Best pre-paid cell service in Europe?

[50]

Hello,

I will be traveling around Europe for the whole summer and will need to make occasional calls. What is the cheapest pay as you go service for mainly France? I will be in Metz France most of the time and going to everywhere except the UK. I've heard Orange and Vodafone are my two main options. Thanks

 

[DivideBYZero]

You've heard correctly. Orange is France Telecom. It will be between them and Voda in most countries. T mobile are all over, too.

Note that you'll need a new SIM for each country. Europe is not a country! If you don't you're pre-pay will drain faster than a beer barrel at a college party due to roaming charges. Within a SIMs country you will pay a flat rate.

Make sure you have a fully unlocked GSM phone, tri-band at a minimum, quad if you have one. That way you can hop between providers at will.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
You've heard correctly. Orange is France Telecom. It will be between them and Voda in most countries. T mobile are all over, too.

Note that you'll need a new SIM for each country. Europe is not a country! If you don't you're pre-pay will drain faster than a beer barrel at a college party due to roaming charges. Within a SIMs country you will pay a flat rate.

Make sure you have a fully unlocked GSM phone, tri-band at a minimum, quad if you have one. That way you can hop between providers at will.

Orange is in every country I believe. When I was in Europe, I rented a phone from this place and it was Orange FR in France, Orange UK in UK, Orange IT, in Italy, etc. Granted, it was based in France, but I could easily hop over with no problem.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
You've heard correctly. Orange is France Telecom. It will be between them and Voda in most countries. T mobile are all over, too.

Note that you'll need a new SIM for each country. Europe is not a country! If you don't you're pre-pay will drain faster than a beer barrel at a college party due to roaming charges. Within a SIMs country you will pay a flat rate.

Make sure you have a fully unlocked GSM phone, tri-band at a minimum, quad if you have one. That way you can hop between providers at will.

Orange is in every country I believe. When I was in Europe, I rented a phone from this place and it was Orange FR in France, Orange UK in UK, Orange IT, in Italy, etc. Granted, it was based in France, but I could easily hop over with no problem.

You can hop over with ANY network, but the roaming charges will supply you with a brand new exit hole...regardless of Network.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Bumping this because I have the same question - is Orange the best way to go?

 

[pm]

I concur. I would recommend Orange as well.

As Divide said, Europe isn't a country - yet. So you have two things - the first is getting a carrier that will let you roam everywhere. This gets you a working phone everywhere. For this, as Divide said, you have basically three choices: Vodafone (UK), Orange (Fra), and T-Mobile (Ger). Signing up with one of these three will get you a working phone pretty much everywhere in Europe and Eastern Europe. Then there's the roaming rates - you will have to pay them pretty much no matter what unless things have changed since I was there last summer. It will normally be around $0.50/min, but you can lower this by choosing a plan that accounts for a lot of roaming. SMS's are flat-rate when roaming so these are a great choice to keep in touch with people.

 

[Jschmuck2]

pm - thanks for the tips

My next question(s) though is about the phone: I have an old, old Motorola V220

http://www.motorola.com/motoin....jsp?globalObjectId=56

Which is Cingular branded.

Yes, it's old.

Can I drop a SIM from Orange in this thing and viola, I'm ready to go - or must it be unlocked. A process which still confuses and mystifies me like cavemen and fire.

 

[pm]

Good choice of phone. Old doesn't matter, but tri-band is good.

The phone must be unlocked. And if it's branded Cingular and you haven't unlocked it, then it's probably locked.

Locking is pretty straightforward. On a locked phone there a line of code in the phone put in there at the request of the carrier (AT&)T, that says "is this SIM an AT&T/Cingular SIM?" and then if the answer is yes, then the phone is happy. If the answer is no, then it locks up the phone and won't let you use it. On an unlocked phone, there's no check like this (they disable it).

Unlocking a phone by hacking it usually involves tricking the phone into thinking you are AT&T and are telling it to unlock itself or figuring out a way to comment out the line of code that does the checking. If are unlocking it officially - ie, you are AT&T - then you know the magic code that changes the unlock check.

My guess is that your phone is locked, will only work with Cingular/AT&T and if you put an Orange SIM in there, it will read something like "SIMLocked".

To unlock a Motorola phone, usually you need software and a USB connection and you usually need to be AT&T/Motorola. If you are still an AT&T customer, take it to an AT&T store and explain what you want to do in Europe and they should unlock it for you. You could mess around on Google and/or Ebay, but this is a dicey proposition with a Motorola phone - they are locked pretty well (ie. the code is difficult to bypass unofficially... so get the officials to do it for you).

 

[Jschmuck2]

Well, glad to know my phone is a good choice

I haven't been an ATT customer for uh, five years. What do you think my best option is at this point?

 

[aphex]

Back in 2002 I used Orange for about 6 months throughout the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Spain.

In 2005 I used Virgin throughout England and Ireland for a few months.

Both worked exceptionally well and were pretty darn cheap, about $10 for the SIM in both cases (Actually with Virgin I bought a phone for 5 quid and just swapped the SIM into my normal phone).

 

[Jschmuck2]

Good to know

 

[pm]

For unlocking, there's a thread here:
http://forums.mobiledia.com/topic39043.html

You could also call some of the smaller cell phone stores in big-ish cities and see if they have a suggestion. I'm sure you could find some store in a major city that will charge a fee to do it for you. Or you can buy the service on Ebay or from mail-in stores that you can find under Google - just research them a bit before you mail them your phone.