I actually have a little pay as you go phone in the UK that I keep there for when I ‘m there as well..so perhaps thats the way to go..

Orange is not confirming the rumored deal with France so no rates are known yet.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/08/21/euro.iphone.deals.signed/ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/17aa89d0-500b-11dc-a6b0-0000779fd2ac.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/17aa89d0-500b-11dc-a6b0-0000779fd2ac.html http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/07/05/o2.tipped.for.uk.iphone/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/08/17/vodafone.iphone.deal.soon/

you can removed the first caractere of the phone number ( a zero) and replace it with the country code ‘+33′ for France and ‘+44′ for UK. That can help and avoid to add the country’s code every time you call another country.

http://www.zengeek.fr/blog/archives/13

HDR

Here is a short article about potential problems for announcing service plans in Europe because of trademark issues according to “anonymous sources”.

http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/08/13/european.iphone.trademarks/ http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=41644

I think that much of what you’ve described applies, not just to France, but to much / most of Europe.

I didn’t know that the US uses non-GSM bands; I did know that the US GSM bands are different from the European ones. I think it strange that N.Americans (inc. Canadians) pay to receive calls on a mobile phone (we don’t call them ‘cell phones’), but then the caller can’t tell from the number that he is calling a cell phone. In the UK (and I think in most of Europe), it’s always “the caller pays”, i.e. it costs more to call a mobile phone than to call a landline – but the caller does not pay to receive any calls / texts (except ‘premium texts’ sold as a commercial service) provided they are in their home country. If the caller is roaming – i.e. outside their home country – then the user pays to receive calls, which is fair enough as the caller does not know you are abroad. (This isn’t as clear-cut as it sounds when you are near a country border, as the strongest signal may be from the neighbouring country. Even in Jersey – the original one, not the ‘New’ one – one of the British Channel Islands off the north coast of France, at certain points on the coast the strongest mobile phone signal is from France 14 miles away, rather than from within the island (which is only 9 miles x 5 miles in size.)

This system of ‘the caller pays’ works because (at least in the UK – don’t know about France) the caller knows he is calling a mobile number because the numbers are distinctive: all mobile numbers begin “07xx” whereas regular UK landline numbers all begin “01xx” or “02xx”. So the whole system works on a different basis from that in the US. Again, personally, I find it strange that US cell phones have a regular Area Code, becuase, by definition, cell / mobile phones are not tied to a specific area.

I’m surprised you can’t use your French SIM cards in N.America. Is that becuase you bought them there and/or just a restriction by your ‘phone company. In the UK, we can generally use them world-wide, the only restrictions being compatibility between the GSM bands and which foreign companies your provider has arrangements with. We don’t get charged a fee to be able to roam (altho’ you may need to have the account activated to permit roaming, especially if it’s a credit account) – we just pay A LOT (!) more to use the ‘phone – send and receive – when roaming.

In the UK we have both monthly credit contracts (usually min 12 – 18 months) with a set monthly fee including a fixed number of ‘free’ minutes / texts, and pre-pay SIMs as you have. For occassional use, pre-pay is cheaper, but for greater usage monthly is cheaper. Pre-pay amounts can be bought in the manner you describe for France, or by pre-registering a debit/credit card with your ‘phone company and then dialling a special number, or by debit/credit card through the company’s web-site. Yes, pre-pay numbers do tend to expire after significant non-use as they may have been replaced by someone getting a new number with another company, or just being used as a ‘throw-away’ number. I guess this is analogous to a contract or land-line number being re-circulated if the contract expires.

Hope these comments put a slightly ‘European’ perspective on the issue, as distict from a purely French one.

Trevor

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/07/05/iphonegermany/index.php “No one mobile operator covers all the most populous markets in Europe. T-Mobile is present in Germany, the U.K. and eight other countries, but not the large markets of France, Italy or Spain. In France, Vodafone only has a minority holding in French operator SFR, while Orange, a subsidiary of France Télécom SA, is not present at all in Germany or Italy.”

It will be interesting to see what they come up with for pricing for France.

Hacking the iPhone to Work in Europe http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2215 http://www.macnn.com/blogs/?p=345

French Phrase Book http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/08/01/translator/index.php http://www.coolgorilla.com/iphone/

Florian SEROUSSI