Talk:France/@comment-2.98.199.222-20110829112752

Just back from France. Staff in Calais Orange shop said Internet no longer available and tried to sell me an expensive dongle for a laptop. The girl that served me proudly said she couldn't speak English at all, the other assistant knew a few words. I've got quite good schoolboy French. Took advice from others here and went to Orange shop in town where I was staying and bought a mobicarte without saying I wanted it for the Internet. They charged me 19.90 euros which included 5 euros credit. Added another 10 on the spot. Took about 36 hours to be "identified". Tried dialling #123#, but every time I got to the "valider" option, I got a 'Connection problem or invalid MMI code' message. In the end, I dialled 220 and, because I had read the options a thousand times already, I recognised them when they were spoken in French and got Internet Max straight away. It took just a few hours to become active after that. As a word of warning, my daughter's Ipod Touch was on and receiving POP3 emails while I was tethering my laptop to the mobile phone and gobbled up all the remaining credit!