Buy a French Orange SIM card (or guidance on alternative).

daventess

daventess

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I've forgotten to ask my friend living in France to get me an Orange SIM for my impending French trip. Now it's too late for her to get it for me (she's back in the UK).

Why Orange? I had one on holiday there last year, and we never not had internet, so experience says it's quite good.

I leave for France on Thursday morning (5am!) so -

1. how can I get a French data only SIM on Orange between now and then?

2. would anyone recommend another network that works nearly everywhere that I can get a sim for in time?

Might be worth noting that I have a Three SIM in there at the moment for the UK (with unlimited data), which has been brilliant.

Thanks.
 
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Hacking this thread in a shameless style to further ask the best way or how to buy a data only SIM card in France. I.e. where to buy.

I can tell you the supermarkets sell phone calls and texts which are of no use but not data (that I can see)
 
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I may want to know this too, a local data sim would be good..😎
 
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Week before last i bought a SIM from SFR, deal was €21 for 140gb a month, works well and was easy to set up.

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Free network do a 1 month sim - 210gb for €29.99 - takes about 15 mins to sort - check the forum as a few people have used them
 
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I ve just been checking and I actually get 20gb a month for my 9 pounds sterling and literally halfway through our holiday I have used 11gb. The wife has 18 GB left.
I reckon I LL be watching the mighty toon on her phone spanking the arsenal.
Not quite as desperate as I thought
 
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My Free rolls over tonight, used 168gb of 210 and still to watch remainder of F1 quali
 
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Free worked fine for us in France. Plenty of Free stores around.

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Ridgeway said:
Week before last i bought a SIM from SFR, deal was €21 for 140gb a month, works well and was easy to set up.
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I have used reglo mobile for years, always been a good deal, and you can easily swap between different deals, you can pick up the sim in any leclerc supermarket. Exactly the same coverage as SFR as it uses the SFR network.
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Orange france does have slightly better coverage as does Free that uses the orange network.
 
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I used a Reglo one last October no problems with it.
€5 for the sim plus €10 for 60 GB or €20 for 150gb (maybe 100 there was a deal going).
Need to get it registered at the L' Eclerc information deask I found it impossible to do online.
 
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For everyone suggesting Free Mobile (which looks good) - where did you buy the SIM from?
 
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daventess said:
I've forgotten to ask my friend living in France to get me an Orange SIM for my impending French trip. Now it's too late for her to get it for me (she's back in the UK).

Why Orange? I had one on holiday there last year, and we never not had internet, so experience says it's quite good.

I leave for France on Thursday morning (5am!) so -

1. how can I get a French data only SIM on Orange between now and then?

2. would anyone recommend another network that works nearly everywhere that I can get a sim for in time?

Might be worth noting that I have a Three SIM in there at the moment for the UK (with unlimited data), which has been brilliant.

Thanks.
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We bought a free mobile sim only deal for 1 month when in france. It worked great 120gb for €25. They have lots of stores in France. We found a store inside l'eclerc. Staff also very helpful. We tried orange first but it was more expensive.

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Put free mobile into google maps and it shows you where the stores are. We got ours in l'eclerc just outside Bergerac.
 
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daventess said:
I've forgotten to ask my friend living in France to get me an Orange SIM for my impending French trip. Now it's too late for her to get it for me (she's back in the UK).

Why Orange? I had one on holiday there last year, and we never not had internet, so experience says it's quite good.

I leave for France on Thursday morning (5am!) so -

1. how can I get a French data only SIM on Orange between now and then?

2. would anyone recommend another network that works nearly everywhere that I can get a sim for in time?

Might be worth noting that I have a Three SIM in there at the moment for the UK (with unlimited data), which has been brilliant.

Thanks.
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Buy an E-sim. OSAM do them for different regions of the world. I just had one for our cruise around the Caribbean
 
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Whoever you buy a SIM from uses the Orange/SFR/France telecom infrastructure. Still thousands of people/communes on dial up and useless other ‘beamed’ connections. Nordsat is also owned by Orange but they will not give those out to people otherwise compromised. New fibre systems are not working, so that’s a mess too.

Sorry irrelevant, I get T’d Off, but happy now I have Starlink. I’m glad Orange serves so many so well on the road.
 
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Libellula said:
Whoever you buy a SIM from uses the Orange/SFR/France telecom infrastructure. Still thousands of people/communes on dial up and useless other ‘beamed’ connections. Nordsat is also owned by Orange but they will not give those out to people otherwise compromised. New fibre systems are not working, so that’s a mess too.

Sorry irrelevant, I get T’d Off, but happy now I have Starlink. I’m glad Orange serves so many so well on the road.
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Sorry to correct you, the three main mobile network providers are Orange, SFR and bouygues telecom, france telecom is Orange and has been for many years. any other companies will use one of those.

I am not sure where you are in france, i am down in the Hérault and live in a fairly remote hamlet, but apart for a few months when we moved here 17 years ago, we have had an ADSL Connection, admittedly very slow speed to start with, but upto 16mbs currently.

But I am with you on the fiber instalation, we have the lines now within sight of our house, but dont know when it will be connected up, also our adsl connection has been a lot more unreliable since the work started.

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daventess said:
I've forgotten to ask my friend living in France to get me an Orange SIM for my impending French trip. Now it's too late for her to get it for me (she's back in the UK).

Why Orange? I had one on holiday there last year, and we never not had internet, so experience says it's quite good.

I leave for France on Thursday morning (5am!) so -

1. how can I get a French data only SIM on Orange between now and then?

2. would anyone recommend another network that works nearly everywhere that I can get a sim for in time?

Might be worth noting that I have a Three SIM in there at the moment for the UK (with unlimited data), which has been brilliant.

Thanks.
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Just find a French phone shop and go in and buy a Orange SIM. It worked for us but before you do that check your 3 SIM won’t work outside UK. Ours is working everywhere and currently in Croatia.
 
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Andy MacD said:
Advantage of going into a store is that they will set it up for you. You may need a French postal address, just use any address eg campsite, they don’t care.
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The last one I bought in La Roche sur Yon, the shop assistant just entered the store address for me!
 
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Don Campbell said:
Just find a French phone shop and go in and buy a Orange SIM. It worked for us but before you do that check your 3 SIM won’t work outside UK. Ours is working everywhere and currently in Croatia.
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Ours will work, but 12gig data cap is too small (I can use that up in a couple of days when I'm working). I can add unlimited 3 days of roaming data for £7 I've discovered, so not a disaster if it takes a few days to find a shop.
 
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The guy in the shop put a random french address in for us.

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My cunning plan of watching downloaded movies on a mini-projector failed when I found out nearly all streaming apps block airplay and force you to stream! So now I need data!!

My main question was if those recommended above allow creating a hotspot from your phone - as I read of some that do not.

Secondary question was if anyone’s tried eSIMs?
 
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We used 4 devices on the free mobile but you cant get English tv. Netflix and youtube and all facebook etc.. ok
 
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Widge said:
Sorry to correct you, the three main mobile network providers are Orange, SFR and bouygues telecom, france telecom is Orange and has been for many years. any other companies will use one of those.

I am not sure where you are in france, i am down in the Hérault and live in a fairly remote hamlet, but apart for a few months when we moved here 17 years ago, we have had an ADSL Connection, admittedly very slow speed to start with, but upto 16mbs currently.

But I am with you on the fiber instalation, we have the lines now within sight of our house, but dont know when it will be connected up, also our adsl connection has been a lot more unreliable since the work started.
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I’m in the Aude (Occitanie?) in the Corbières, France’s least populated area. All the mobile telephone companies seem to use the same very old infrastructure here which is what I was trying to get across in my post, now if one mast is down, everyone is down. 😂 I had great ADSL connections from 1999, when we first moved here, but we had a land line into the caravan years before that. The adsl deteriorated and I was off line more than on line. I was palmed off with every excuse possible by all the different ‘technicians’ from various sub contractors who turned up. I used to run my internet from a HotSpot on my IPhone and negotiated a deal for extra data because my husband’s Pacemaker had to communicate with Montpellier hospital at night. Fibre here, like yours is very close to me and another isolated pensioner, but no sign of any connections yet. Neither of us needed great speed internet but did need to be in contact. I cracked and cancelled Orange internet about 11 months ago now, but kept Orange mobile. Orange said I had to give up my land line which they said was linked to my internet contract? More email and snail Mail complaints later they have relented. So I still have a non electrical basic land line for emergencies.

I am really happy with Starlink, but I am constantly targetted by Orange for new deals etc.

The history of Orange/France Telecom is a very tangled web in the UK and many other countries. EE is somehow connected but Orange do not own it, yet! Sorry if this was a bit boring for others. Xx
 
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daventess said:
Ours will work, but 12gig data cap is too small (I can use that up in a couple of days when I'm working). I can add unlimited 3 days of roaming data for £7 I've discovered, so not a disaster if it takes a few days to find a shop.
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Sorry to hear you are still working but touring as well has to be a bonus
 
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