Mobile phone providers: best prepaid rates and coverage

[tenniswitch]

I need to buy a French mobile phone and am finding my French inadequate to search the provider websites for information on rates and coverage areas.

I'm looking for a plan with prepaid minutes (since I'm here only about 5 months a year & plan to use it only for emergencies) and spend most of my time in rural Auvergne (or on the train to Paris).

If anyone could point me to the most promising websites (I know I'll try Orange, since FT and Orange are our phone & ADSL providers) and give me a clue as to the French terms for "prepaid minutes" and "coverage areas", I would be very grateful.

[Ecossais]

An important difference between British and French Pay As You Go (Prépayé) phones is that in France if you don’t use your credit within a certain period of time (which varies according to the value of your top-up) you will lose it.

As far as determining which network has the best reception in the area you will be using it, if you are currently using a UK mobile when in France – which network does it normally “roam” on when you are in France?  A UK mobile will seek out the strongest [foreign] network when it is abroad, so if you normally see “Orange” on the phone’s display, that would be the network to go for.

Each network will have a coverage (la couverture) checker, eg, Orange France:  http://couverture-reseau.orange.fr/france/netenmap.php

The network websites obviously also have details of their tariffs, but the easiest way to compare them is possibly on the Carphone Warehouse France website (http://www.phonehouse.fr/).  There is a table on page 53 of their [June] brochure which you can download / view as a PDF which compares the costs of PAYG SIM cards and running costs (Tableau Comparatif Prépayés).  See: http://www.phonehouse.fr/pdf/catalogue.pdf .  PAYG phones are on P26.

Some of the British networks can work out fairly good value if you use their “international traveller” schemes.  The last time I looked, O2 and Vodafone seemed to have the best deals for international use.

If you are on O2, have a look at “My Europe” and “My Europe Extra” on their website and if you are on Vodafone, have a look at “Vodafone Passport”.   O2’s “My Europe Extra” costs £10 a month and makes any call made from Europe 25p per minute and incoming calls free (up to a total of 1000 minutes per month) – so anyone calling you from the UK would just pay their normal rate and it would cost you nothing to receive the call.  Your friends in the UK may not be too keen on calling you on an international mobile!  However, if you expect to receive calls from France, the caller would appreciate you having a French number.

[tenniswitch]

Thanks for trying to help, but I'm not from the UK and have never used any kind of mobile in France.  I will certainly be asking local (French) friends for their advice when next in France, but I'd like to do some research via internet first.

I think one reason I'm having trouble finding the info I need on, for example, the Orange website is that I don't know the right terms for prepaid minutes and coverage areas.

[Ecossais]

Hi Tenniswitch,

On the Orange France coverage checker ( http://couverture-reseau.orange.fr/france/netenmap.php ), you can either enter the postcode of your town / village in the “ville ou code postale” box or get an overview of your region.  You may need to “allow popups” for the map to show.  So long as the location is highlighted in orange you should be OK for voice calls, the darker the colour, the more likely you are to have access to 3G services (if you need them).

SFR’s coverage checker  (http://www.sfr.fr/assistance/reseau-sfr-france/index.jsp ) works in the same way although you have to type the name of your commune rather than entering the postcode.

Click on “Voire la legende” for details of the significance of the colours.  Note the lightest shade of purple indicates coverage with a “carphone” (with external aerial).

Remember – when networks talk about coverage, they mean “outdoor coverage”.  If you’ve got a house with very thick walls, you could have a problem with reception even if the coverage map looks OK.  If reception at home is important, if you can, try friends’ different network mobiles in your house to see which gives the best signal before buying.

“Carphone Warehouse” is the UK’s and possibly Europe’s biggest independent mobile phone retailer and is known as “Phone House” in France.  Their network price comparison table is probably the easiest way of comparing one network with another rather than trying to find the detail in each network’s website.

Orange Pay As You Go service is branded “Mobicarte” and SFR’s “SFR La Carte”.  According to the table, a €25 top-up gives you the equivalent of 54 minutes or 230 text messages on Orange or 45 minutes or 166 text messages on SFR.  On both networks the credit is valid for 2 months.

According to Orange and SFR’s websites you can continue to receive calls for up to 6 months after the credit has expired so you wont lose your number between trips.

Network detail:

http://animation.orange.fr/fis/mobicarte.pdf

http://www.espacesfr.com/v5/wcsstore/EspaceSFR/filesWebPublish/PageEdito/PDFaTelecharger/FIS_LCA_070530.pdf

 

 

[tenniswitch]

Ooh, Ecossais, you are awesome.  I think you've told me absolutely everything I need to know (if not, I'll come whining back).

Thanks.