First, thanks a terrific web site. There is an incredible amount of user information here.

Now, my question: in looking over the French prepaid offerings, two of the providers - SFR and NRJ - offer a EuroCent "per connection" rate for GPRS. Would someone be kind enough to help me compare this "per connection" fee to a per-KB rate?

For example, does this mean that a single transaction with my mail server is 24 or 30 EuroCents, whether there is no email or 100 emails with attachments?

And if I'm browsing the web, does every "click" cost another connection charge?

It seems that if I'm doing mainly email checks, that this is a great deal, but not so much for web surfing.

Finally, is there any special registration required to use GPRS, and can that be activated where I purchase the SIM (for example, the Nice-Cote d'Azur aeroport)?

Any insight you can give me will be appreciated.

JAC

With a SFR (or NRJ) prepaid plan the GPRS is available only for wap connections, so I don't think it will be useful for you...

Look at the posts on Wind from Italy. They have an exceptionally good data roaming deal for the EU.

not anymore... prices raise by factor 60 in december....

Thank you all.

Yes, I'm sorry to see the Wind deal go away. T-Mobile USA allows voice roaming in Europe for $0.99 (about ?0.75), and GPRS for $0.015/kb (?0.12). Since I use GPRS more than voice, buying a SIM card in France hardly makes sense for me.

JAC

I carry a Virgin UK prepaid sim for GPRS usage when I am roaming. I use it for voice only when in the UK. They charge the same for data usage (approx 5 pounds/meg) regardless if one is roaming or not.

Their sims are all over ebay. They roam out of the box and come GPRS enabled. All that needs to be done is get the settings from their website or have it sent to your phone. Now, you can't register a non-UK issued credit card with them though for automatic topup. But, who needs that when the topups are on ebay UK for less than face value. I have bought all my topups from there. The advantage with the Virgin pay by direct debit option is that the call rates are a little lower (don't care! I don't use it for that), and they supposedly roam in a few more countries. My experince though is that I have been able to use mine in countries that are not even listed for the non by direct debit option. For example I have been able to roam in Nigeria (just recently), St. Martin/Maarteen and other islands not listed at all.

Thanks - I'll keep that in mind. For the trip I'm looking at, I'll be in Italy and France, so I'll probably get a card in Italy with a generous data allotment, then use it until it dies in France before reverting to my US plan.

JAC