PAYG in France?

[jhanlon]

Hello Everyone,

What is the latest thinking about Pay-As-You-Go SIM cards in France? Are there any such plans for extended term visitors in France? All suggestions will be appreciated.

[raywright1]

is it possible to purchase a PAYG SIM at Gara du Nord in Paris?

[petkow]

Originally Posted by raywright1

is it possible to purchase a PAYG SIM at Gara du Nord in Paris?

There is a listing of a shop called CLOVIS, that is on the main mezzanine level of the Gare du Nord. It sells SIMs as well as doing things like unblocking handsets. Also useful, because being in a station it is open long. (Until 9PM)
See: Magasins de téléphonie - Un magasin dans votre département

Also there is bound to be a Bouyges shop somewhere within a few minutes walk of the station. You could check their website for store locations.

[wisniak]

Note that in France emails "eat up" your credit much faster than regular browsing.

I purchased an Orange PAYG card, it took a couple of hours for it to be activated (had to
go into an Orange shop to do it).

The credit was eaten up very quickly, so it becomes very expensive.

[vegemite]

What do you mean emails use up credit faster than regular browsing? It should use hardly anything? So what's the current status of prepaid data and voice in France? A friend suggested a store called 'Leclerc'? Is this right? I still have NO idea what SIM to get in France, they all seem hideously expensive and hard to get, or am I wrong? Thankfully we are only in Paris for 3 days but having online GPS would be fantastic.

[wisniak]

I don't know whether there's a logical explanation, but that was the reality, and it's well documented in this forum.

I bought an Orange SIM, it took a while to find one of their stores (though you can buy refills everywhere).

[vegemite]

I thought Orange was bad? Do all the French data SIMs charge per minimum block making them useless for A-GPS? Anyone heard of 'leclerc'?

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by vegemite

What do you mean emails use up credit faster than regular browsing?

Those "Internet Max" options include only traffic over the ports used by http for transferring webpages (80, 8080). All other connections will be billed separately at a prohibitively expensive rate of € 15/MB (billed in 10KB-increments, "Pour les autres usages dont les usages mail (smtp, pop, imap) et GPS").
So you can browse the web without limitation, but as soon as you use an eMail client or Google Maps or any other application, that uses other ports than those mentioned above, your credit will disappear quickly.
If your eMail provider has a webmail interface, through which you can open your eMails in the browser instead of using an eMail client, this will be included in the "Internet Max" options, since technically webmail is just a web page.
You can also surf the web using a computer with a 3G modem under those "Internet Max" options - when I tried that back in May it worked flawlessly and no additional charges applied. However be sure there's no other application running, that would establish IP-connections on non-web-ports (e.g. Skype, antivirus updater etc.; Windows Update is not critical, as it runs over port 80). Also there's no need to manipulate the USER_AGENT of your browser.

A friend suggested a store called 'Leclerc'? Is this right?

Leclerc is a chain of super markets, which also have a MVNO-product called "Leclerc mobile". According to their price list they charge € 1/MB (billied in 1KB-increments).
Btw the French abbreviate kilobytes with KO, megabytes with MO and gigabytes with GO.

I still have NO idea what SIM to get in France, they all seem hideously expensive and hard to get, or am I wrong?

You are absolutely right. That's why France - among other countries - is considered being part of the "axis of wirless evil" on this board.
For A-GPS, which generates just a few dozen kilobytes of traffic each time you start a GPS-app, Leclerc seems to be the cheapest solution.

[vegemite]

OK looks like LeClerc is the option then as it is A-GPS and Google Maps that we need it for most, as well as day to day email or whatever, so small data blocks very frequently will cause issues with anything else.

1KB increments are ok for this general application then? I never thought I would see the day when Australia in remote rural Australia had more affordable 3G data than urban Europe! Thankfully we are only spending a few days in Paris.

Thanks for the help then, LeClerc it is!

[inquisitor]

The smaller the billing increment, the cheaper for you and 1KB is the smallest billing increment available in the market. Here in Germany billing increments are at least 10KB, allthough the larger billing increment is offset by the way lower data rates here.

While downloading ephemeris for GPS (AGPS) generates only a few dozen kilobytes, Google Maps is way more data-hungry. Just opening Google Maps and viewing the map extract at your current position will download at least 100KB. If you then start panning the map, searching points of interest and calculating routes, you can quickly generate several hundred kilobytes within a minute.
In order to save data volume you should not use satellite view, as the satellite images are larger than the plain map view images, but in any case Google Maps can draw your credit quickly and is not suited for permanent use at French data rates.
In the beginning better check your credit after each usage of Google Maps in order to get a feeling on how expensive it is.