"PB&JM" skrev i melding
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Hello all,
I will be travelling to France at the end of the week and have a question
regarding "pre-paid" cards for mobile phones.

- - - -

Hi.

As long as the phone is unlocked your by far cheapest option is to buy a
prepaid card locally, put the SIM into your existing phone and after
activation you have a local French phone number and may receive and make
phonecalls.

From past experience I know that some of these activation procedures may be
a bit difficult if you do not master the local language, since all messages
coming back to you tend never (!) to be anything than what the natives
speak. Just buy a card anyway, it does not much matter which one, and have
somebody help you. Your hotel receptionist or really anybody will be happy
to help. You should be able to buy this already when arriving at CDG, and
they will certainly be able to help you there.

With a local card you do not pay roaming charges, which may be prohibitive.
The whole thing is really ludicrous. If somebody in France calls your
Australian phonenumber that call is first routed to your home network on the
other side of the planet and then back to France again.

Since the French phone company knows in the first place that the number in
question is a mobile phone number, they should be able to send a request to
the aussie network and ask where that the phone is currently located and
place the call directly there.

This is not the way GSM has been defined and how it works, and there are
probably economic reasons (how to make money) for that.

IH

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