PAYG in France?
 

Hello Everyone,

What is the latest thinking about Pay-As-You-Go SIM cards in France? Are there any such plans for extended term visitors in France? All suggestions will be appreciated.

SIMs at Paris Gara du Nord?
 

is it possible to purchase a PAYG SIM at Gara du Nord in Paris?

There is a listing of a shop called CLOVIS, that is on the main mezzanine level of the Gare du Nord. It sells SIMs as well as doing things like unblocking handsets. Also useful, because being in a station it is open long. (Until 9PM)
See: Magasins de téléphonie - Un magasin dans votre département

Also there is bound to be a Bouyges shop somewhere within a few minutes walk of the station. You could check their website for store locations.

Note that in France emails "eat up" your credit much faster than regular browsing.

I purchased an Orange PAYG card, it took a couple of hours for it to be activated (had to
go into an Orange shop to do it).

The credit was eaten up very quickly, so it becomes very expensive.

What do you mean emails use up credit faster than regular browsing? It should use hardly anything? So what's the current status of prepaid data and voice in France? A friend suggested a store called 'Leclerc'? Is this right? I still have NO idea what SIM to get in France, they all seem hideously expensive and hard to get, or am I wrong? Thankfully we are only in Paris for 3 days but having online GPS would be fantastic.

I don't know whether there's a logical explanation, but that was the reality, and it's well documented in this forum.

I bought an Orange SIM, it took a while to find one of their stores (though you can buy refills everywhere).

I thought Orange was bad? Do all the French data SIMs charge per minimum block making them useless for A-GPS? Anyone heard of 'leclerc'?

Those "Internet Max" options include only traffic over the ports used by http for transferring webpages (80, 8080). All other connections will be billed separately at a prohibitively expensive rate of € 15/MB (billed in 10KB-increments, "Pour les autres usages dont les usages mail (smtp, pop, imap) et GPS").
So you can browse the web without limitation, but as soon as you use an eMail client or Google Maps or any other application, that uses other ports than those mentioned above, your credit will disappear quickly.
If your eMail provider has a webmail interface, through which you can open your eMails in the browser instead of using an eMail client, this will be included in the "Internet Max" options, since technically webmail is just a web page.
You can also surf the web using a computer with a 3G modem under those "Internet Max" options - when I tried that back in May it worked flawlessly and no additional charges applied. However be sure there's no other application running, that would establish IP-connections on non-web-ports (e.g. Skype, antivirus updater etc.; Windows Update is not critical, as it runs over port 80). Also there's no need to manipulate the USER_AGENT of your browser.

Leclerc is a chain of super markets, which also have a MVNO-product called "Leclerc mobile". According to their price list they charge € 1/MB (billied in 1KB-increments).
Btw the French abbreviate kilobytes with KO, megabytes with MO and gigabytes with GO.

You are absolutely right. That's why France - among other countries - is considered being part of the "axis of wirless evil" on this board.
For A-GPS, which generates just a few dozen kilobytes of traffic each time you start a GPS-app, Leclerc seems to be the cheapest solution.

OK looks like LeClerc is the option then as it is A-GPS and Google Maps that we need it for most, as well as day to day email or whatever, so small data blocks very frequently will cause issues with anything else.

1KB increments are ok for this general application then? I never thought I would see the day when Australia in remote rural Australia had more affordable 3G data than urban Europe! Thankfully we are only spending a few days in Paris.

Thanks for the help then, LeClerc it is!

The smaller the billing increment, the cheaper for you and 1KB is the smallest billing increment available in the market. Here in Germany billing increments are at least 10KB, allthough the larger billing increment is offset by the way lower data rates here.

While downloading ephemeris for GPS (AGPS) generates only a few dozen kilobytes, Google Maps is way more data-hungry. Just opening Google Maps and viewing the map extract at your current position will download at least 100KB. If you then start panning the map, searching points of interest and calculating routes, you can quickly generate several hundred kilobytes within a minute.
In order to save data volume you should not use satellite view, as the satellite images are larger than the plain map view images, but in any case Google Maps can draw your credit quickly and is not suited for permanent use at French data rates.
In the beginning better check your credit after each usage of Google Maps in order to get a feeling on how expensive it is.

Another suggestion is to switch from using Google maps to another application where you can download maps onto the device in advance so that the device operates offline when you are out and about. On Nokia's, you can use their free OVI maps application which I am beginning to find is actually quite good in pedestrian mode. The device can even give you route guidance in discreet beeps and vibrations.

Even in driving mode, the voice guidance in OVI is actually much better than on my dedicated Navman car GPS system! I especially like the "Surfer Dude" voice guidance that you can download for free. ;)

Even though I am a big fan of Google maps, it's high data useage makes it completely impractical for roaming applications. Now I just download the map if the country I am visiting in advance and just stick to OVI maps.

Here's my experience with 3G PAYG prepaid data in France:

3G prepaid internet access in France with Orange

Info included how to work around the small print to avoid having your prepaid balance zero-ed in no-time. Orange excludes POP/IMAP access from the flat-fee rate, including using the connection on a laptop.

IMHO these small printed conditions are on the sheer edge. A non-tech savvy user doesn't understand these exceptions. It might not even hold in European courts when put on the stand.

Cheers!

When I had subscribed to Orange's "Internet Max Journee" and "Weekend" options in May, I was definitely not charged additionally for surfing the web using Firefox on my Netbook (Windows XP, Huawei EM770 datacard). And I did not fake Firefox' user-agent.

data France
 

hello
as french customer, the best solutions is only to remain on orange, sfr and bouygues data+ phone prepaid cards available on brands shops.
MNVo or exotic data cards are too expensive.

With € 1/MB Leclerc mobile seems to be an exception there.

Holy shit! I always thought we had it bad here in Switzerland... :eek:

I think I'll rather not have mobile Internet on my vacations that deal with this shit.

Thanks anyway for the information.

Actually it's 10KB increments.
Would this work with my unlocked dongle an if yes, what would be the WAP settings?

Have you had the possibility to try this yourself?

I've been following this guide:

E.LECLERC MOBILE - Paramètres SMS / MMS / WAP

The connection gets established, but I can't access any pages (no matter if it's WAP or not).
I'm using the huawei dongle...

No, I've never tried Leclerc. But the solution could be configuring the proxy (010.143.156.009) in your browser.

I've tried that.

Maybe they don't allow dongles, just phones?
Unfortunately I don't have the E52 with me to try.

What's wrong with you, France? :down:

You should try Firefox with an addon called "User Agent Swichter", which you'll find under "Tools" after installation. Through this addon you can fake the "user agent" of Firefox to pretend being an iphone.
By the "user agent", which every browser sends with each http-request, operators can easily detect traffic coming from non-mobile browsers/devices.
However there is still the EIR (Equipment Identity Register), a component in every GSM network, through which operators could distinguish handsets from modems by the IMEI if a database of IMEI-ranges existed.

Thanks. This made it work.
Unfortunately all websites now think that I'm on an iphone and behave accordingly...
What really boggles my mind is that I have to cheat to get the privilege to pay them 1€/MB...
Incroyable...

Maybe some of you could consider using the german virtual operator "simyo" which charges 0,49€/MB in every European country. Still cheaper than every other data plan in France and also usable in Germany with 0,24€/MB.

That is actually not such a bad idea (when it comes to France).

But wasn't there a cheaper prepaid offer from the UK or Ireland for European data roaming?

and there's no way to buy it in france? what about poland? :)
how about forfait internet 3G+ wk et vacances - Orange mobile ?

Looks like 18Euro/1Go for 7days? That would be great for me, if it includes TCP/IP (nonstandard ports, like for email [Gmail], and SSH [bbssh], on blackberry). I could do without BIS for a week :)

Anyone care to comment if this 18Eu/1Go is for real and can be gotten without a key?

forfait = postpaid

What ID/credit-check/etc is needed for postpaid in France? ie. Could I get it there with a EU country's ID? A Canadian ID (like driver's licence, which is a government photo ID in Canada)? What do I need in terms of credit check if anything? I will be staying with a friend in Paris.

Otherwise, perhaps my friend could get this plan for the time I'm there (he's an international student), but me getting it myself would be preferable.

This is getting a bit OT, since it's postpaid to begin with, but any clue as to whether or not there is an activation fee? 3G-Cle purchase required? any other fees?

This is a much better option than any of the pay-as-you-go options I have found to date.

Thanks in advance.