Buying a sim card at CDG - If the Lebara or Lycamobile are not available, what's next best thing?

When are you leaving for Paris? You can always buy a SIM ahead of time on eBay and take it to Europe with you. I bought a Dutch Vodafone SIM on eBay and had working data when I landed (in Venice in my case). No more EU roaming costs. I didn't make any local calls in Europe and used Google Hangouts for phone calls home to the US (even to landlines e.g. the call I made to Delta Airlines with a flight problem). You don't have to register a Dutch SIM with your passport like you do with a French SIM card.

My Dutch Vodafone SIM took two weeks to get to me in the US. So if you are leaving sooner than that, this wouldn't be an option for you.

Relay stores at CDG sell various SIM cards. If they don’t have Lebara or Lycamobile, they should have Orange tourist SIMs. Orange is the largest cell provider in France.

Here’s a link to the Orange Holiday Card in English.

I bought an Orange Holiday card at an Orange Kiosk in Terminal 2. I believe they are also available at the Relay shops as well as the Orange boutiques in Paris. Mine had plenty of data for the 2 weeks I was there. It cost 40€ and was good for 14 days, but could be toppled off, if needed.

I would buy Orange or SFR, even if Lebara or the other were available. I want a big company with good coverage.

(edited to correct an annoying autocorrect that deprived my sentence of its meaning!)

If you're only going to be in Paris for about 2 weeks or so, the Orange Holiday Mobicarte is the best deal going.
Go to an Orange Boutique, printing the pages you are most interested in, so the agents will know what you want. They will unlock the phone for you, and you can top it up with some bank ATMs .

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful! Some further information on my travel:

I will be traveling in the next 7 days so buying something on eBay not an option, though that probably would have been my first choice if I had the time. I'll definitely keep this in mind for my next trip.

I'd like to buy my sim card at the airport. I'm picking up a rental car there as well and wanted to make sure I was connected in case of emergencies.

Question: Is it fairly easy to activate the phone once I put the sim card in?

What kind of phone are you activating? Make/model? At least it's an AT&T phone so we know it's GSM like used in Europe - Verizon and Sprint phones (CDMA) can be more complicated. You say it's unlocked; have you ever used it with a non-AT&T SIM before? If not, you'll need to type in the unlock code once the first time you turn it on with the new SIM and that's it.

I have had problems with an older Android phone and getting data to work. I found I had to manually set the APN, which is kind of a data gateway for the phone. My newer Android phone worked automatically with my Vodafone SIM, however - I inserted the SIM and just turned it on and got a text that said "Welcome to the United States!" from Vodafone (I was in the US). I think they sent me such a text each time I entered a new country. Maybe the SIMs from other countries will do the same thing - at least you know the phone is connected.

Roaming should probably be turned on. Not all phones have the frequencies to use the fastest data networks in Europe; a 4G phone in the US may not be 4G in Europe, because they use different frequencies. If it's a newer or upscale phone this probably won't be an issue.

You may also need to enter a PIN each time you turn the phone one. The PIN should be included in the SIM packaging. You can remove the PIN using your phone settings if you find it annoying.

If you want to use Google Hangouts to make free calls home to the US (on WiFi or using mobile data), set it up and test it before leaving the US with your AT&T SIM. Sometimes Google wants to verify your US phone number the first time you use it.

If you are worried about activating the SIM card, then buy one at the Orange boutique. The staff can help you activate it (and yes, there will be someone there who speaks English). The Relay store is a convenience store, and the clerk might help, or he/she might be too busy with other customers. I bought one at a Relay store at CDG a few years ago, and the clerk was very helpful, but you can't count on it.

Last trip I also bought an Orange holiday card. It's only good for two weeks and I'm still not sure if topping off gets you more time or just more data? I recall mine being more than 40 euro but that could be that I included more data than the basic option.

I bought mine downtown because the plan was to use it during the two weeks I was traveling. I activated it the day I left Paris and let it expire when I got back.

Overall, I felt it worked pretty well. The 10 gb of data is plenty for two weeks. I didn't make many calls or texts (I used messenger when I had WiFi). My GPS will use data if I let it, but I was careful not to let it. I probably would have been fine, I probably only used about 2 gb total during the two weeks.

One of my stops was in Chamonix, up in the Alps. I took the cable car to the Italian side and got a notice about rates in Italy. I didn't read it carefully, but I gathered that you can use it in multiple countries with roaming charges.

I used an SFR card my first trip, also buying it downtown near my lodging. It worked fine and cost a little less than the Orange. I did have to top it off because the SIM comes with only a small amount of data included. I didn't use an SFR card this time because my second trip I paid 30 euro for time and data and never got the SIM working (after two seperate trips to a boutique). It's possible the card timed out after 6 months, rather than a year, but no one told me that - they took my money and it didn't work.

Roaming charges among EU countries have been eliminated as of June this past summer -- so a card bought in France will work equally in Italy or over the border elsewhere at no extra charge.

Andrew H. ,

I have an old Samsung Galaxy Note II, vintage 2012. I requested and got my phone unlocked by AT&T. They sent me directions and I seem to recall putting in a long code to unlock.

I'll probably have to test it by going into a T Mobile or Sprint store to see if it works with one of their sims.

Thanks for the great advice!

Mark, you'd type the unlock code only after you insert a non-AT&T SIM in the phone. So if you've ever used this phone with some other SIM before, then you should have already unlocked it and won't have to again.

But if you aren't sure? Dig up that code - or go to AT&T web page and request it again. It shouldn't hurt to ask again - should be the same code.

Don't waste your time at a Sprint store - they use CDMA SIMs. But maybe someone at a T-Mobile store could help - they also use GSM. Just ask them to insert one of their SIMs and turn the phone on with the SIM in place - see if you are asked for an unlock code.

That old phone might require you to set the APN manually to get data to work. An agent at a mobile store can probably figure that out - but might help to familiarize yourself with how to do it, pretty easy once you know where to look, just in case. Here's how you'd do it for a T-Mobile SIM:

https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-11448

(Probably the APN, username, and password fields are the only fields you'd care about)

You might find the APN settings you need for each provider here:

http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/France

It's not exactly what you asked, but last summer this is what our family of 4 (all with iPhones, including 2 teenagers) used.
https://www.travel-wifi.com
I also outfitted 2 of the 4 iPhones with orange SIM cards. When we go back next summer, I'll ONLY be using the travel wifi. That data is (close to) unlimited, and it worked throughout or trip (including several days in the loire).
It is about 8 dollars per day and worked great.

caveats:
1. Battery life is very poor, so you will need to take a rechargeable USB battery
2. It doesn't work (obviously) when the group is separated. So having some sort of cell solution (we will just use international roaming for the RARE occasion a phone call MUST be made) is imperative.
3. It was especially nice back at the hotel at night when we could use it for our laptops.
4. Honestly the best money I have ever spent. And you can pick it up at CDG terminal 2. Truly couldn't be easier.

I still don't get why people like these WiFI hotspots, unless they truly don't have unlocked phones or something. $8/day? My Dutch Vodafone SIM cost $30 USD including the 20 Euros I paid for 3GB of data for a month. I used my phone as a hotspot for my laptop and tablet and still used only 2GB in 17 days; by the end I was really trying to burn it all up. (Streaming HD video would have done it!)

For a 17 day trip, the $8/day hotspot would have cost me $136. ($120 would have gotten me four SIM cards for four phones, which would not have needed to be close to anyone else to use the hotspot.) In my case, I'll also have the SIM card for next trip, because it stays active for a year - so only 20 Euros to get 3GB of data again next time.

I'm also not crazy about having yet another device to charge and carry around.

As I mentioned, certain ATMs have the capability of topping up Orange Mobicartes, which include data.

I think the route I'm going to take is to go to the Orange kiosk in Terminal 2E by baggage claim 32 or go to the mall across the way from CDG, provided I can figure out how to park in that monstrosity of a building.