Best FRENCH prepaid cell phone
Jun 23, 2007, 3:15 pm
#1
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Best FRENCH prepaid cell phone
I need to buy a cellphone in France and would like one with prepaid minutes. Are these fairly easy to find in France?
And, where can I find info about coverage areas? I spend a lot of time in a fairly rural area.
And, where can I find info about coverage areas? I spend a lot of time in a fairly rural area.
Jun 23, 2007, 3:45 pm
#3
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www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_fr.shtml has maps for the 3 carriers in France.
Orange has a huge presence. I find that Bouygues Telecom is a bit less expensive.
Company owned cell phone shops can sell you the prepaid sim in minutes. This is MUCH cheaper than buying one before departing for France. But it does take time to do on arrival.
Hint: If your French is poor like mine, go to the websites of the carriers and print out the page that shows the prepaid service to show the clerk. This makes the process much easier than with strained words....
Orange has a huge presence. I find that Bouygues Telecom is a bit less expensive.
Company owned cell phone shops can sell you the prepaid sim in minutes. This is MUCH cheaper than buying one before departing for France. But it does take time to do on arrival.
Hint: If your French is poor like mine, go to the websites of the carriers and print out the page that shows the prepaid service to show the clerk. This makes the process much easier than with strained words....
Jun 23, 2007, 5:45 pm
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www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_fr.shtml has maps for the 3 carriers in France.
Orange has a huge presence. I find that Bouygues Telecom is a bit less expensive.
Orange has a huge presence. I find that Bouygues Telecom is a bit less expensive.
Company owned cell phone shops can sell you the prepaid sim in minutes. This is MUCH cheaper than buying one before departing for France. But it does take time to do on arrival.
The Phone House to be good, and they publish a catalogue making it easy to compare tariffs. Agreed, though, that it's better to buy in France in any case.
Jun 23, 2007, 6:09 pm
#5
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www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_fr.shtml has maps for the 3 carriers in France.
Orange has a huge presence. I find that Bouygues Telecom is a bit less expensive.
Company owned cell phone shops can sell you the prepaid sim in minutes. This is MUCH cheaper than buying one before departing for France. But it does take time to do on arrival.
Hint: If your French is poor like mine, go to the websites of the carriers and print out the page that shows the prepaid service to show the clerk. This makes the process much easier than with strained words....
Orange has a huge presence. I find that Bouygues Telecom is a bit less expensive.
Company owned cell phone shops can sell you the prepaid sim in minutes. This is MUCH cheaper than buying one before departing for France. But it does take time to do on arrival.
Hint: If your French is poor like mine, go to the websites of the carriers and print out the page that shows the prepaid service to show the clerk. This makes the process much easier than with strained words....
My French is definitely not good, so your advice is excellent, roberto99; the only problem is that I'm having difficulty finding the right page on the websites. Tried Orange first (since FT is our phone carrier and Orange our ISP) and could not figure out if they offered pre-paid, much less where the page was.
Sorry to be so stupid, but what term (in French) should I be looking for?
The good thing is that, at least if I go with FT/Orange, there's a store at our nearest Carrefour mall.
Jun 23, 2007, 8:47 pm
#6
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I often translate webpages and pasted phrases via babelfish. See http://babelfish.altavista.com/ and paste yhe foreign URL into the Translate a Web page field.
Orange's website has some phones and a prepaid sim on http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...re%3Dcat110009
BTW, I recall the word Mobicarte meaning prepaid sim.
Orange's website has some phones and a prepaid sim on http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...re%3Dcat110009
BTW, I recall the word Mobicarte meaning prepaid sim.
Last edited by roberto99; Jun 23, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Jun 23, 2007, 10:42 pm
#7
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Mobicarte is the brand name Orange uses for their prepaid SIM.
"Sans contrat" would be without contract but the words they use is "forfait sans engagement" which is roughly subscription without obligations.
"Cartes 'prépayées" (kart-uh pray-pah-yay) is what refers to prepaid SIMs.
They also apparently use SIM as the acronymn so it would be "carte SIM." Subscriber Identity Module but in French, it would be more grammatic to say "Module d'Identité d'Abonné" but I guess SIM is universal.
Anyways, prepaidgsm.net lists SIM options for each country. The French options from the main operators -- Orange, SFR and Bouygues -- are considerably more expensive -- around 55-60 Euro cents per minute -- than the prepaid SIMs in Germany say, where you can pay as little as 15 euro cents per minute.
The MVNOs like Virgin and Tele2 are about 40 euro cents but they appear to be distributed widely at retail. I haven't really looked before. Carrefour and Auchan also sell MVNO prepaid SIMs but Carrefour for instance you won't find in Paris center.
When you pay 65 Euro Cents per minute on Orange, it's not that much cheaper than paying 99 cents per minute on T-Mobile international roaming in France.
"Sans contrat" would be without contract but the words they use is "forfait sans engagement" which is roughly subscription without obligations.
"Cartes 'prépayées" (kart-uh pray-pah-yay) is what refers to prepaid SIMs.
They also apparently use SIM as the acronymn so it would be "carte SIM." Subscriber Identity Module but in French, it would be more grammatic to say "Module d'Identité d'Abonné" but I guess SIM is universal.
Anyways, prepaidgsm.net lists SIM options for each country. The French options from the main operators -- Orange, SFR and Bouygues -- are considerably more expensive -- around 55-60 Euro cents per minute -- than the prepaid SIMs in Germany say, where you can pay as little as 15 euro cents per minute.
The MVNOs like Virgin and Tele2 are about 40 euro cents but they appear to be distributed widely at retail. I haven't really looked before. Carrefour and Auchan also sell MVNO prepaid SIMs but Carrefour for instance you won't find in Paris center.
When you pay 65 Euro Cents per minute on Orange, it's not that much cheaper than paying 99 cents per minute on T-Mobile international roaming in France.
Jun 24, 2007, 12:04 am
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Thanks, everyone. I definitely intend to buy in France (I spend about 5 months a year there) and will ask local friends about coverage.
My French is definitely not good, so your advice is excellent, roberto99; the only problem is that I'm having difficulty finding the right page on the websites. Tried Orange first (since FT is our phone carrier and Orange our ISP) and could not figure out if they offered pre-paid, much less where the page was.
Sorry to be so stupid, but what term (in French) should I be looking for?
The good thing is that, at least if I go with FT/Orange, there's a store at our nearest Carrefour mall.
My French is definitely not good, so your advice is excellent, roberto99; the only problem is that I'm having difficulty finding the right page on the websites. Tried Orange first (since FT is our phone carrier and Orange our ISP) and could not figure out if they offered pre-paid, much less where the page was.
Sorry to be so stupid, but what term (in French) should I be looking for?
The good thing is that, at least if I go with FT/Orange, there's a store at our nearest Carrefour mall.
As mentioned previously, the pre-paid service from Orange is called Mobicarte.
You can find more information on Mobicarte at
http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...3DNPV2GEOFFRES
Mobicarte SIM cards can also be purchased at Orange boutiques, at the electronics chain FNAC and at the Virgin Megastore in Paris.
Prepaid "scratch-off" cards called Récharges, can be bought at post offices (where they will simply hand you a cash register print out that you don't have to scratch) and at cigarette stands called "tabacs."
Don't even think about speaking English to Orange customer service. If you speak French, you may well reach the same conclusion that I did which is that these folks make Verizon Wireless look good. On the other hand, I can tell you that the service in their Place de la Madeleine boutique, both in the sales and tech departments, is first rate.
Here is a different suggestion that I would ask you to consider. Perhaps one of your French friends would be willing to sign up for an Orange Initial account and let you use it. a) it will probably cost less; and b)you will avoid the hassle of either running out of credit when you need it or leaving France with too much pre-paid credit.
Information on the Orange Initial account starts on page 19 of the following document: http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...3DNPV2GEOFFRES
With Initial, you pay €7 a month and €.45 a minute for calls in France billed after you make them.
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.
Unless things have changed dramatically, don't even dream of opening your own Orange account unless you have either a French carte d'identité or permis de travail AND a RIB. (If these terms mean nothing to you, you don't have these things.)
Most Orange shop personnel either act like they don't know how to open an account for a foreigner or don't bother to tell you because few foreigners are willing to come up with the amount they require as a deposit. (When I first started with Orange around 2000, the deposit was €500. I heard it is now up to €1,000).
I have had a regular monthly account with Orange for several years and it took huge negotiations by myself and my European colleagues to make it happen. I would not recommend that course for you
Jun 24, 2007, 1:09 am
#9
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Here is the direct link to Landing Gear's explanation of where to buy Mobicarte at CDG. Someone later said the mini-market is called Petit Casino.
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showpost....&postcount=172
Wonder if it's related to the Casino supermarket chain throughout France.
I'm flying into Nice on 7/8 and will probably try to find Carrefour down there, if I get a SIM at all -- it's only for a 5-day stay.
But I've flown AF a lot and probably will many times, even if just connecting through CDG. But I never go into Terminal 2A at CDG, usually 2E and 2F.
The MVNOs appear to undercut Orange and SFR but Orange stores are everywhere.
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showpost....&postcount=172
Wonder if it's related to the Casino supermarket chain throughout France.
I'm flying into Nice on 7/8 and will probably try to find Carrefour down there, if I get a SIM at all -- it's only for a 5-day stay.
But I've flown AF a lot and probably will many times, even if just connecting through CDG. But I never go into Terminal 2A at CDG, usually 2E and 2F.
The MVNOs appear to undercut Orange and SFR but Orange stores are everywhere.
Jun 24, 2007, 4:37 am
#10
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There are lots of Phone House stores everywhere, too - and I've even had some success speaking English 
The service seems better than the France Telecom shops too (not that that's difficult).
If you download ("telecharger") the catalogue and go to page 30, there's a nice table of how many minutes / text messages each top-up will buy you.
The service seems better than the France Telecom shops too (not that that's difficult).If you download ("telecharger") the catalogue and go to page 30, there's a nice table of how many minutes / text messages each top-up will buy you.
Jun 24, 2007, 8:20 am
#11
Join Date: Jan 2002
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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.
Jun 24, 2007, 12:13 pm
#12
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I use 'SFR', and there are kiosks in most shopping centers.
The cheapest phone was about 40 euros, and buying credit is easy. Almost every tobacco shop sells the credits. The only hard part since you don't speak french is following the instructions to enter the coupon code. But, if you're nice and the shop owners are not busy, they might do it for you.
Sheila
The cheapest phone was about 40 euros, and buying credit is easy. Almost every tobacco shop sells the credits. The only hard part since you don't speak french is following the instructions to enter the coupon code. But, if you're nice and the shop owners are not busy, they might do it for you.
Sheila
Jun 24, 2007, 7:10 pm
#13
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If you look at the following thread, http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569462 I have detailed instructions in several messages for people on how and where to buy Orange service at CDG where you can find people who speak English.
As mentioned previously, the pre-paid service from Orange is called Mobicarte.
You can find more information on Mobicarte at
http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...3DNPV2GEOFFRES
Mobicarte SIM cards can also be purchased at Orange boutiques, at the electronics chain FNAC and at the Virgin Megastore in Paris.
Prepaid "scratch-off" cards called Récharges, can be bought at post offices (where they will simply hand you a cash register print out that you don't have to scratch) and at cigarette stands called "tabacs."
Don't even think about speaking English to Orange customer service. If you speak French, you may well reach the same conclusion that I did which is that these folks make Verizon Wireless look good. On the other hand, I can tell you that the service in their Place de la Madeleine boutique, both in the sales and tech departments, is first rate.
Here is a different suggestion that I would ask you to consider. Perhaps one of your French friends would be willing to sign up for an Orange Initial account and let you use it. a) it will probably cost less; and b)you will avoid the hassle of either running out of credit when you need it or leaving France with too much pre-paid credit.
Information on the Orange Initial account starts on page 19 of the following document: http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...3DNPV2GEOFFRES
With Initial, you pay €7 a month and €.45 a minute for calls in France billed after you make them.
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.
Unless things have changed dramatically, don't even dream of opening your own Orange account unless you have either a French carte d'identité or permis de travail AND a RIB. (If these terms mean nothing to you, you don't have these things.)
Most Orange shop personnel either act like they don't know how to open an account for a foreigner or don't bother to tell you because few foreigners are willing to come up with the amount they require as a deposit. (When I first started with Orange around 2000, the deposit was €500. I heard it is now up to €1,000).
I have had a regular monthly account with Orange for several years and it took huge negotiations by myself and my European colleagues to make it happen. I would not recommend that course for you
As mentioned previously, the pre-paid service from Orange is called Mobicarte.
You can find more information on Mobicarte at
http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...3DNPV2GEOFFRES
Mobicarte SIM cards can also be purchased at Orange boutiques, at the electronics chain FNAC and at the Virgin Megastore in Paris.
Prepaid "scratch-off" cards called Récharges, can be bought at post offices (where they will simply hand you a cash register print out that you don't have to scratch) and at cigarette stands called "tabacs."
Don't even think about speaking English to Orange customer service. If you speak French, you may well reach the same conclusion that I did which is that these folks make Verizon Wireless look good. On the other hand, I can tell you that the service in their Place de la Madeleine boutique, both in the sales and tech departments, is first rate.
Here is a different suggestion that I would ask you to consider. Perhaps one of your French friends would be willing to sign up for an Orange Initial account and let you use it. a) it will probably cost less; and b)you will avoid the hassle of either running out of credit when you need it or leaving France with too much pre-paid credit.
Information on the Orange Initial account starts on page 19 of the following document: http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u...3DNPV2GEOFFRES
With Initial, you pay €7 a month and €.45 a minute for calls in France billed after you make them.
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.
Unless things have changed dramatically, don't even dream of opening your own Orange account unless you have either a French carte d'identité or permis de travail AND a RIB. (If these terms mean nothing to you, you don't have these things.)
Most Orange shop personnel either act like they don't know how to open an account for a foreigner or don't bother to tell you because few foreigners are willing to come up with the amount they require as a deposit. (When I first started with Orange around 2000, the deposit was €500. I heard it is now up to €1,000).
I have had a regular monthly account with Orange for several years and it took huge negotiations by myself and my European colleagues to make it happen. I would not recommend that course for you
The charges you quoted (€7 a month and €.45); were those for international calls or for calls within Metropolitan France or what? I only want the phone for calls within France.
Jun 25, 2007, 9:27 pm
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Here is the direct link to Landing Gear's explanation of where to buy Mobicarte at CDG. Someone later said the mini-market is called Petit Casino.
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showpost....&postcount=172
Wonder if it's related to the Casino supermarket chain throughout France.
I'm flying into Nice on 7/8 and will probably try to find Carrefour down there, if I get a SIM at all -- it's only for a 5-day stay.
But I've flown AF a lot and probably will many times, even if just connecting through CDG. But I never go into Terminal 2A at CDG, usually 2E and 2F.
The MVNOs appear to undercut Orange and SFR but Orange stores are everywhere.
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showpost....&postcount=172
Wonder if it's related to the Casino supermarket chain throughout France.
I'm flying into Nice on 7/8 and will probably try to find Carrefour down there, if I get a SIM at all -- it's only for a 5-day stay.
But I've flown AF a lot and probably will many times, even if just connecting through CDG. But I never go into Terminal 2A at CDG, usually 2E and 2F.
The MVNOs appear to undercut Orange and SFR but Orange stores are everywhere.
Jun 25, 2007, 9:30 pm
#15
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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.
What do you think?