Report on using Orange Mobicarte in France

[flychr]

hi

So using an email client, instant messaging clients, ftp clients etc resulted in prohibitively high extra charges.

i used the sim in a htc desire and used the hotspot to a laptop and i paid for the email klint and i had no problem ! but i tried sim ind a usb modem and a warning i fr (i think) not to use the sim ind usb modem!
chr

[tomsdiner]

Hi all,

I'm back from Côte d'Azure.
Thanks to the tecnique mentioned above I was having a quite nice mobile connention.

I bought a SIM card with €15 in advance from the seller and created an account on Orange. Differrent from the instraction, the SMS for password was free, so that I could contract Internet option(€9) and Mial Option(€6) at once.
I noticed that, if you don't email heavily, it would be a nice tactics to hold Mail Option until entering France. In detail, buy SIM card with €10 and contract Internet Option alone, nagate mail sync, and buy €5 charge in France and contract Mail Option. This will save a bit.

Anyway, thx Sirocco!

[V6Matt]

Originally Posted by tomsdiner

Hi all,

I'm back from Côte d'Azure.
Thanks to the tecnique mentioned above I was having a quite nice mobile connention.

I bought a SIM card with €15 in advance from the seller and created an account on Orange. Differrent from the instraction, the SMS for password was free, so that I could contract Internet option(€9) and Mial Option(€6) at once.
I noticed that, if you don't email heavily, it would be a nice tactics to hold Mail Option until entering France. In detail, buy SIM card with €10 and contract Internet Option alone, nagate mail sync, and buy €5 charge in France and contract Mail Option. This will save a bit.

Anyway, thx Sirocco!

Great to hear that you got it working as well, I agree that the mail option is not really necessary. Personally all my mail accounts are web based anyway, so I just save googlemail.com on my bookmarks and head there if I want to check my email.

[jb9]

Hello,

I am in the US preparing for an upcoming trip to France. I just purchased an Orange Mobicarte with 15 Euros of credit from the ebay seller indicated. I received the SIM card and inserted it into my basic unlocked GSM Motorola Razr V3 phone. I was able to select the T-Mobile network and have the phone power up successfully. This phone is not a smart phone so I am not sure if it has data options that need to be turned off. How do I find out what my telephone number is? I have tried the #123# method, then 3 "suivi conso" but it is not displaying it (it says Menu, Aide, Precedent and Acceuil).

I tried to call my own US cell phone, but I keep getting a "call failed" error.

The card I received from the seller did not indicate the phone number and the seller indicated that I should simply call another phone.

How do I dial my known cell phone here in the US? Do I need to put international country codes before the number?

I would really like to confirm my own number and credit on my Mobicarte before I go on my trip!

I really need some help...

thanks

[scirocco]

Yes, like the seller says, just dial a phone that you can get to that shows caller ID. The ebay seller sets the cards up with international access switched on, so it should not be a problem to do so.

It never hurts to put the international codes in, so (since you're in the US) just dial +1 then the area code and phone number. The number of the SIM you've bought will start with 33 (country code for France) then have a 6 then xx xx xx xx.

So within France someone calling you would dial 06 xx xx xx xx
Calling you in France from the US someone would dial +33 6 xx xx xx xx

[jb9]

Thanks scirocco.

I finally got the phone to place a call successfully and subsequently view the SIM's phone number. Good news for sure! It also looks like I have the correct amount of credit (15 Euro) on the Orange system based on my use of the #123# menu. As I mentioned earlier, I just have a basic unlocked quad-band Motorola Razr V3 flip phone because I really only am interested in making/receiving calls or SMS. This particular thread mentions how folks need to turn off the data settings on their smartphones so that credit is not drained from the card. My phone does use what is called GPRS in a very rudimentary web browser (I haven't turned on or initiated a browser session), but I do NOT plan to use it.

Question #1: Do I still need to go to the orange.fr portail and create an account? I have already placed a call to my local phone to identify the number and vice versa, so it appears that the phone + SIM can send and receive calls. I am just wondering if the additional setup with the orange.fr portail is necessary since I am not using a true smartphone and don't plan on adding the mail or Internet Max options.

Question #2: I have looked pretty closely at the user manual, but if there are any experienced Motorola Razr V3 users who know of any other "data" settings I need to turn off, are there other settings that I am missing?

Question #3: What is the basic cost of using voice with the Mobicarte in France? I am under the impression that calls to landlines (04) are less expensive than calls to a cellular (06) and that the Mobicarte is not debited for incoming calls that I receive. Do I have the basic understanding correct?

Thanks so much to all the knowledgeable contributors to this thread!

[scirocco]

Glad you got it working. The Mobicarte tariff sheet is linked below, but basically it's a caller pays system, so you pay nothing for incoming calls, even international. For calls to mobiles or landlines within France it's 0.54 euros per minute according to the tariff sheet. SMS are 0.135 euros each. International calls are much higher of course.

Orange also do deals such as 0.9 euros for 10 minutes in any one day, 10 euros unlimited calls over the weekend and 3 euros unlimited 9pm to midnight. You can see some of these in my picture in post 50 back on page 5 of this thread. You can access these on the #123 menu or on the Orange Portail.

There's absolutely no need to sign up for an Orange account if you don't want to. But it is a bit easier to sit back in the comfort of your home and get up to speed with their deals online than it is in the clunky old #123 phone menu. Depends on your level of reading French too.

I think with your basic RAZR phone as long as you don't open the browser or use any add-on apps like Google Maps you will not use any data. I used to have a RAZRV6 and that was how it worked.

http://boutique.orange.fr/doc/contrat3552.pdf

[jb9]

Thanks for the link to the tariff sheet.

That's great!

I think I might try and create an Orange account and verify that I can receive the SMS message. So according to the rate sheet, that will cost .135 euro to "receive" the SMS in the US, right?

I also want to make sure I don't accidentally sign up for things via SMS so I will look out for that as well. Any suggestions on how to handle the barrage of marketing SMS messages. I am assuming any message would have a fairly specific set of reply instructions that would prevent a person from accidently accepting something.

[scirocco]

Other people in the thread have said that the SMS with the password for the Orange account was free. I thought I had been charged 0.5 euro for it, but I may be mistaken. If you look at p41 of the tariff sheet it says that it's 0.28 euros for a SMS from France to an overseas country, so the SMS shouldn't be any more than that, anyway.

As far as the marketing SMSs you may get from Orange are concerned, just close the SMS without replying and you won't inadvertently sign up for something. If you can read a bit of French the "No" reply option is usually pretty clear anyway.

[104001]

The SMS was most assuredly free for me when sent to the US. Typically any SMS that is received does not cost anything with a French SIM. Only SENDING an SMS will be charged.

I have traveled with the mobicarte and received SMS/MMS while out of the country without any charges.