Recommendation for American in France?

[scirocco]

Originally Posted by bigjoec

- Allows tethering/mobile hotspot. (My phone's not dual-sim, and I want my US number on all the time. I'm going to put this card in an old phone and run it as a hotspot for our regular phones.)

So if I'm reading you right, a data only SIM would be fine? (because for voice calls you'll leave your "good" phones with their US SIMs in them)? And voice call rates are pretty much irrelevant?

Just be aware that there is a lot of wifi in France. And at least one telco (Orange France) uses that FON technology where a lot of household and business routers can share their wifi with the outside world (i.e you if you happen to be passing). You may not need as much 3G as you might think.

Personally I would be getting a local SIM (even though data rates may not be the cheapest you can get) to get rock-solid performance. I've had poor experiences and difficult setup with data roaming in France (and other countries). Give me a local SIM with local support from one of the main telcos in the country any day.

Also worth checking coverage maps if you are going to be in rural or mountainous areas. Some operators have scarily large patches of white space on their maps compared with others!