I've been living part of the time in France over the past 7 months and the solution I've ended up using is o2 with the MyEuropeExtra add-on combined with returncall.co.uk for voice calls and a prepaid 3 (UK) sim for occasional data usage. The data on 3 (UK) costs £3 per MB roaming in France and for simple email or occasional light web browsing I've found it far more convenient and better value than any of the French prepaid offers with their extremely restrictive topup voucher expiry. I've ended up losing all my credit due to missing the topup deadline so many times I just got sick of them and the rip-off charges. Ironically several of my French friends have started using this same solution as it's cheaper for them than using French sims :-)!

On thing I've recently discovered is the supermarket chain "E Leclerc" has launched an MVNO that as far as I know has a voucher expiry of 1 year. Sadly data rates are ridiculous, something like €15/MB, so it's only good for the occasional visitor wanting a French mobile that doesn't die every few months.

I use mobile 2.5g and 3g data roaming a lot and I have found that the following to be one of the best offer around:

http://www.vox.lu/maincontent.aspx?p...er&magickey=13

(click on the top left corner flag to change language to English).

Prepaid data roaming is 6.3€ in the EU and it's not that competitive maybe, but the postpaid packages are really cheap (I use the World Data 500 which gets me 500 Mb in roaming for 230€).

Sadly, unused Mb cannot be rolled over.

That's 46c/Mb

Alternatively, WD250 has 250Mb for 144€ (58c/Mb) and WD50 has 50Mb for 46€ (92c/Mb).

NB: the above rates are only valid while roaming in the EU, US and China.

I have never asked (I live in Luxembourg) but I am sure that they wouldn't mind activating the above postpaid offers to foreigners. Most of their subscribers are actually people living accross the border (Luxembourg is a small country).

In fact, vox also has a roaming deal for the above people: 10€/month you get free incoming calls on the French Orange network and 24c outgoing to French and Luxebourg.

Unfortunately: both offers are postpaid (ie, you need to come to Lux to subscribe and provide a credit card). Cheap things don't come easy...

E. Leclerc Mobile France
 

Oh yes. They are not so bad for a "one time" visit.



WAP : 0,015 €/ko par 10 ko indivisibles

French advices
 

For just data, there are no interessant prepaid plan in france. Our market is oriented on postpaid offers with a 24 month contract.
ex bouygyues telecom illimited 3G edge (5GO) on 29,90 Euros/month

Just for several months Data isn't affordable but there are some agreements with Vodafone and Sfr in france with passport data

Orange UK is completely separated from orange france leader in the country si you will paid for data.

You can check prepaid offers in france on

• virgin mobile
• ten
• tele2 mobile
• a mobile
• carrefour mobile
• U mobile
• nrj mobile
• universal mobile
• coriolis telecom
• leclerc mobile
• simpleo
• mobisud
• transatel
• mobiho
• zemobile
• call in europe
• fnac mobile
• M6 mobile
• etc...:confused:

When I went to France last summer I accessed the web with an Orange Mobicarte (prepaid SIM sold for < € 10 at eBay.fr). After activating the tariff option "Internet Max" (€ 9/month) you officially get a data volume of 500MB for the web + 10 MB for eMail (SMTP, POP3, IMAP), both for handset-based use only. But actually, as I expected due to reports on German forums, access was neither limited to handset-usage, nor did the cap of 500MB apply. Only the 10MB-limit for eMail seemed to be enforced. Even HSDPA and EDGE were available and provided decent data rates. So that's an interesting offer if you don't generate much traffic.
More info at France - Orange - Prepaid Wireless Internet Access

France and Data
 

My best friend is returning for his annual month in France and is looking (again) for a decent prepaid wireless data option. Last year, he used Orange France and his experience was so far beyond disappointing that I can't begin to tell. Any other options out there?

There's a prepaid SFR offer costing 26 euros for 8 hours of internet use.
It's cheaper that the Orange one.

Hi maccoy,

Where can the SFR SIM cards be purchased? eg in the airport?

I'll be in France next month and I need a SIM which supports GPRS (DATA) for browsing, emails, etc.

And another question, is free WIFI widely available in France?

Thanks.

Usually there are no mobile operators shops in the airports.
You can buy a sim card for data in any phone shop exposing the operator logo.

WIFI is widely available but it isn't always free.
It is usually free in the libraries (within a limited connection time), Mcdonalds and Starbucks shops.
Elsewhere (bars) you may have to ask the waiters for acces codes.

Not a France sim, but tmobile UK has a OK data rate in all of EU. I think it's about 1.5 pound/MB or so. Thought I'd menton in case you can't find anything cheaper.

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/g...ountry/france/

Edit: Added link and changed UK to EU.