Originally Posted by
Landing Gear
Unlike a Mobicarte, an Initial account can ROAM in other countries. If you take a Mobicarte phone to Switzerland, for example you can call only one country, France. I believe you can receive calls from anywhere, though.
One nice thing about Bouygue's prepaid option, Carte Nomad, is that international roaming is automatically enabled without having to contact them or pay a deposit (I believe Orange requires a deposit of something like €250 or more to allow you to roam with their Mobicarte). Granted, roaming isn't cheap, but it can be convenient if one crosses the borders at all.
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that the prepaid minutes are relatively expensive and not much better than roaming with T-Mobile: That's true for outgoing or roaming calls; however, with the local French SIM your incoming calls are free in France. And that additional 30 cents/minute with T-Mobile could quickly make a local SIM more cost-effective, depending on one's calling patterns.