Report on using Orange Mobicarte in France

[scirocco]

The Mobicarte requires a minimum top-up of 10 euros every six months after the credit has expired to prevent the number from expiring. If you are in France and can buy a recharge, suggest you buy a 10 euro recharge voucher and take it home with you. You can do the recharge in your home country using the #123 menu on the phone. If you do it just before 13 May then the number will stay alive for another six months after that.

The vouchers last for ages if not used; the clock doesn't start ticking on the credit until you actually add it to the account.

[TraceyJ]

Originally Posted by scirocco

The Mobicarte requires a minimum top-up of 10 euros every six months after the credit has expired to prevent the number from expiring. If you are in France and can buy a recharge, suggest you buy a 10 euro recharge voucher and take it home with you. You can do the recharge in your home country using the #123 menu on the phone. If you do it just before 13 May then the number will stay alive for another six months after that.

The vouchers last for ages if not used; the clock doesn't start ticking on the credit until you actually add it to the account.

Apologies for belated response - I didn't receive any notification of a newreply

Thanks for your reply. I will be back in France next week so will buy a top up for next year!

[drama queen]

I am currently in France and also managed to get Orange Mobicarte working. France is the most difficult country I have encountered for visitors to purchase and activate SIM cards. Without the information in this Forum, I would not have succeeded. I have a few refinements following my experience. See below,


Mobicarte Orange PREPAID SIM info
Orange Mobicarte is €9.90 for card, and €9 for 500MB for use up to 1 month- Min top-up €10 - so total €19.90. "BP Mois internet Max" add-on (after 500MB speed gets throttled). It seems like the best option for short term visitors to France, who require Data.

Preparation:
Before purchasing the Orange SIM, take the following important precautions.

• Switch off all packet-data before activitating new SIM. This is necessary because default tariff on a new SIM charges for data at an exorbitant out-of-bundle rate. You need to avoid using data/voice/SMS until you have changed your tariff from the default to the Internet Max tariff.
• Disable any Lost/Stolen phone apps that cause an SMS msg to be sent when you insert a new SIM.
• Disable email clients - as email protocols are charged out-of-bundle (webmail - eg gmail ok)
• Disable Skype/Viber/VOIP Do not activate - as they can invalidate bundle.
• No Tethering!

Purchasing & Registration of card on default Tariff:
Registration of card can take up to 24 hours - before which the next step below won't work! After setting up my registration, the shop assistant inserted the €10 top-up for me. The Orange shop logged my passport details on registration, but they made a serious mistake - they didn't send a copy of my passport to HQ. The shop assistant admitted to never having done a registration for a non-national before. She assured me that the registration was ok and would be completed after lunch! My registration was blocked because of this failure by the shop assistant. I sent an email afterwards to <blois.contrats@orange.com> with a photo of my passport and my Orange phone number, to get unblocked. I tried several other shops - and none were familiar with the process for non-residents. My advice would be to assume that all Orange shop assistants are clueless in this regard - and send an email with a copy of your passport to the above address, just in case. This means you will need other Internet access (WiFi etc) because your Orange Internet will not be working until this step is complete.


Tariff change to Internet Max:
Tariff change can take up to 48 hours - but only took a short time for me! On the default tariff, you are charged out-of-bundle rates for data, so do not switch on packet data until you have followed the process below and changed the tariff.

Dial #123#
You get a startup USSD menu showing the credit on your prepaid account. You need enough credit on your account to buy the €9 data plan.

Choose 1-Menu
Choose 4-Bons plans
Choose 3-Internet et emails
Choose 3-Option Internet Max
Choose 2-Souscrire (Subscribe).
Choose 1=Valider (Confirm).
That should be it. Officially the option may take 48 hours to come into effect, however in reality it can take less.

One really frustrating thing about this process is that Orange sent no messages to indicate progress/failure with the subscription process at any time. You can work out which stage you are at by probing for subtle changes in the USSD menus following the #123# command, or by setting up your on-line account on Orange : téléphones, forfaits, Internet, actualité, sport, video, and checking account settings

The Orange APN was set up automatically when I inserted the Orange SIM card.

[wco81]

Is the mobicarte only for phones?

Can you use with Mifi devices?

What is the throttled speed?

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by wco81

Is the mobicarte only for phones?

Can you use with Mifi devices?

What is the throttled speed?

It is clearly intended for phones. I used it in an Android SGS2. I didn't try it in any other device - I suspect it would work from an access perspective, but the limitations on tethering would render it useless in a dongle or MiFi device. On the last day of my trip, I decided to try tethering to see if it was just a threat - or if the restriction is for real. I set my phone to become a WiFi Hotspot and tethered my Android tablet to it. Tethering was blocked. This has never happened to me on any other network. Even though I was using another Android device, I was blocked. I also tried Skype and it was also blocked, as stated. I guess that Orange must be using some form of Deep Packet Inspection to identify the applications?

It might be worth trying to use a VPN to get around this blocking? The VPN client would need to be active in the phone so as to hide all data payload from Orange's deep-packet-inspection. They might not block VPNs because they are validly used by business users accessing their corporate networks? I don't know whether it is possible to get WiFi tethering to hook into a VPN tunnel?

Despite the limitations - once it was set up - I found the Mobicarte excellent for my stay in France. The Orange coverage and capacity is generally very good. I had WiFi in hotels in the evenings - so mobile use was mainly for maps, apps and web-browsing during the day. Gmail app. worked fine.

[woody1]

I was able to tether freely on Orange in France when I was there in 2009. I can't remember if I tethered any time after that. I guess they tightened up their detection since then.

I would be curious to find out if anybody has tried using a VPN to circumvent the detection. If anybody has a chance, try it and post the results here.

[woody1]

Originally Posted by drama queen

On the last day of my trip, I decided to try tethering to see if it was just a threat - or if the restriction is for real. I set my phone to become a WiFi Hotspot and tethered my Android tablet to it. Tethering was blocked. This has never happened to me on any other network.

Just to clarify, are you able to tether this particular phone on other networks? On my AT&T Galaxy S3, tethering was originally blocked on the phone software until I patched it to make it work.

Also, as I mentioned before, I wonder if connecting through a VPN would circumvent the tethering restriction. Has anybody tried that?

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by woody1

Just to clarify, are you able to tether this particular phone on other networks? On my AT&T Galaxy S3, tethering was originally blocked on the phone software until I patched it to make it work.

Also, as I mentioned before, I wonder if connecting through a VPN would circumvent the tethering restriction. Has anybody tried that?

I have no problem using my Android Galaxy S2 in mobile hotspot mode on other networks for tethering other devices such as my Android tablet. I couldn't get this to work on Orange in France. However, I only tried it in the airport on my last day, as I didn't want to get cut off by trying it earlier. My test may have been flawed for some reason. My phone was able to browse the Internet ok in the airport, and the tablet connected to the phone ok - but stalled when trying to browse. Perhaps they detected that I had two devices connected, and only permitted the first device to connect? Maybe if I had not tried to browse with my phone, the tablet might have worked?

[Trallig]

If the mobicarte is only intended for phones, what can i use for my ipad2 , with os5, to have 3 g service while on the road in france? My ipad is " jailbroken".

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by Trallig

If the mobicarte is only intended for phones, what can i use for my ipad2 , with os5, to have 3 g service while on the road in france? My ipad is " jailbroken".

Orange do not appear to have any Prepay options for Dongles or Tablets.
I think you would need to sign up to Bill pay. They do have a Bill pay option "sans engagement" for €9 per month. I guess you could cancel after 1 month?

Another option is to get a prepay card from another country which offers cheap roaming for data. Vodafone Ireland are the cheapest I know in Europe. They offer 50MB for €3 per day of Internet usage on Prepay. You can get a prepay SIM from Vodafone Ireland for €10 with €10 credit. Beats any other roaming offer hands down.