The message says you can't recharge online but only with scratch cards in the firs month.

Ah, perfect. I'm not going till end of June so I can recharge in a month and still be setup for when I arrive.

Thank you.

You're welcome! :)

Just noticed a similar offering from Bouygues Telecom:

Offres Internet Mobile - Option Web & Mail - Internet Mobile - Bouygues Telecom

Is that a better alternative to the Orange Internet max option, seems to have no restriction on emails? And comes "sans engagement"

The option is "sans engagement" but you can activate it only on a postpaid contract. :(

Orange vs SFR vs Bouygues coverage
 

In the USA, coverage and quality of signal differ dramatically by carrier. I've read that Bouygues is the newest, smallest and most likely of the three main carriers to not provide a cell signal when you need it.

But prepaid rates for Bouygues are significantly lower than Orange, and I'm certainly tempted. But...if my wife or teenage boys don't have a signal when they want/need it I'll regret the theoretical € savings!

We'll be spending a week in Provence (along the coast, Nice to Aix-en-Provence, centered in La Croix Valmer), and we'll then spend a week in Paris.

I'd guess that within Paris all three carriers will be fine....but does anyone have any experience along the Riviera with Orange vs. Bouygues???

Thanks much for any help!

Be seeing you,
Denis

Im using the mobicarte with Internet Max option (posting using it right now :))
The salespeople are indeed completely clueless about it, so might as well not even bother asking.
Everything works fine for me, aside from the data transfer speeds, which are terrible. Im in Paris, my phone supports every fancy transfer protocol known (nokia 5800XM), it shows a 3.5G icon next to the network, but I'm getting 400-500kbit/sec speeds at most. 3.5G should mean 10-20 times that. Any ideas? Its absolutely crucial for me to get at least 1mbit speeds.

Meko, can you update regarding direct HTML (Web) browsing (ie not through the Orange portal), and regarding emailing costs and feasibility? (ie POP3, IMAP4, Gmail...)

Thanks.

Dont know about pop/imap, I use web-based gmail (the phone app doesnt work for me, dont know why, it asks for my password on every page. way too annoying).
"orange portal"? They set some orange page as my homepage when they entered the settings on my phone at the store (hint: save yourself a few hours and do it yourself), but the browsing is just normal browsing. And it works (apart from being slow).

thanks all, this thread has been very informative. i am going to france next month and was wondering how easy it would be to setup my iphone to have a local number while i'm there.