I know that every one of the thousand threads on which is the best option for cell phone usage in France starts the same; "I've read all the posts and my head hurts!". Well, I've read all the threads and my head hurts too. So, I thought that if I outlined my situation the experts can weigh in.

I will be traveling to France for 2 weeks. During that time I will use my cell phone in one of two very different ways.

1) Receiving a couple of calls from the US, making about a dozen to the US, mostly to check messages, make a few calls to numbers in France.

or

2) A business situation that is on the horizon will in fact occur and I'll be on the phone, calling the US and receiving calls from the US at a ridiculous rate. I guess under this scenario, the few calls to French numbers will be immaterial. Yes, the business will pay for the calls, but heck, its my business, and its not IBM.

Any thoughts?????

If your American cell phone is Cingular or T Mobile AND if your phone includes the 900 and 1800 bands, you can probably get a reasonable plan for roaming in Europe. If not, http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/
and xyz123 (in this forum) provide advice. One possibility is to buy a new unlocked quadband phone at http://www.store.motorola.com/mot/en...irect/motorola and then to get either a French sim when you arrive or to buy an international sim from the list at http://www.prepaidgsm.net before you go.

I forgot to add that if you decide to buy an international sim you should find out what cell phones it works with BEFORE you buy a new handset.

We purcchased a French SIM card last year for our Cingular, and this year we are not. We spend 2 months in France most years. The break-even point is greater than 55 minutes worth of calls for the French SIM to be the most economical versus the normal Cingular roaming cost (about .55E per min for the French SIM & 1E per min on Cingular roaming - without special Cingular "package&quot.

Just an ordinary phone card (1 for within France, another for international) is ridiculously cheap, if you use a land line.

We use our cell when out on the road and need to call places to check opening times, etc. We use the phone card from our hotel/gite & phone booths other times. Since it's a 6 to 9 hr time difference between the US & France, I suspect that many/most of your calls to/from the US will be in the evening when you are most likely to be at your hotel, where you can use the land line.

Your vacation is short - don't waste too much time trying to purchase & figure out a French SIM card.

Stu Dudley

Thanks for the replies. I should have added that we will be on a river barge for the first week, so land lines are not practical. The second week will provide better land-line usage, but I'd rather not be tied to the hotel. So, all in all, I'd say that a cell is my best option.

Half my problem is that I've always considered my trips to Europe to be pure vacation. I've pretty much restricted my calls to a card call just to retrieve messages.

My cell usage in the US is certainly not complicated so the concept of SIM cards, and the "prepaid" nature of them is new to me. I also have Sprint, so using them abroad is out of the question anyway. I really have to join the 21st century!

xyz123 where are you???