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OrangeEdit

Orange's prepaid plan is called "Mobicarte". Mobicarte's "Internet Max" option costs 12¬ and provides unlimited data for 1 month. The option doesn't includes the use of email protocols (smtp, pop, imap). For email a seperate prepaid plan can be bought at 9¬. Without a data plan, Internet is charged at 50 cents per minute thus costing a fortune and quickly sucking your prepaid account dry. For mail - without a data plan - they charge you per 100K, which can also go pretty quickly if you have large attachments. These data plans are for mobile phones and may or may not work on other gear, although tethering seems to work. Your phone must be provider unlocked so it can work with Orange's service.

To obtain unlimited data, first purchase an Orange SIM card (9¬ including 5¬ of credit) and top it off for 30 days or more of service. No more than 12¬ needed if just activating the monthly internet MAX option. For safety, don't put too much credit on your SIM, in case something goes wrong. Before you put your SIM in your phone, the first thing to do is to DISABLE 3G and/or data use. Especially if you have an iPhone (don't know how it is on other phones), your phone will quickly start sucking the credits out of your account at 50 cts a minute if your data plan is not set up yet. After disabling data and putting in the SIM, the best way of activating the internet MAX option is by dialing #123# and using the written menu system. It's all in French, so can be a bit difficult to get through. As of August 2010, these are the steps to go through:

1) Dial #123#

2) You get a startup menu showing the credit on your prepaid. Make sure it's more than 12 EUR if you want to be able to buy unlimited surfing for a month.

3) Choose '2' Menu

4) Choose '4' Vos Bons plans

5) Choose '4' Votre Multimedia

6) Once you're in this menu, Suite ('Suite' means 'Next')

7) Choose '6' Suite a couple of times until you see 'Option Internet max' or 'Internet Max'

8) Choose Internet Max

9) Now you get a description, choose 'Suite'

10) Then choose 'Souscrire' (subscribe).

11) Finally, choose 'Valider' (confirm). That should be it, although the option may take 48 hours to come into effect.

The exact menu may change, so the above may not be 100% correct for your particular session. The important thing is to make your way into the 'Vos Bons plans' menu, and then into the 'Votre Multimedia' menu. Once you're there, try to find the 'Internet Max' option. It is helpful to know that 'Suite' means 'Next' (taking you to the next items in the menu), and 'Precedent' means 'Previous', going back to the previous items in the list. Although tempting, ignore things like 'Option Internet' (only works at night) or 'BP journee internet Max' (only works for one day at 3 EUR) or 'BP week end Internet Max' (only works on weekends). All those options are limited plans. If you choose any of those, your account will be sucked dry at times when the plan is not in effect. Only the 'Internet Max' choice will give you unlimited access for a full month. It costs 12 EUR. You can also add mail access (POP3, SMTP, IMAP) at 9 EUR, also in the 'Votre Multimedia' menu. Calling #123# is free, so you can screw around in this menu for as long as you like.

If #123# does not work you can try dialing 220. This is a spoken menu that can be even more difficult to get through if you don't speak French.

You can also call customer service, but I think they charge like 35 cts a minute, and I'm not sure they even speak English. A last option is to use the orange.fr website, which is recommended if you don't speak french and have temp wifi net access as you can google translate each page, but I've found the menu to be pretty cumbersome as well.

After all is set up, be sure to re-enable 3G and data services (and to disable mail if you don't want to be charged for it and did not buy a mail plan). Note: You may not be able to add the Internet Max option to your account until your registration information has been added to Orange's systems, this may take 24 hours initially. If your registration has not been added yet, you will get an error message if you try to activate the 'Internet Max' option, stating in French that you need to go to a point of sale with your ID. If you order you SIM over the Orange website it does not arrive pre-registered. Although you can activate it, you then still need to go to a shop with your SIM and ID to have your identity registered to your SIM in Orange's systems before you can actually buy the internet MAX option plans.

Likely you will not receive any notification of Internet option activation. You can test whether the plan is in effect by this procedure; 1) check your prepaid credit amount by dialing #123# or create an online account on orange.fr, 2) do a tiny bit of web surfing, 3) again check your credits and compare against the original amount. If no money has been deducted, likely your Internet option is in effect.

Note that Orange only guarantees 500MB of traffic, after which bandwidth gets limited. But so far, the limit does not seem to be enforced.

Store employees are usually unaware of prepaid data options, having been known to supply outright WRONG information (like internet plans not being availabe on Mobicarte) so don't expect prepaid data assistance from them. Many different plans are available for unlimited calling, evening calling, evening data, etc. See their site for more information. Your account is managed on the phone by dialing #123# or calling 220, or by visiting any Orange boutique or affiliated vendor.

Default data rate

Unlimited 3G Speeds, excluding email.

Email is available for 9¬ extra per month.

Normal Pricing

SIM card + 5¬ credit = 15¬

Calls 0.37¬ / min to Mobile

Calls 0.34¬ / min to Landline

SMS 0.12¬

Data 0.50¬ (!) / minute (It cost you a fortune and will quickly suck your prepaid account dry.)

Email / GPS 0.15¬ / 10k

Pricing Plans

Unlimited internet 1 day 3¬ (actually 22 hours from 2am to 12am - watch out for the 2hours in between)

Unlimited internet nights and all weekend 6¬

Unlimited internet 1 month 12¬ ( only 1 week 7¬ seen as of 29/8/2010 )

Unlimited e-mail 1 month 9¬

Unlimited calling to Orange mobiles and all landlines daytime (7h - 17h) 3¬

Unlimited calling to Orange mobiles and all landlines evening (21h - 24h) 3¬

Unlimited weekend 10¬

Availability

SIM and Mobicarte available in Orange stores and related vendors, and online.

Data plans must be subscribed to via automated phone system by dialing 220, online or #123# menu system.

SIM Sizes

Mini SIM (2FF)

Micro SIM (3FF) (iPhone 4 and iPad)

Tethering

Not allowed (But they dont seem to bother if you do)

SFREdit

Subscribtion is called "La carte". An activated SIM card is 9.90 euros, and the 'iPhone3G Internet + Mails Illimités' recharges provide data service. These are priced at 3 euro for 1 day, 10 euros for 7 days, and 20 euros for 20 days. Text and calls are charged separately. See their site for more information.

Some SFR stores have prepaid "top-up" terminals, from here, you can buy a ¬20-for-20-days pass, or a ¬24-for-20-days pass that includes an additional ¬10 of call and text credit. (Note that the card itself already contains a ¬5 credit, so all in all the ¬24 option gives you ¬15 of calling credit as far as I understant). Certain workers in SFR stores don't know about the availability of PAYG data for iPhones, even though their top-up terminals directly sell them. So if the worker seems to have a problem, just point them to the SFR website and navigate to the plan, or go to a store with a top-up terminal.

In order to activate these data passes, you should call the service line (costs call credit, or call from a landline) and tell them your code and to activate the data plan. This usually takes about an hour (actually the process itself took me about an hour, but only two days later did my line actually activate). Also, at least by some accounts the cellular internet connectivity is found to be problematic. Some discussion and possible solutions, including changing the APN settings, can be found on this discussion.

You probably should be able to speak french to use SFR, or you may ask the store clerk to do it for you. The support lines are reputedly only allowed to speak french, and the prepaid section of the website is all in french.

Default data rate

Unlimited

Availability

In some - but not all - SFR stores. Generally not available at tabacs. Recharges available online, but the site requires an existing SIM card and a European (smart chip) credit card.

SIM sizes

Mini SIM

==Edit

Tethering

Not allowed

Bouygues TelecomEdit

On their prepaid cards Bouygues Telecom offers free of charge POP3/IMAP access for most mail-providers, including gmail - see site , tab Internet Mobile. La liberté en mobilité: "Réception gratuite et illimitée de vos e-mails de votre messagerie Internet directement sur votre mobile en France métropolitaine. Liste des messageries compatibles et paramétrage sur www.bouyguestelecom.fr".

Only catch is that sending mails (SMTP) still costs, but that's quite fair trade. I'm using it more then a year, it works perfectly fine.

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• The following main operators are in Belgium: Base ( KPN ) Mobistar ( Orange ) Proximus (Belgacom - V

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