French Mobile - In English

[Quillan]

Having had my French Orange 'Pay as You Go' number taken from me (after having it printed on all our stationary) due to lack of use, making not recieving calls that is, I looked around to find a cheap way of getting a mobile phone number but gave up in the end as the monthly charges even for high call cost phones was very high.

I should explain that I want a mobile phone to transfer calls to when I and the wife are away from home as we run a B&B. I seldom if ever make a call and only then when I am coming back from the airport with a friend or guest to let the wife know we are on our way.

Our landline is with Teleconnect and we are happy with them, their service is straight forward and simple to use. All their help services etc are in English.

Just recently they have introduced MobiLight for just 11.95€ per month with calls at 18 cents a minute in France but only 12 cents per minute to the UK. Now I don't know if the call rates are good value for money in comparison to others but being that I mainly recieve calls and make very few it seems a good deal for me, certainly cheaper pay as you go. All you need is a unblocked phone and they will send you a new SIM card which costs 15€ and away you go.

The other thing which is really nice is that it is all in English, thats SMS, answer service the lot plus you can check your voice mail via the internet (providing you have speakers on your PC of course). For me who speaks very basic French this is really very helpful.

I am only a user of this companies products and have no business links with them and earn nothing from anybody using their services.

[Richard-R]

How long was it between top-ups before Orange cut you off,so to speak. I'm fed up lossing credit to Orange. Now that they do not give notice of expiry. I was thinking of just carry a top-up card around with the phone and than just putting to money on it, if and when i need to make a call. Cheers.

[Quillan]

Aparantly it depends on the last top up you use, the less the top up the shorter time you have to use the credit and the shorter the time that they take back the number. To get a years worth of use you need to buy a card which lasts 6 months, thats around 90€ and then you get the next 6 months of free calls inbound only. So this system that I have costs me 30€ less for 6 months but about 50€ more over the whole year but I never loose my number and I can make calls all year if I want but I have to pay for them.

The biggest problem with pay as you go is remembering when to add credit to keep the number. Get it wrong and you can't get your old number back you have to get a new SIM and a new number.

[Liz]

"Now that they do not give notice of expiry. "

Richard, you've got me puzzled. Can you not dial the number (225 I think) and that tells you how long your line will stay available. The info is probably also available from the web site although I haven't checked this out lately.

I use my Orange mobile very little and pay 10 Euros every 6 months to keep it active. I don't require the message service. It's not ideal but it was the best solution I could come up with to get incomming calls.

Liz (29)

[Ecossais]

Quillan,

 

Your Orange France Pay As You Go mobile will be “locked” so that it will only work with an Orange France SIM card.

 

The networks sell their phones “locked” to their own network as the phones are usually sold at a subsidised price – the network makes their money from the call credit you have to put in to the phone.

 

You shouldn’t have to buy a new “unlocked” mobile to change network - you should be able to get your current mobile “unlocked” so that it will work with another network’s SIM card.

 

You’ll find national mobile phone retailers like Phone House (the French arm of Carphone Warehouse) wont provide this service (although there’s nothing illegal about it), but they should be able to point you in the direction of a local independent phone shop where you can get it done.

 

The typical cost of this (in the UK) is around £10–£15, with most phones it’s a simple procedure and only takes a few seconds.  Note, if you want to use services like WAP or MMS etc on your phone you will have to enter the relevant settings for the new network you move to.

 

The other way to get your phone “unlocked” is by contacting your current network who will be able to provide you with the “unlocking code” – they will charge for this, in the UK it’s around £30.  The procedure varies according to make of phone, but your network should be able to tell you what to do.

[Quillan]

[quote]Quillan, Your Orange France Pay As You Go mobile will be “locked” so that it will only work with an Orange France SIM card.

Yes you are correct it was locked.

In France with any mobile phone (bought in France) after one year by law they must unblock your phone if requested and they are not allowed to charge for it.

Unblocking my French Orange phone took about 2 minutes and didn't cost me a bean.

You can of course buy a SIMless phone anywhere if you wish, just do a search on the internet. I don't know why but about 30% of the phones that you can buy without a SIM are cheaper than buying them through an air time providor. Don't believe me, then do a search on SIM-Free Phones.

[Richard-R]

[quote]"Now that they do not give notice of expiry. "Richard, you've got me puzzled. Can you not dial the number (225 I think) and that tells you how long your line will stay available. The info is probabl...[/quote]

In the 'old' days Orange would send a text meesage one week before the credit ran out. I always forget to dial-in into check my credit, so the old text message let me know to use up the credit and top the phone up with new credit.

[Quillan]

The French version sends you voice mails, loads of them about offers etc and if you don'r speak that much French it's a bit difficult to work out what is what. This was the object of letting people know that there is a English operated mobile phone service in France, somebody they can ask for numbers, record messages etc all in English, it even changes the phone to English.

[anthonyrw]

Glad I found this forum.

I have an Orange France topup sim.

How can I topup while in UK?

Noticed you having similar topup problems.

Anthony.

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

No you will not be able to top up in the uk,a good way to over come it, but you still need two different numbers,the french one which you will have.My preferred way is virgin,I went to the uk with my french orange mobile and was charged a kings ransom to phone home,so I got the french mobile unlocked(£10)and joined the virgin network and got £5 free call as well so when I go to the uk all I need to do is change sim cards and the one phone that I have will work in france and the uk and to keep the uk (virgin)number 1 call every 180 days keeps the number.