Son studying in France for a year - best mobile deal?

nelliebag

Can anyone help please. My son is going to France for a year to study. He has an Iphone which is now out of contract. What is the best provider/deal for him so that he can text friends/family at home in UK?

Thanks
nellie

DCFC79

Use whatsapp for calls and texts over wifi, obviously depends if he has acccess to wifi though.

grumbler

Three's Feel At Home would be good, but it's "designed for UK residents who are on holiday or business trips abroad, not for extended periods abroad" - that sounds pretty vague though.

Another option is http://www.togglemobile.co.uk/tariffs/en
Interestingly, texts are cheaper without their 'local number' - 5p/text (7p with the local number).

nelliebag

Yes he will have access to wifi

nellie

SeduLOUs

Best option will probably be for him to get a sim over there to avoid risking massive roaming charges, and use Whatsapp and Skype to chat with friends and family over WiFi

gjchester

Remember that apple to apple texts will go over iMessage and you may be able to use Skype or Facetime audio if he has wifi access or 3 g too..

spannerzone

grumbler wrote: »

Three's Feel At Home would be good, but it's "designed for UK residents who are on holiday or business trips abroad, not for extended periods abroad" - that sounds pretty vague though.......

If you drill down a bit further with their T&C's they give more info:

Feel At Home is intended for our UK customers who are visiting one of the destinations for short trips, like holidays or business trips. If you only use your plan in a Feel At Home destination for a complete month, and this happens three times within a year, we may have to suspend international roaming on your account, which would mean you wouldn’t be able to use your phone or device abroad anymore. We’d let you know if this were likely to happen. If you spend a full month abroad but some of that time is spent in a destination that isn’t included in Feel At Home, the restriction won’t apply.
http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home (and click the 'Dedicated Support Page' link to get all the details.

So it's unlikely this is reliable for a 1 year stay unless you got perhaps 3 or 4 PAYG SIMS and alternated between them, bit of a faff.

J_B

nelliebag wrote: »

He has an Iphone which is now out of contract.

Three important questions before you start

1. Which network is he on?

2. Is the iPhone locked to the network that he is currently on?
If yes, then he needs to get it unlocked by the network *before* he leaves them.
Don't get anyone else to unlock it as they are sometimes known to lock again

3. has he given notice on his contract? Just because he is 'out of contract' he will still need to give (probably) 30 days notice

NFH

One of the best deals is http://mobile.free.fr/ which charges €20/month for:

• Unlimited calls, SMS and MMS to France
• Unlimited calls to fixed lines in 100 countries (including the UK)
• Unlimited SMS to European mobiles (including the UK)
• 3GB of 3G data and 20GB of 4G data

nelliebag

Thanks everyone, I'm looking into the possibilities.

nellie

J_B

nelliebag wrote: »

Thanks everyone, I'm looking into the possibilities.

Did you see my questions in post #8?