France short-term sim cards · Short-term SIM cards in France
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Short-term SIM cards in France
Short-term SIM cards in France
(for smartphones and tablets)
Orange has nearly-unlimited Internet 1-month package for ?9 called InternetMax. Official limit of 500MB is not enforced. Tethering is not allowed, but this is not enforced. Email (POP3/SMTP/IMAP) is not covered, and sold as a separate package for ?9 per month. P2P, VoIP and USENET are specifically banned, and risk getting your plan cancelled as well as the loss of any call credit remaining on your account.
It is called InternetMax; to set it up:
buy a Mobicarte (generic prepaid SIM card) at Orange outlet for ?9.90 which comes included with credit of ?5
recharge it with ?4 (with credit card at Orange outlet or with ?5-euro recharge cards sold at tobacco kiosks and newsstands everywhere).
turn off mobile data connection and disable all email applications using POP3/IMAP/SMTP at smartphone before inserting SIM card, otherwise it will suck up the credit well before you activate the unlimited data plan
wait for 24 hours for SIM card to be activated before you can add packages
activate the InternetMax data plan with #123#. Menu is in French, refer to the link below for summary in English.
allow several hours (officially up to 48hrs) for InternetMax to be activated. There's no notification, so check it regularly: surf a bit and check your credit with #123#
As the plan is not marketed by Orange, staff at outlets and hotline operators are completely unaware of it, and Orange website tells very little on it even in French. If your French is poor, a detailed third-party instruction like can be very helpful.
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France Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.