Cell phone use in Paris

Yes, you can buy SIM cards - at least, you can. Your phones must be unlocked to use SIM cards.

Your Verizon phone is most surely unlocked. Verizon hasn't locked their phones in the past but only recently says they will in the future (probably not yet). Your companion's AT&T phone may be locked, though - AT&T locks their phones if the phone is bought from them. If your friend has paid the phone off and bought it from AT&T, he/she can request AT&T unlock the phone for them. That means AT&T gives them an unlock code specific to the phone, then when a new SIM is inserted from a French mobile company, your friend will type in the unlock code one time to unlock the phone and then never need to use it again.

Still, you're probably going to pay $30+ USD each for a SIM card in Paris, so how much are you really saving vs. paying $70 for a week's use with Verizon or AT&T? You won't even have your Verizon and AT&T phone numbers while you have French SIM cards in the phones, so you'll have to deal with that. You can also just use the $10/day plan only the days you need it and be charged the $10 only those days. (AT&T offers the same $10/day plan.) I would say buy SIM cards almost for sure if you were going to be there two weeks - but it might not be worth the trouble just to save $30 or $40 at most for a one week trip.

For your friend: ATT passport plan. $10 a day when used. $60 for a monrth of use. Available every day for 30 days.

FYI
ATT prepaid plans do not have access to international usage options (other than possibly Mexico and Canada). So check with your friend to see if they are on pre or post paid.

Oh, good point about AT&T prepaid - I'm not familiar with that. (Other than buying a cheap prepaid AT&T Android phone for $8 last Black Friday and buying an unlock code for it on eBay...)

Try cities to go app for downloading city maps so you don't get lost. Used offline with your phones GPS. Also, check out advanced calling, which uses wifi instead of data usage. I only needed to pay the $10 day fee one time to meet a friend in Rome and was able to call/text home for free when in my hotel. Chose not to connect to any other wifi when out of the hotel. I have a samsung Galaxy android with Verizon.

Chose not to connect to any other wifi when out of the hotel.

Why not???

Thank you ...to everyone who as given me suggestions. I am not very knowledgeable about my phone and will just rely on good old planning ahead and a "if we get lost" meeting place....just like in the old days. This travel forum is terrific and everyone very helpful, so many thanks to you all.

Andrew H
Just being overly cautious I think! And if I want to be online it is usually the end of the day and that is part of relaxing in my room.

Thank you ...to everyone who as given me suggestions. I am not very knowledgeable about my phone and will just rely on good old planning ahead and a "if we get lost" meeting place....just like in the old days. This travel forum is terrific and everyone very helpful, so many thanks to you all.

If you're each willing to spend $70 to use your phone for a week in Paris, there's nothing to fool with on your phone - use it like at home. And the maps for navigation saves me hours of time - easy to know which metro to get or how to walk there. I'd never be without my phone in Paris again if possible, after years of burying my head in maps trying to find my way around!

We have a no-contract carrier (Consumer Cellular), and we decided to get an international plan through them (they use T-Mobile for their international). It puts a cap of $50, so it will cut off the international service if you hit $50. I found it was invaluable for using google maps. I had downloaded the maps, so I didn't think I'd need to cell service, but I found out the hard way that the downloaded maps don't work for walking. So, I would turn the cell on to get the route, then turn it off and the gps would work. We did go over and had to pre-purchase another $50 (which I can get refunded for what I didn't use), but it was so worth it for me. I also think the only reason we went over was because we drove from Caen to Bordeaux and I had to use the maps quite a bit (but again- I would turn it on and off a lot. The car had a GPS but it was in French, so it was nice using my phone as a back-up).

RE. Orange SIM card--Is there a phone number to call for someone to walk me through installing this? I think I was an idiot for thinking I could do this. Doesn't verizon have to configure it?

I've used Orange a couple times. I go to the boutique and have them set it up for me before I pay.

I used SFR (?) a couple times too. Last time (June) I went to their boutique and they said I could only get a Sim at a Tabac or similar store. I had already been to one and the person there tried a couple Sims that didn't work. She tried them in her phone too and they didn't work. Not sure why?

voicefemale:

RE. Orange SIM card--Is there a phone number to call for someone to walk me through installing this? I think I was an idiot for thinking I could do this.

You've installed the SIM now? Are you in the US or in France? If you are still in the US, careful about activating the SIM now or it may be good for only two weeks from now - unless you leave for France tomorrow or something.

What kind of phone? Android? iPhone?

You may have to enable data roaming. You may also need to go into the phone settings and change something. I have an Android phone, and in my phone settings, under "Cellular network settings," I have an option called "Preferred network type" and it is set to "Global." You can also try changing that to "LTE" if that's an option. If you don't have an Android phone, it may be completely different.

Doesn't verizon have to configure it?

No, they have nothing to do with your phone once you've removed their SIM - unless the phone is locked (not likely for Verizon phones). If the phone was locked, you'd know - you would not be able to turn the phone ON without entering an unlock code.

FYI, the SIM should be inserted while the phone is OFF. Change SIM cards, then turn the phone back ON.

You might look into buying a Mobal international cell phone. For $29, including SIM card, battery, shipping and handling, and a handy set of chargers, you get a cell phone good in more than 100 countries and which charges you only when you use it. It's good for a long, long time. I have used Mobal for several years, quite successfully. Look it up: mobal.com.

"mobal.com" that you provided above does not show a $29 option. Do you have a specific link so we can look up the specifics you listed above including the rate per second or, worse, per minute plus other fees?

There's $29 option for a 3G Blu flip phone on Mobal's site:

https://www.mobal.com/international-cell-phones/

There's a $79 option for a 3G Android phone. The "Deluxe" phone that is a true 4G phone is $119.

But, Mobal seems extremely pricey: 99 cents a call and 80 cents/incoming text message? Plus, that includes a SIM with no data. If you want the "Europe Plus SIM," that costs $59 for a month with 1GB of data.

Sorry, just don't see the benefit of Mobal. If you just need to make local calls in Europe, you can install Skype for free and buy $10 worth of credit and makes lots of calls for a few cents a minute, not 99 cents/minute like Mobal. Even a locked cell phone that works only on WiFi in Europe would let you do that for no extra cost.

You can buy your own unlocked Android for about $130, probably less if you find a bargain, and just buy a local SIM for it.

Don't assume that your Verizon phone will work with another carrier's SIM card. Even though I called Verizon to verify that mine would work, the phone would not allow me to use data with an Orange or a Lebara SIM card, though I could text and call. My Samsung Galaxy S6 has an app on it called Setup Wizard that I can not uninstall and kept telling me that the SIM card was not a Verizon card. Very frustrating. This was two weeks ago.

My husband and son both have Verizon phones that did work with both Orange and Lebara - a Pixel and an iPhone.

The Lebara card was cheaper, and we bought it at a "Reparation" electronics store not far from the Eiffel tower. I also saw other stores like this in Paris.

The Orange card was one that I bought off of Amazon for $50. We all agreed that if we go back to France again, we will wait and buy an Orange card at the airport kiosk and have them verify that it works. It costs $40 at the airport, which is the same price that we saw it at other Orange stores. The lines were longer at the other stores than at the airport, at least when we were there.

The Lebara plans were several dollars cheaper than the Orange card. But we also traveled to Switzerland after France, and the Orange card worked there but the Lebara would not.

Have fun!

Don't assume that your Verizon phone will work with another carrier's SIM card. Even though I called Verizon to verify that mine would work, the phone would not allow me to use data with an Orange or a Lebara SIM card, though I could text and call.

You probably needed to set the Access Point Name (APN) so you could use data. This is where having an agent in an Orange store set it up for you would help, although it's not hard to do yourself if you know where to go in your settings. Some phones need the APN setup, some not. My last two Moto phones set the APN automatically (one was a Verizon phone). But we've had reports of others with even newer (and much more expensive) phones than mine that still need the APN set manually. This is surprising.

Needing the APN set really had nothing to do with Verizon, I believe. It's just a matter of some phones needing to set it, some not.

My Samsung Galaxy S6 has an app on it called Setup Wizard that I can not uninstall and kept telling me that the SIM card was not a Verizon card.

Right - every Verizon phone will "warn" you about a SIM card not being from Verizon. It was just an "info" - swipe it away, it means nothing. I have to do that every time I turn on my Verizon Android phone. Sounds ominious, but it really means nothing.

I entered the details for the APN and it still wouldn't work. I read about others with the same problem.

I just came back from a 2 week trip to France and Greece. We purchased an Orange Sim for $40 and used it in both countries with no problems. Installing was easy and the Iphone 6 comes unlocked. We were planing to use an old T-Mobile phone, had it unlocked for 30 days but the sim would not work it that phone.

Mike:

I just came back from a 2 week trip to France and Greece. We purchased an Orange Sim for $40 and used it in both countries with no problems. Installing was easy and the Iphone 6 comes unlocked. We were planing to use an old T-Mobile phone, had it unlocked for 30 days but the sim would not work it that phone.

Depends what you mean by "old." Not every phone that works in the US will work in Europe. Most newer phones that work in the US (especially smart phones) work fine overseas now, but some old ones might not. They may not have the same frequencies used in Europe.

I entered the details for the APN and it still wouldn't work. I read about others with the same problem.

The APN can be tricky to edit, unless you know exactly how to do it. Unfortunately, it seems not intended to be an easy thing to change, at least in Android. But it's something an agent at a mobile store would know how to do. If your phone could text just not use data, the APN still seems like the most likely culprit.

I'm surprised the APN is still an issue on newer phones, given that my cheapo Moto phones pick it up automatically. I guess I assumed that if my cheap phones would not need it, none of the newer ones would, either.