute.

Dont know about the other providers, SFR and Bouygues.

However, just for the convenience, I would take this option.

Thanks, we have a over a month to decide. I guess that I dodn't want the responsibility of taking someone else's propery and being responsible for it. It would be so much easier if it was already in the Paris apartment and we could just leave it there, instead of traveling with it.

Payphones can be a nuisance, since so many of them are out of order, signed or not, and sometimes there are people who get on one and use it forever, leaving you waiting in line for ages.

I'll find out just what type of service she has.

Thanks again,

Nina

Go to www.prepaidgsm.net and you can read on the operators page of the various French mobile operators....unlike their British counterparts, French mobile rates are among the highest in the world and the cheapest French sim pack is not much under €30 and calls are particularly expensive.

As you said since you will be using it only 7 or 8 times, I don't think it is worth it despite the fact I am a big proponent of using mobile phones...perhaps your own carrier's roaming will be better....where do you live? You may already have a mobile phone and a carrier that allows international roaming with the proper frequencies. That might be a better idea.

xyz_123 I live in San Francisco and my own cell company is Cingular. With their international plan I think calls are about $1.49 a minute (not sure because I haven't checked in over a year), plus a small monthly charge.

Since we no longer have to call home when we're traveling, we have never considered using anything but a prepaid French phone card or the phones in the apartments that we have rented, for local calls. For the few calls that we unexpectedly had to make to the U.S. last year, we used our French phone card and called from our apartment, and still had time left on the card.

During this upcoming two week trip over the Holidays, we will only be in Paris, and the use of pay phones will be minimal.

The apartment owner kindly offered her phone, but I think that we will pass and go with the cheapest phone card.

Thanks for the all of the info, it helped me to make up my mind.

Nina

I live in San Francisco and purchased a French SIM card last year to try it out. I have Cingular also. We spend 2 months in France each year.

Calls on the cell phone were .55E per minute. Local calls on a phone card were .017E per minute. Calls from Beaujolais to Brittany were .07E per minute. Calls to the US (different phone card) were .025E per min.

If you activate "international roaming" at no cost on Cingular, calls are 1E per minute - which works out to about $1.40 or so with the exchange rate & tax.

If you have a land line at the apt, I would suggest that you not use the owner's cell phone. There are enough pay phones in Paris that you won't have trouble making calls, and if you are at Versailles & need to call - splurge for 1E per min on your Cingular.

Also, If the owner's phone needs a SIM card (that you must purchase), then add 24E to purchase the SIM card. Cell phone minutes for 10E (less than twenty 1 min calls) expire in 15 days. SIM cards expire in 6 months after the last call.

xyz123 could tell you about other options that would be less expensive for cell phones in Europe, but like he suggested - it would not be the best choice for your situation.

Stu Dudley

T-Mobile's intl rates for France are $0.99/min, no monthly charge or minimum.

Cingular also has $0.99/min plan but you have to pay a mon. fee ($5-6)

We have made umpteen trips to Paris, and never found the need to have a cell phone, well at least not since they have been available.

I would never have consider it now, if she had not offered to lend it to us. In my own mind, I can't justify the cost versus the convenience. As I said, using payphones with prepaid cards, can be a pain to use, waiting for others to finish their calls, out of order etc... but in the end, considering the cost and our minimal useage, they will work best for us, even on 4-5 week stays in Paris.

Not knowing the cost of French cards, I thought that they might be cheaper, plus the added convenience. I think that if we didn't have a free phone in the apartment, a cell would be the way to go.

Thanks again,

Nina

I will be travelling to Paris with an unlocked quad-band GSM phone. I'd like to purchase a SIM card there. Can anybody recommend a provider and also a store where I can buy one? Like we have Cingular and Verizon stores in the U.S., do they have similar stores there? What would be the least expensive SIM, as I don't expect to be making too many outgoing calls? (I expect to get more incomong calls.) Thanks.

http://mobile.orange.fr/0/visiteur/P...CRTS&TOP=O offers free SIMs, and airtime for €10.

Robespierre:

Orange typically charges 15 euros for their sim cards. If you go into their store online and select a sim card it is priced at 15 euros. How do you get one for free?

Thanks!

See if this works for visitors by delivering to one's hotel:

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/simeve...ora06068_un_04

Ropbespierre, there is a little problem if you read the 'terms and conditions' :
"The Promotion is available to all customers who order a free of charge SIM connection pack between the 6th and 31st November 2006"
(And it's Orange UK, not a problem for receiving calls only in France (they will be free) but roaming fees will apply for outgoing calls)

Right. I didn't read the fine print.

Does Orange UK have a new policy regarding free reception of calls in France? If so, it's news to me.

Now i'm the one to be wrong (i tought Orange UK had the same policies than Orange France when it comes to incoming calls inside EU)
I checked and - indeed - international incoming calls aren't free with an Orange UK plan

I used my cell phone in Paris in November. Cingular, 5.99 I think per month and then calls at .99 per minute. Since I don't use my cell phone all that much, for the few times I called home to check on things, the convenience was great, the phone worked great, and it really didn't cost that much. It's all relative I guess, my charges were about 70.00 but like I say, the convenience was worth it to me. If you plan on making a lot of calls then I can see how this could get quite expensive and an alternative plan might be better.

Yes - as mentioned above, Cingular and T-Mobile both allow international roaming.

The difference between them (in my personal experience) is that T-Mobile is less expensive - no periodic charge; UK and France are 99¢ - and Cingular's Customer Service sucks.

Ah bummer , I thought you had a found a good promo!

>>Cingular, 5.99 I think per month and then calls at .99 per minute<<

We traveled to France in Sept, and we have Cingular. The $5.99 is not really necessary to make calls in France. All you have to do is activate 'Interntional roaming" and you will be charged something like $1.25 per minute. The $5.99 subscription cost is only needed if you want to reduce this cost to $.99 per minute. The $5.99 is per billing period - not per month. So if your trip is in two different billing periods, the cost is $11.98. When we were deciding which option to pick, someone on Fodors stated that there was a 6 month minimum for the $5.99 option. I never received any more feedback from this "someone stated", but it worried me a bit so we did not sign up for it.

If my math is correct, you need to make more that 24 mins of calls to recover the $5.99 cost, 48 to recover $11.98, and 144 mins to recover the $36 six month cost.

Stu Dudley

As of 12/18/06, Cingular's Standard International Roaming is $1.29, and World Traveler is 99¢ - so the difference to amortize is 30¢/call.

T-Mobile is 99¢ and no periodic charge.

I have a Cingular pre-paid plan. Cingular does not offer the International Roaming option on it. That option is good only if you have a contract with them. Otherwise, $0.99 per minute with a $5.99 monthly charge would have been a simple, if not the least expensive, option.

Because I will be traveling to both London and Paris on this trip, I looked at the sim4travel sim card, which would give me free incoming calls in both countries. Outgoing is not that cheap. But it looks like that is not an option either, as their web site states that the sim must be paid for with a UK registered credit card.

So for the London portion of my trip I will get a mobile-world sim. That sim won't work outside of England, so I still need something else for France.

This phone stuff is so difficult! Maybe I will just find a phone store when I get to Paris and hope somebody there speaks English. Unless somebody has a suggestion for a sim card in France. Most of the calls will be incoming, so free incoming is a must. I can live with a higher outgoing to the US, as long as it isn't exorbitant.

If free incoming is your prime concern, you might consider

1. United Mobile (www.united-mobile.com)

Mobileworld is very cheap in the UK but it has a limited shelf life (90 days and as noted you cannot roam outside the UK with it).

United mobile sim cards aren't all that cheap but supposedly (logos claims otherwise and who am I to question this) throughout all of Europe, Australia, China and South Africa. Keeping it active is not a problem...it has a 9 month rule..make 1 chargeable event every 9 months and the card remains valid so you can use it again and again.....couple it with a callbackworld account (www.callbackworld.com) and you get 14¢/minute calls to the USA and they give you a USA toll free number you can give out for people to reach you (with a PIN) and you pay the 14¢/minute to receive calls.

I have found it very effective.

You might be interested n some Isle of Man sim cards (UK number) and O9 (Iceland).

Lots of information on a mobile phone forum at www.prepaidgsm.net not the wrong info given out so often here.

http://www.united-mobile.com does look like a pretty good deal. Unlimited free incoming calls, and the outgoing isn't cheap, but reasonable. I had planned on using futurephone.com to make (free) calls from the US to Europe, taking advantage of the free incoming calls there. However, united-mobile.com seems to provide a Lichtenstein number (country code 423), and futurephone doesn't connect calls to that country. Good thing I checked that.

BTW, if you are wondering about futurephone.com, it works like this: you make a call to their number in Iowa, which is long distance for many people in the U.S., but free for people like me with AT&T CallVantage and unlimited long distance calling. Futurephone then routes your call overseas at no charge. So, it really becomes a free call to Europe from the U.S. But, that won't work for a 423 country code, so I will have to look for a French sim with a 33 country code instead.

mobile.orange.fr also looks promising, but I am having some trouble with their web site because I don't speak French. I wish I could find a store near my hotel in Paris that sells their sims.

The beauty of united mobile is you can also open up an account with callbackworld (www.callbackworld.com)....callbackworld would allow you to make calls from wherever you are to the USA for 14¢/minute (timed in 6 second intervals BTW and not raised to the next highest minute) and as I noted provide you with a US toll free number and a pin which you can give to your associates as your incoming number...they wouldn't pay to call you from the USA and you will pay the same 14¢/minute timed in 6 second intervals.

I also have an Orange FR sim card (pre United Mobile days_...be aware that calls within France are expensive to other French numbers and limited shelf life but of course you do get the free incoming and I suppose your service will connect friends for free but always be aware of the fine print that calls to mobile lines are much more expensive than calls to landlines.

You can read up on French providers on the national operators page of www.prepaidgsm.net...chooice European Union and then France and you will get descriptions of all the French mobile operators.

Ah ha...I had tried the futurephone service previously and just like I thought....service is not available to UK mobiles...you get a message call is not allowed.

Still think my solution is the best one.

Really? Futurephone will not connect calls to UK cell phones? I called a landline phone in the UK and it went through. I assumed that cell phones would work as well, as long as they had the same country code of 44. Not true???

No they don't.

>China
is definitively not working in Guangdong province incl. Shenzhen and in Hainan. Fact, not fiction. ;-) Fact too, that UM doesn't answer my e-mail.

That is a big complaint on www.prepaidgsm.net that UM customer service stinks.

It's well and good for people to get free incoming calls while they're in Europe on a cell phone.

But isn't it the case that people calling those cell phones pay a lot more, especially people calling form the US? Unless you have a setup like callbackworld.com or whatever.

I used Skype to call back to the US last year. Now if they get Skype clients for smart phones, especially those with Wifi...

scrb...

You hit it right...European mobile phones operate on the concept caller pays....prices to call mobile phones, especially on different networks are very expensive.

For example, in the UK, Virgin Mobile charges 15p/minute (timed in 1 second intervals minimum 5p) to call land lines for the first 5 minutes of use each day as well as other Virgin Mobile numbers and then 5p/minute for the rest of that day but an astoundingly high 40p/minute to call mobiles on other networks (Mobileworld is an exception and O2 has some bundles)...

However, as of now, the beauty of the United Mobile Liechtenstein number when paired with Callbackworld is that somehow callbackworld has been able to retain the cheap rates both for calling back to the USA on United Mobile and using the toll free pin2dest that was described (14¢/minute)...and a callbackworld account is free with no minimums no nothings.

Also, AT&T for some reason has somehow on its $1/month special international plan been able to retain an astoundingly low rate of 11¢/minute to call Liechtenstein numbers (many carriers once United Mobile gained some degree of popularity raised rates to Liechtenstein to very high amounts)...what I am able to do since my ld carrier on my Verizon landline is AT&T is remotely callforward to my United Mobile sim...so people calling me can be tied in to my United Mobile sim no matter where in the world I am and of course it is best in those places where United Mobile has the free incoming...they pay to call my landline number...I pay 11¢/minute (alas raised to the next highest minute but you can't have everything)...since my call forwarding service on verizon is remote call forwards and since Verizon unlike other US carriers allow you to set call forwarding to foreign numbers, I can hold call forwarding to my US mobile till the instant the plane door closes, remotely set it to ring to my United Mobile sim and then when coming home from Europe reversing the procedure...it's like having one worldwide number wherever I go...now that's important to me...others will argue that they don't want anybody to be able to reach them on holiday and that's fine...to each his or her own.

So my phone bill for my last European trip of about 3 weeks amount to about $30....can't do much better even with phone cards.

>calling those cell phones pay a lot more
It's a Liechtenstein "0900 number".

Logos...

did you try buying a local Chinese sim...one would suspect they are fairly inexpensive....

I bought a China Mobile. It was difficult to find out the details, since nobody spoke any foreign language and I don't speak Cantonese/Mandarin. :-) However, I paid 80 Yuan (about $10) for the card including 30 Yuan calling credit. Incoming from anywhere was 0.6 Yuan/minute, so it was better than UM could have ever been.
I'll be in Egypt Friday, a last chance for UM...