Advice - Buying a French sim card from UK

Bougainvillea

I just wondered if anyone could suggest the best way to buy a mobile phone or sim card that had a French phone number starting 06. We want to buy the phone or card from the Uk if at all possible (We gets calls from France but some companies will not ring a UK no, so we need a French mobile number just to receive calls) We would need to be able to top up easily from the Uk if it was pay as you go.

Also if there was anyway of using the sim card along side a Uk sim card in the same phone - using the Orange network in the UK for the Uk sim card

Thanks for any advice

hurrah

http://www.0044.co.uk/france.htm

mad_rich

Do you really need a mobile, or do you just want a number in France?

If you have Skype, you can get a French SkypeIn number (calls routed to your computer for €30/ year.

If you're happy with just a voicemail number, I imagine there are a lot more options available to you.

Bougainvillea

Thank you - I tried 0044 but their sim cards need to be activated and topped up in France, which is difficult as I am in the UK. Their contract phones don't include use outside France until you have used the phone in France for some months. Any other ideas?

turbodiesel

I dont think your are going to be able to top-up any French sim card from the UK, unless you have a French credit card.
All networks international topup services are still in a somewhat developmental stage.
AFAIK, the only network that you can topup globally using a voucher from another country is Vodafone. (eg you can topup a Airtel (Vodafone-Spain) sim card using a Vodafone UK topup voucher etc)
Unfortunatley France's networks - Bouygues, SFR & Orange are not part of the Vodafone group

redux

You'd be paying roaming charges at fairly high rates for receiving the calls here, like €0.60 or 0.65 a minute.

Unless it's only a few minutes a month, I think you'd be better off with a French landline number diverted to wherever you want, and it would be cheaper to a landline for some of the time.

Various VoIP providers can give you a number for a nominal amount a month, maybe a penny or two a minute to receive on your PC or another penny or so to forward to your landline, or about 10p to a UK mobile. The Finarea companies have forwarding for 0p per minute to landlines, but seem to have stopped promoting incoming numbers for now, so I'm not sure if they are still available. Also look at Voipfone and others

https://www.voipfone.co.uk
https://www.voipfoneuserforum.com/about1178.html

If you really must have a French mobile number, then investigate if SFR has an equivalent to Vodafone Passport, where calls are at the home tariff, ie free incoming per minute, plus a connect fee of probably €1 per call. I still reckon the charges would ramp up too quickly though.

Edit - found on
http://www.sfr.fr/info_nouveautes/offres_reseau/toutes_les_offres/la_carte/index.jsp

SFR Monde Vodafone Passport inclus : Pour rester joignable et appeler depuis l'étranger (8)

redux

turbodiesel wrote:

Unfortunatley France's networks - Bouygues, SFR & Orange are not part of the Vodafone group

Actually, SFR is part of the Vodafone group as the Vodafone own a large percentage of it

Bougainvillea

Thank you for all your replies