I confess to being a complete Luddite when confronted by mobile phones. Sadly I must confess I have never sent a text message and have only ever received one and that from the phone company.
I'm trying to make sense of conflicting advice - so HELP! please.
Q 1) What do I dial to phone the UK from France ?
I'm told it is +44 (0)[dropping the UK 0] then the UK number.
What is + ? 0 or 00?
Q 2 What do I dial when in France to get a French number ie to contact a site etc.
Silly questions I'm sure but I don't want to caught out if an emergency arises. Thanks in advance
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If you are phoning back to England, mine(O2)just seems to work by dialing the UK number in the memory. So just try phoning in the normal way from your phone memory. Otherwise you need to add 0044 & omit the first 0 from the phone no. ie if the UK dialing code was 01473etc from France you would dial 00441473etc.
To dial a French number from a UK mobile in France or anywhere you must add 0033 & omit the first 0 from the phone number.
For police or other emergency services dial 112, this is the universal number that goes thru to police from a mobile whatever country you are in.
My vodafone refused to phone from the phone book, I had to edit each number as Tentz has said above, by omitting the first "0" & replacing it with "0044" this is due to the network I believe, rather than the phone.
I didn't know about phoning French numbers tho, thanks Tentz
Quote: Originally posted by nutgone on 03/6/2010
My vodafone refused to phone from the phone book, I had to edit each number as Tentz has said above, by omitting the first "0" & replacing it with "0044" this is due to the network I believe, rather than the phone. I didn't know about phoning French numbers tho, thanks Tentz
I went into a Vodafone shop and they were able to do all my numbers to the 0044 - and they didn't charge me
Nobody has mentioned that your phone comes with an international bar which you have to get your service provider to lift. Doing this shouldn't cost anything.
Once this is done, then it's as everyone else has said.
You have to also be aware that you pay a proportion of any incoming call as well as the whole of any outgoing calls. It means that anyone calling you from the UK will pay for the call up to the point where it leaves UK airspace, you then pay for the rest of the call once it enters French airspace.
We've found it cheaper and more straightforward to purchase a landline phonecard and make our calls from a payphone. IIRC we purchased our last one on the ferry. Leave the phone number of the site you are staying at with whoever may need to know, then if they need you they can contact you via the site reception.
That way you know exactly where you are.
Vic
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Quote: Originally posted by Vic Wildish on 03/6/2010Nobody has mentioned that your phone comes with an international bar which you have to get your service provider to lift. Doing this shouldn't cost anything.
My vodafone pay as you go didn't have a bar, I just took it over there & used it. Vodafone abolished their roaming charges for europe last summer, as a special. They're back to normal now (ie; expensive) which is a shame.
I think I get charged a flat rate every time I answer an incoming call from the UK while abroad with mine (think it's about £1.50 per call).
It's probably worth mentioning about voicemail, if you don't answer a call, say it's unimportant, & they leave a message, you can be charged the roaming fee as if you'd answered it. So it may be worth turning your voicemail off.
This all depends on your network, best to visit their website or, even better, visit one of their shops & ask for a breakdown of their roaming charges & any special deals they may have going.
Also, make sure you switch it on (if it's been off) as soon as possible when you return. If it's left off & goes to voicemail, your network will assume you are still abroad. It needs to be on & registering a British signal, in order to return to normal.
Pay&gos have never had bars on roaming as obviously you can't go into debt with them. Contract phones might have a bar to start with until they 'trust you' to pay what might be a large bill. You sometimes have to 'negotiate' with them to get the bar lifted if you ain't had the contract long.
Roaming charges within the EU as set by EU commission. 35p/min to call 18p/min recieve. You might get a cheaper deal but you won't pay any more than that whatever phone you have.
I get Vodafone passport which has a 75p connection fee then you just use the mins from your monthly plan so a call to the UK just cost 75p for any duration provided you have enough mins in your plan.Last week when I bought some euros i also bought a £10 phone card which is valid for one year and can be used all over the world to phone UK For example calls from France to Uk are 8.8p/min you get 113 mins for £10-thats pretty good.
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check with the 150 operator to make sure you can use it abroad in the first place
after that all; the 0044 minus the 0 in the uk code is correct if you have numbers saved edit them to make it 0044 and remove that code 0 and you will be ok i do that and keep the 0044 all the time it works in the uk just as we;ll you don't have to change back and forth all the time easy peasy
for france numbers you do not need the 0033 when you are in france but you do in the uk cos that is abroad for a french number!!!
Like Vic, we buy the French Telecom cards that go in the payphones, and would only use our mobiles in dire emergency, ok not as convienent as a mobile, but so much cheaper than using a mobile to phone UK, and more importantley you know how much you are spending!, fact is roaming mobile rates did come down last summer, but the cost's are still high IMO.
Quote: Originally posted by ldpdmp on 05/6/2010
for France numbers you do not need the 0033 when you are in France
Not neccessarily correct as it appears to depend on the mobile provider, when roaming any call made on your UK mobile routes back to UK then back to France so generally yes you may need to add the 0033 but possibly not for some. for example, O2 does not require the 0044 when phoning UK numbers from France, so may perhaps automatically add country code from wherever you are phoning from.
What is certain is that adding country code ensures the call will connect whatever mobile provider you have.
Quote: Originally posted by jsparkes201148 on 05/6/2010
I get Vodafone passport which has a 75p connection fee then you just use the mins from your monthly plan so a call to the UK just cost 75p for any duration provided you have enough mins in your plan.Last week when I bought some euros i also bought a £10 phone card which is valid for one year and can be used all over the world to phone UK For example calls from France to Uk are 8.8p/min you get 113 mins for £10-thats pretty good.
Where did you buy that phone card and what's it called?
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Topic: Using Mobiles in France
