Talk:France/@comment-77.196.4.114-20120318144228

Thought I'd add my experience: I went to an SFR store and was told I'd have phone+SMS immediately but internet would take 2 days before it would activate. Went to Orange; they said prepaid internet is just not possible. Finally went to Bouygues and got phone, SMS and internet immediately. (unlocked Google Nexus S) Only downside, internet is limited to 50MB, after which you have to recharge or it will eat into your phone credits. I've been here a week and still have 30MB left. You can monitor your usage online. Don't think you can recharge online unless you have a France credit card, but you can easily recharge in a store. There's a lot more free WiFi here than I think in most N.American cities. If you limit your big downloading to when you have WiFi, 50MB should last a week or longer. I've been using Google Maps and email pretty heavily, but not downloading large files. Haven't been charged for email sending or receiving at all; perhaps because I use SMTPS for both my personal and work email. VPN (OpenVPN) also works fine.