FRANCE

The cellular system in France offers FREE and un-metered airtime on all incoming calls. Local SIM cards are widely available. Prepaid local cards are available to any walk-in customer and can easily be purchased locally at network providers shops and authorized dealers. These shops are spread out in most of the main cities as well as central hubs – airports and train stations.

Reloading prepaid cards is also made very easy. Scratch cards with prepaid credit can be purchased in most any kiosk, convenience store, post office, etc.

France cellular providers and networks

Your cellular options in France

The following table maps out the various alternatives and their estimated costs.

All rates are presented in USD currency per minute

1 Estimated, may vary between providers
2 Represented are the ranges of roaming rates offered by North American cellular providers

It just does not make sense to travel with a US or Canadian plan under the international roaming rates. You will be paying very high rates for a service that you can get for much less. The saving that you will generate from 100-150 minutes with the global SIM card will pay for a SIM card and a new phone.
Buying a local prepaid SIM card is very simple and widely available at many local locations. It features relatively good rates, but is costly on the international calls. If you plan to call your home or office from the local SIM card you will benefit from using a callback service. With SIM and callback combined international call rates s are made reasonable.

The fine print on the local SIM card deal relates to the roaming charges. Local SIM cards will charge heavily on roaming (USD 0.75 – 1.70 per minute) if used outside of France. If you plan to visit multiple destinations you will need to swap SIM cards once you leave France, or as an alternative use the global SIM card that features free roaming throughout Europe and numerous other destinations.

The second catch with the local SIM cards is defined under the term "Service Life" or "Expiration". These are prepaid cards, meaning that you already paid for your future calls. However, your remaining and unused credit will be lost if the card is not recharged in 2 months. Unless you are a very frequent traveler to France you are most likely to loose all unused credit remaining on the card. Factor this into the cost of you card and calls and you will find that your effective rates are higher than presented. Note that if you don't use your card for a period of 8 months, your card will completely expire, including the initial fixed cost of the card (approximately $30).

Renting a local phone will probably turn out to be the wrong way to go taking into account the monthly airtime plans and rental fees. The monthly plans in many cases offer you a bulk of minutes for a fixed monthly fee. Additional minutes are charged at a higher rate. Just because your local carriers do it doesn't mean you have to fall for this again – you never use your exact quota, you either under-use your minutes and loose the remaining balance for that month, or exceed the quota and pay a "fine" for the additional minutes. Anyway you look at it you loose. The industry average for renting the phone alone (device only without airtime) is $30-50 per month. If you couple that with the monthly minute plans, you are probably better off buying a new phone and using a global SIM card than renting. You will most likely pay off the phone and card after your first or second trip, just based on the difference between the two options (and the phone is yours to keep).

The rates of the global SIM card are as good as the local SIM card but without the roaming fees and the two-month service life restriction. This global SIM card will offer similar savings in many other countries without roaming, so you can trot the globe with it and still benefit from the same great rates.
For additional savings you can use calling cards or callback services when at the hotel or near a fixed line phone. Doing this may cut your costs of outgoing calls to a third of what the lowest cell rate would offer you.

To have option of choosing your service and SIM card you need to have an Unlocked world GSM phone. Click the following link to learn more about ordering global SIM cards. If you want to learn more or subscribe to our calling cards and callback service, visit our Re-routing section.