Quick Facts
Country: France
Network Name: SFR
Website: http://www.sfr.fr
Product Name: La Carte
Owned by/Major partner: Vodafone
Operational Frequency: 900 and 1800 GSM
Prepaid Package Cost (Just SIM): 35 Euro (5 Euro SMS credit, 5 Euro talk credit)
CSD access: Yes
GPRS access: Yes
SIM applications: Yes
Manual included: Yes
Refill amounts: 15, 25, 35, 60 euro cards
Availability: SFR shops, "Tabac" shops and Telecom shops, they are easy to find!
Competitors: Orange, Boygues
More In-Depth Information
Buying:
The Good:
Buying the prepaid package is really straight forward. You can go to any Tabac, or SFR company store (major cities have at least one), or you can go to an independent dealer and buy a package. Recharging is straight forward. You can buy recharge cards in the same places you can buy a prepaid package, and every post office has the ability to sell you recharge cards. Personally I would buy a 35 or 60 euro card since they give you 20% and 30% (respectively) more airtime than you pay for when you buy those recharge amounts.
The Bad:
Sorry, no american credit cards (unless you've got one with the smartchip on it). The french don't seem to grasp that you can key in the credit card number if the swiping motion does no work. Also because of French regulations you need to declare your name and address when buying the prepaid package. I think this is pointless since I do not live in France (gave the hotel's address) and I was never asked for an ID - so I could have lied. As of today (7/15/04) if you want to buy in advance and have it activated while still in your country of origin, this is impossible
YOu have to activate your account in France.
Usage:
The Good:
CSD and GPRS are available on prepaid accounts! You can surf the net on your mobile. Signal was pretty good almost everywhere I went. The SIM has SIM applications on it that allow you to connect to SFR's TEXTO services (get movie, weather, banking, ringtone and other services). Getting on GPRS is easy, and their service is called "Vodaphone Live!", it has some interesting things on it. As I mentioned earlier it is very easy to get refills, and they give you free time as well. They have various promotions going on. While I was there I got 90 minutes free of night-time minutes as well as 2 months free of caller waiting.
The SIM app tookit called "Services SFR" contains the following categories:
(1) Recharger (recharge)
(2) Messages (access to voicemail, texto, the email account they give you, and access to other messages)
(3) Services (various services)
(4) My favorites
Finally, the SIM has numbers preprogrammed on it that can let you access customer service, emergency services such as police and ambulances, and the numbers for their various services.
The Bad:
I was vacationing in the area of Languedoc-Roussillon (in an village called Gruissan, near Narbonne). The signal was pretty good, unfortunately in the house (in the bedroom and bathroom) I only had 1 bar of signal (out of five) - I was still able to GPRS though. Another bad thing is the fact that TEXTO seems to have an SMS counterpart as well but it did not seem to work when I tried to use it. Thirdly, in theory I am supposed to be able to roam while I am here in the states, but I am getting only "Emergency call only" on my mobile. Finally, the most retarded thing is GPRS related. I could use *only* the built-in "internet" browser on my P800 to access the GPRS connection. I could not use Opera, Worldmate and I could not use the mail client of my P800!!! I am not sure if I goofed on the settings but I could not get my mail to work! This was annoying.
On a smaller scale, the SIM apps are all telephone based, so you need to call in order to get things done, doing things by SMS is not really an option as it seems for the built in apps.
TIPS:
1) Read the Manual, it's interesting - the package comes with manuals and reminder cards
2) Buy yourself a 35 or 60 euro recharge card if you are going to be in France for 2 or more weeks (based on your perceived usage)
3) Do yourself a favor and go to sonyericsson.com (if you own a sonyericsson phone) and get the configurations for you phone BEFORE going on vacation. I looked around at many websites for settings and nothing worked until I went to SE's website
4) CSD is active instantly once your SIM is active, even though it says you need to call customer service to activate it. GPRS takes 3 days to come online once you activate your account. Get both CDS and GPRS settings for your phone!
5) Be careful of pickpockets.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Since it is the only package that I have used in France and given that I did not have to call customer service at all, and that I had GPRS access makes me want to recommend this to anyone visiting France and that needs prepaid! I give it 4/5 stars.
Screenshot of Vodafone Live! WAP site
