Can't seem to find an answer on this. If I buy a prepaid (Orange, SFR for example) in Paris, will incoming be free?

Yes, the price of the call will be subsidised by the caller. Callers to mobiles in "caller pays" countries pay the cost of the cellular charge. Calls to mobile numbers are more expensive than calls to landlines in the same country. The difference can be a little or a lot. In Dubai, calls to mobiles are about $US 0.001 more than calls to landlines. In the UK, you could pay $0.25 a minute to call a mobile.

In Italy you can even pay 0.38? to call a mobile from landline... and I think in France even more, looking at the prepaid tariffs they have...

As long as you are in France, incoming will be free to you...the caller will pay sopmewhat more...lon USA long distance charts, you may see notations such as calls to France 6?/minute...calls to French mobiles 40?/minute (figures made up, you have to check with individual long distance companies for their actual rates)...however once you leave France you are roaming and will pay an arm and a leg with French sims to receive calls elsewhere in Europe and indeed even more in the rest of the world while the caller still pays the rate to French mobiles wherever you are.

This is the gist of what the eu is trying to do to curtail these rip off rates and one would like to believe that sometime within the next year roaming rates will come down although I doubt the eu parliament will allow the original plan which would have meant all reception of calls throughout eu land on an eu sim would be free. Too much influence by these rip off telecom companies alas.

In France the maximal cost for calling a mobile phone from landline is 14,6 cents a minute.

Lucky you! :P
It's so strange you have such high tariffs from prepaid mobiles...

TANSTAAFL. "Free" to you, yes. "Free" to the person calling you, no. The cost of the call is just shifted from the called party to the calling party. In CPP countries calls to wireless phones are generally toll calls. In the old days US international long distance carriers did not pay this toll to foreign wireless carriers. A few years ago (maybe, 7 years) the foreign wireless carriers got tired of it and started cutting off calls from US companies that didn't pay their premium. Ever since then US LD carriers have been charging extra to call most foreign wireless phones. In some cases this premium may be up to 30c-35c/min.

This French pricing is interesting! In Poland landline-to-mobile calls are also very expensive (even 40-50 cents/min in peak hours, also often setup fee or 60/60 debiting) to compare with mobile-to-mobile calls (about 21 cents/min in worst cases, 1/1 debiting, no setup fee).

Thanx all. I'll be in Paris for a week in March 07. I was thinking about buying something like 09 or UM. But considering the price of the pre-paid in France, seems so much cheaper.

OneSuite is 21 cents to French mobiles. I can use OneSuites toll free acess # in france to acess OneSuite and call my wife to give her the #. Then I will probably let her call me the rest of the time.

On a side note, for some strange reason Telcel and Movistar in Mexico block 800# calls from my cell. I emailed OneSuite and asked if while in mexico I could dial one of their local access #'s. They responded with no, I need to use thier Mexico 800 #. Those rates are a little high. I will be down there next weekend. I am almost positive I can call any of OneSuites local access #'s and place the call. And I guess since I am paying via the cell phone, I probably can just use any local access # while in the US and get their lower local access per minute rates.

Have a great Thanksgiving all!!