I'm going to Paris in two weeks and I'll be there for 5 days.
1) will you actually need a SIM card at 22:30 ? Or could you wait until the next morning in Paris?
FYI, your phone should be able to work on WiFi in your hotel even without a new SIM card so you can email home to confirm your arrival.
noah,
NO, your Verizon Galaxy CDMA phone will NOT work in Europe at all as all networks in Europe use GSM technology. One question though - if you're using a CDMA phone, does it even have a SIM card?
The other issue to address is that even if your phone was a GSM model, it would have to be "unlocked" in order to use SIM cards from other networks.
Really, you don't need a SIM card for five days in Paris. Call Verizon and tell them you want to be on their international plan, which will give you relatively cheap voice, text, and data service.
According to the Verizon website, this is a GSM not CDMA phone. Though I am not a Verizon customer, I have read that their phones are either unlocked or you can have them unlocked. This phone uses a nano SIM card and I had trouble finding one on my last visit to France. At CDG there are Relay Shops that sell cards but they did not have a nano and most likely will be closed at the time of your arrival. Paris has many cell phone stores where a card may be purchased. A local card will cost $10 - 15 and give you data usage, texting and telephone calling. Verizon's international plans cost $10 per day + your local taxes.
Click on travel tips on the website and there's a phones and tech section with pertinent info.
I do not have personal experience with that phone. But the newer phones (including CDMA ones) should have GSM capability (i.e. will have slot to accept a SIM card). OP should call Verizon to confirm this AND to find out if the phone is unlocked. Verizon may charge for the unlocking. One option is to get an unlock code from eBay which is much cheaper (just find a vendor with a lot of positive reviews).
I would also recommend that you test to see if your phone is truly unlocked before you leave the country. Just borrow a sim from a friend on a different network and insert into your phone. If it is unlocked, your phone will work.
(love the small issues of modern tech; sure beats waiting more than an hour at an American Express traveller's office to make a collect call from Europe to home thirty years ago.)
Sorry, couldn't get back to this for a while. I did some more digging and my Verizon Galaxy S6 apparently does work in France. It supports both CDMA and GSM. I even chatted with a Verizon representative and she said that I could either use a temporary international plan or purchase a temporary SIM card in Paris. She even sent me this link to SIM providers in France. I was impressed by the service.
I also discovered that there is an "International Ready Check" feature on the Verizon app on my phone, which told me my device would work in France.
The main question now is whether I'll be able to find a nano-SIM once I'm there. It might be worth it just to enable international data through Verizon--I'll look into it.
France has the same phone models as the US, including the several generations of iPhones that take nano-SIM's. If one store doesn't carry a nano-SIM, they will know the ones nearby that do (this happened to me in Palermo).
Even though Verizon is CDMA, most of their newer phones are also GSM since that's what the rest of the world uses and poor old Verizon wants you to be "global ready."
Just be aware, I had very pleasant interactions with the Verizon folks before my trip, and they sent me a temporary SIM and everything, but then they couldn't quite get it to work and when I pulled my phone out in Europe it was a brick.
You could even buy a cheap unlocked quad band GSM phone before your trip and then SIM it. There are also companies here in the States that will set you up with a SIM before you leave, but there's a charge for that.
I leave for France in a few weeks and had been reading about SIM cards and unlocked phones, etc. I do not have Verizon, so I went to my local carrier to ask about international plans since I assumed my iPhone 5s was locked into US Cellular. Good news, they said all the newer smartphones ARE unlocked and the cheapest way to go is buy a SIM card when I get to France! Especially since I plan on staying a few weeks.
