Many people stay with Orange out of inertia, even when they might be able to save money by switching to an alternate provider. If you opt for an alternative operator you may still need Orange to install or activate a line, which charges a monthly fee for this connection. Some providers arrange this procedures for you, so you don’t need to handle anything with Orange yourself.

Many alternative operators also provide internet access, so you can look at combining both services. Getting started At the moment, only Orange can install (or reactivate) and operate your telephone line. You can ask for installation and activation by: • Calling your local Orange agency • Visiting the nearest Orange agency (can be found on the website ) • Calling the number +33 (0)9 69 36 39 00. This is a customer service for English-speaking customers living in France. You will need to supply the following documents and information to get a phone line: • your passport or other ID • the start date of the service • your exact address (including floor and door) • your mobile or work phone number (if available) For €55 you can buy a Welcome Pack.

Orange is then responsible for opening or transferring your line to your new address. On the website you can choose from different fixed phone services according to your wishes.

QuadraMed, LifeMed ID Form Patient Identity Joint Venture. Launched on December 23, 2014, the new service is supported by France's three leading operators –– Bouygues Telecom, Orange and SFR — and works on both WiFi and 3G/4G networks ​Amsterdam, January 22, 2015 – Gemalto (Euronext NL.

Flytampa Tampa Rebooted V 2631 more. With the application Customer Bouygues Telecom, follow the consumption of all your packages & Internet subscriptions, manage your accounts wherever and whenever you want with ease. The application is customizable (Modular Home screen, choose his favorite line, connection with fingerprint.) EASILY MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS & PACKAGES With the universe My lines, the application allows you to access the full details of your packages and subscriptions. Exit fear of using your mobile phone abroad, you can see all that is included in your package and that of your loved ones! ACCESS TO RETAIL AND BILL YOUR HISTORY View and download your itemized bills. You can also pay your last bills and unpaid possible.

MASTER YOUR CONSUMPTION Follow consumption in France and abroad of all your packages / real-time subscriptions, add refills and options to suit your needs. Forgotten, surprises at the end of the month!:-) MANAGE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION Complete and / or modify your personal information (IBAN, address, contact details.) [NEW] DRIVE YOUR BBOX * Measure and optimize the quality of your Wi-Fi signal directly from space Assistance Bbox. Personalize the code and the name of your Wi-Fi network in a few clicks. Find and quickly share your Wi-Fi code by SMS. Customize and control access to your children's Internet thanks to Parental Control.

* This service will be available for Bbox 3784b, SMT-G7440 and G7441-SMT. GET HELP Our assistance will help you solve your mobile or Bbox emergencies. More panic at any time, you can quickly report a loss or theft, unlock your phone, make the diagnosis of your Bbox and much more. MAKE YOUR SHOPPING Stroll the rays of our e-commerce site and enjoy our new offers. You can buy a new package / subscription, new equipment and fill options if the heart tells you. SHOW WHERE YOUR FIBER TECHNICIAN BBOX MIAMI: You have an appointment scheduled installation Bbox Fiber Miami? Bouygues Telecom offers to try a new exclusive service.

You can follow the arrival of your real-time technician, be warned in case of delay and record the quality of the intervention directly from your application. [BETA] MESSAGING CLIENT: To meet your demands, Bouygues Telecom launched a messaging app on your Customer Area. This will allow you to ask all your questions to our consultants. This new feature is available, for now, that for some users. To find out if you are among the lucky ones, go in your under 'Support'. Our messaging is 100% human.

By September 27, 2012 As a regular traveller to France and a fluent French speaker, I'm often asked for my advice on which French SIM or microSIM card is the best for an iPhone, iPad, Android device, Internet USB stick or pocket 3G-wifi router: Orange? Bouyges Telecom? My first piece of advice is this: don't even try. Getting hold of a SIM that does anything other than simply make calls in France is a giant pain, it's irritatingly expensive, the process needs a passport, you're sometimes required to wait 48 hours for activation, and decent deals aren't available unless you have a French bank account. It's not for the faint-hearted, or even the strong-hearted, and you should be wary of advice from anyone who hasn't managed to get precisely what you want to get -- 'oh, just pick it up at the airport on your way in' is very much not an option.

Be prepared to spend three days getting it sorted out. Consider, which I ended up doing on several occasions while trying to get French SIMs sorted out. Which network in France?

The two real players in this game are SFR and Orange. SFR is smaller, while Orange is part of the France Telecom behemoth.

Bouyges Telecom is also a smaller player, but their customer service and information has always been so atrocious that I wouldn't bother checking out their prices. Don't think that Orange is better for being larger, though -- Orange's size and corporate family isn't an asset, since you end up having to wait in line behind people complaining about their landline and exchanging their home Internet routers. Entirely unscientific impression time: over a half-dozen trips to various stores in Paris, Lyon, Roanne and Reims this year, I've found SFR less busy, more helpful -- and more English-speaking -- than Orange.

In terms of network coverage and deals, I've found them pretty similar. However, SFR's top-up system has been irritatingly offline for much of this summer, and the local shop in Reims gave me a run-around of 'oh, the system's broken' when my data wasn't working, rather than figuring out that the pre-set APN settings were for contract, not prepaid SIMs. In other words, they're both as bad as each other, though I have a slight preference for SFR for ease of use.

What kind of SIM? Depending on your device, you'll need either a regular SIM or a microSIM. They're mostly manufactured as snap-apart versions, where you can snap the microSIM out of the SIM.

Don't expect nanoSIMs for iPhone 5 to be available any time soon -- iPhone 5 users should bring a pocket wifi device with them instead. Then your choice is data or voice + data. The data-only plans are cheaper, and you can use Skype or other VOIP apps to make phone calls, but if you need to be able to make phone calls then you'll want a voice + data SIM. If you can get by with using only an iPad, things are much, much easier: both networks have fairly generous iPad prepaid data plans. Unfortunately, both networks say that you're not allowed to use iPad SIMs in other devices, and I've yet to find a reliable source that explains how to do it. Voice + Data SIMs SFR is roughly a third cheaper than Orange overall, but I ended up picking up one of each to test things out and to get around the fact that SFR's topup system was broken for a week. If you're setting up an iPhone, we've got.

Orange You're looking for the plans ('forfaits') called '. You're restricted to the 'Origami star' set unless you have a French bank account. The SIM itself cost me 8€. Choices are: • 1GB data and unlimited calling for 49.90€ • 500MB data and unlimited calling for 39.90€ • 500MB data and 2h of calling for 29.90€ (Note that you're looking at the 'sans engagement' prices.) SFR You're looking for the 'forfait' called '. To recharge, you're likely best off looking for 'un recharge iPhone', even if you're not using an iPhone device. You have the choice of: • 20MB of data for 24 hours for 3€ • 150MB of data for a week for 10€ • 500MB of data for 20 days for 20€ • 500MB of data for 20 days and 10€ of call costs for 24€. Its very easy to get a pre-paid sim card in Germany and data prices are reasonable.

Sim's from MVNO's are usually free although you have to buy~ 10 euro credit. If you're not activating the sim on the spot you generally don't need to show ID to purchase it (although you do need ID to activate it). Germany has four independant network carriers (T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2, E-Plus) and they each have lots of MVNO's. Practically every supermarket chain sells its own sim card. T-Mobile has the best network but I'd advise you to stay away as they block skype/voip/facetime/any internet telephony. O2 and E-Plus have fairly poor UMTS networks. Vodafone is 'ok'.

The carriers have their own stores all over the place but I'd recommend you stay away and look for the MVNO sim card pakets tucked away in petrol stations, supermarkets and corner stores. There are also a few Blau.de shops who sell sim cards using the E-Plus network. In these places you'll find calls for 9c/min and data for around 10-15 euro/gb. Guess I was lucky of having found a better solution to keep connected while in France!

(and WAY much simpler) I used LeFrenchMobile prepaid sim card during my recent trip to France. I got the sim card shipped to my home in Australia (paid with my Australian credit card) and started using it in my iPhone as soon as I landed in France.

I found the tariffs to be reasonable for calls and texts, they have special tariffs for english speaking countries. And for the internet, I converted part of my credit into one of their data bundles, which was also convenient as they dont have a time validity limit (neither for credit for calls and texts). To top up it was also very simple, I did it on their website with my Austalian credit card again. You might want to give it a look. All their services are in english (website, customer service, etc). I am intrigued by the complexity of the above article in spite of the author's apparent dislike of French telecom services. I am in France every year.

Usually I buy a Brightroam package, very reasonable and they take their time billing. I have never had an issue with their rates. It's not just the French who are relatively unilingual, English speakers are generally just as bad. Why is it that English speakers think that 'other language' speakers should always accommodate them in English? Anyway, Brightroam was sold out of France microsims, so I stopped at an Orange Boutique and the staff member who helped me was very knowledgeable and pleasant.

The microsim popped out of the larger sim and can be snapped back into the surrounded plastic piece for use in a phone that takes the regular sims. No hassle, I expect that when buying a data plan anywhere I will have to give some personal information. I do have a French bank account, but was not asked for particulars about it. They accepted an invoice with my address on it for their records.

I am intrigued by the complexity of the above article in spite of the author's apparent dislike of French telecom services. I am in France every year. Usually I buy a Brightroam package, very reasonable and they take their time billing. I have never had an issue with their rates. It's not just the French who are relatively unilingual, English speakers are generally just as bad.

Why is it that English speakers think that 'other language' speakers should always accommodate them in English? Anyway, Brightroam was sold out of France microsims, so I stopped at an Orange Boutique and the staff member who helped me was very knowledgeable and pleasant. The microsim popped out of the larger sim and can be snapped back into the surrounded plastic piece for use in a phone that takes the regular sims. No hassle, I expect that when buying a data plan anywhere I will have to give some personal information. I do have a French bank account, but was not asked for particulars about it.

They accepted an invoice with my address on it for their records. I had an orange sim. I added a 'booster' for 9 euros a month to add 200mb of internet. It refreshes each month ONLY if you have enough credit (and they don't tell you when they take it out?). If you have 8.99, then they cancel it (without telling you). So then the next time you go online, they obligingly zero your balance charging you 30cents PER MINUTE on the internet Yes, that means that in places where the service is worse, you pay more.

I cancelled my Orange SIM and now use Free (you'll probably need a French bank account, passport, character references from the pope, and a French address, however). On the otherhand, Free is awesome. Unlimited everything for 19.99/month, cancel it whenever you want. So long, Orange! (by the way, if you send them an agry email about this issue of using all your credit, they will actually top your credit back up to where it was, thankfull). I have just spent 8 weeks in France, bought and Orange data sim for my ipad and 20Euro Lets Go credit vouchers which gave 2Gb and lasted a month. Found this very economic and good reception in most places.

I found my Australian Mastercard would not work with the online top up system, but easy to buy top up vouchers at tabacs. Had a bit of hasstle getting the sim in the first place, (due to my poor French) but I had looked at the website first and worked out what I wanted, so was able to show them.

Hotel reception staff were happy to do the phoning when applying the credit voucher already purchased. I was also able to create a wifi hotspot my ipad and connect my mobile and laptop. Thank you so much for this article! My husband had been struggling to activate a SFR La Carte SIM for a few days and getting increasingly frustrated.

Calls were working but not the internet, which was the only part we planned to use. We tried the APN setting you listed but it didn't work so he called the English helpdesk you mentioned (we had no idea this existed, what a life-saver!). The guy on the otyher end gave him another APN to type in: 'wapsfr'. Just wanted to pass this on in case it helps someone else. This was for an iPhone 4; not sure if that's the reason for the different APN.

Maybe my experience was different because it was about a year removed from this article's publication, but I found this process to be extremely easy. I walked into an Orange mobile shop, told the clerk that I was just visting Paris and had an unlocked phone, what could we do? He had SIM cards for 10 euros and then data plans at various different tiers/prices - the most desirable of those (for me) was the 500 MB for 10 euros. He asked for my passport, a Paris address (my hotel address sufficed), and within about 2 minutes, my phone booted up with the SIM card installed and I was on L'orange's network; no waiting for activation or any technical snags whatsoever. Maybe I just got lucky, but I was happy with how easy this process was.

Now, I had little to no reason to make any phone calls and used Google Voice for texting (since anyone I wanted to text would have my non-Parisian number anyway). Hi Everybody, I have been selling LeFrenchMobile SIM cards for 2 years now.

Originally, It was a complimentary service offered with my short term rental agency activities (Paris-Hospitality.com). So far, the feedback is on the positive side.

Now, I am even selling LeFrenchMobile SIMs to non-renters. Based on my experience, I believe the main reasons why they go for LeFrenchMobile are • Flexibility. Passport scan/ copy can be sent by mail, post. • Full English support. Which is not the case with the French prepaid SIMs • Same calling rate in the European Union whether you call from Paris, Berlin, Londonor Helsinki. A lot of my guests go for a European tour • Almost unlimited validity of credits.

If you don't use them there is a 1.40Euros monthly fee for line maintenance. In any case, you don't loose them. You can keep the same phone number ad vitam • Specific French and EU data bundle programs. Very useful when using Google Maps or sharing on social media. As a conclusion, I'd be able to say that if this SIM card service had been problem ridden, I would have stopped proposing it to my customers.

On the contrary, they talk about their satisfaction with LeFrenchMobile and recommend the service to their friends and relatives coming to France and the EU. Paris yesterday; needed a pre paid sim for iPad mini retina; iPad is host to maps and tomtom. Decided to use telstra for iphone if needed.

SFR was the target as reading suggested the credit activation was simple. FNAC at Forum Les Halles - these pre-paid no longer available. This may or may not be accurate. Nearby Orange at 43 Rue de Rivoli; Orange managed the language barrier (just), supplied the card, offered the top up options, and activated it. I call that helpful. They also sorted out travelling companion who wanted a phone card, thinking the phone was unlocked.

Orange took her and it to 'testing facility' upstairs, and established it wasn't. I also call that helpful.

Particuarly given the cost/benifit ratio. Card (lets go pre paid v2) 8eur, 2GB 20eur Same time last year in Paris, Armagnac, London and Surrey, as well as Spain, meant several different cards and service providers. Orange were good then too, purchased in Saint Girons; although the concept of getting the sim ( for iPhone) and topup from the local tabac took a while to sink in. The Orange staff again were helpful in activating the topup bought at the tabac. Lebara also in France, 3 in England (groan), and another in Spain. Were less satisfactory experiences.

Thanks for the article., Very informative and reflects my experience with SFR a couple of years ago (2012) - the 48 hr wait period which we didn't know until we went to query why we didn't have data. Otherwise we were happy enough wiht the service - except they also didn't tell us that with a pre-paid account we couldn't run a WiFi 'hotspot' from our iPhone, which was one of the main things we wanted to do. Is that still teh case?

I'm in france for 10 days and wondered whether it is feasible to put a tablet 'data only' SIM in my iPhone. Is there a reason this won't work - then I'll just send & receive calls by Skype.