Cheap international calls
A lot of people have commented that they wished they had the all in one services like France has for the internet, TV, and telephone. While it is true it is a great bargain one thing that often gets over looked is calls to cell phones. We pay 42 Euros for Orange and we get ADSL wirelessly with the livebox and that includes 50 channels of cable and Free calling throughout France, we pay an extra 7 Euros a month to have free international calls to about 15 more countries. So for under 50 Euros we have everything. Almost.
We have been buying calling cards at callingcards.com because our friend Alessandro told us about it. We have all seen the millions of ads and websites for cheap international calls. I never signed up before because they all tend to look scammy. I am sceptical by nature but since Alessandro and Stefano had used them many times and highly recommended them we tried them out.
We bought our first card when we lived in Philadelphia and had to call France a lot to make arrangements for our move. We paid 1.9 cents per minute. In Philadelphia we only had cell phones so international calling was expensive so we welcomed the calling cards. They were a cheap way to arrange things. When you call using the calling card you call a local number that gives you access to international numbers so it is without a toll, just minutes.
When we arrived in France our friend Copper was having trouble with his phone so we didn’t have free international calls. We got cell phones but international calls again were very expensive. We bought a card for calling France to the US, I think we paid 2.7 cents per minute and used it a bunch to call our friends. They were a lifesaver until we moved into our apartment and could get the all in one service.
Well, you’d think that we wouldn’t need them anymore because of the service but it turns out we only get 30 minutes of calling to cellphones per month from our fixed phone. Since many of our friends in the States only have cell phones this could pose a problem. We keep buying the cards for calling the states. They offered a holiday promotion that gave 10% off, I think it is over now though.
I feel so French now, I took the long way to explain something simple. If you would like to save on long distance calls, within the US, within a country throughout the world, or among countries of the world try callingcards.com. We have used them many times. They are reliable. You get an email with your access local number, your pin, and instructions on how to call. It is simple and the cards are rechargeable. They go as far as saying they are protecting the environment by not actually issuing cards, but I don’t think I could say that without vomiting. some of us have semi-clear consciences.
Try it out by clicking below.
Would you guys ever consider changing providers? We get free, unlimited calls to French fixed lines & to both cells & landlines in the US, plus internet & TV for 32€ per month. We stayed with France Telecom for 4 years and paid more b/c I was scared about the quality of service, but I couldn’t be happier now that we’ve switched. France Telecom is the only one that makes you pay extra for the international calls & the TV option, all the others automatically include it.
I also have a “forfait pro” for my cell phone, which lets me call the US as part of my plan - so I can easily make calls to people back home just as if I was calling in France, with no extra charge. It works out pretty hand actually.
Our friend who was having trouble with his all in one plan was using Free. We had a heck of a time sorting through everything and their customer service was terrible. For this reason we decided to go with Orange. We also figured that once we were here long enough and knew how everything worked then we might switch.
Jean-Jacques is French but I think the 2 things he hates most are calling any kind of customer service number and all things technical so that leaves me and my advanced beginner level of French to figure everything out.
Orange has English speaking agents for the times when it was too impossible for me. Also you can just go to a store and they will help out. Instead of paying the .34 per minute for the help line we go down the block to the store, complain to them, and they call the help line, and we don’t get charged. I guess in a city this is very convenient because there are more Orange stores in France than Starbucks in the US. I don’t know how it is in more remote areas.
I know Free doesn’t make you pay extra for the international plan but I don’t think we pay for the TV with Orange. We were also told that with Orange you could pay more to get a faster internet connection and the other companies you only could get the slowest connection. Well it turns out that the lines in our apt only have the capacity for the slowest connection anyway so there is no real point in staying. I mean if we thought we’d be getting a faster connection.
As you know getting set up once you arrive is a big challenge so for now we are staying with Orange. Once our one year contract is up we are definitely going to look around. I just don’t like that with Free you will get a new number a 09 number. BTW, is it Free that you use? I have only heard good things about Free, I hear crappy things about Numericable, Neuf, and the others.
Forfait Pro sounds like Orange for your cell phone, is that right? We have a Compte Partagé, I think it is called. We have 2 numbers on the same account but it is an economy plan of sorts. I think we can call the US as part of the plan but if we call the US to a cell phone we get some astronomical charge.
That is why we buy the calling cards, we call US cell phones from our fixed line in France using the calling cards. As far as Orange is concerned we are calling a local number so there are no charges associated with the call. We pay 2.9 cents a minute for the card so it is cheap.
I guess I wonder if you have Free and you call from your fixed in France to a cell in the US, is the call free as part of you international plan?
Anyway, as always you have provided me a lot of info to think over.
BTW, I have been learninghow to do the keystrokes for the accents and such on an English keyboard but I cannot figure out the Euro sign. Do you know it or do you just type on a French keyboard?
Nope, we have Club Internet - personally, they’re the only company I’ve never heard anything bad about. A lot of people we know have had problems with Neuf & Free, so we wanted to stay away from them. And calls from my fixe in France to cells in the US are free - it’s only FT that charges extra for them, the rest of them include it in the free class.
And you have two options - either you can go dégroupé and get rid of the FT line all together (and thus stop paying the 16€/mo line rental) or you can keep your FT line and do a dégroupage partiel and still get internet, phone & tv through another company. If you go the second route (which is what we did), you will have two phone numbers - one normal one, and one 09 one, which I think is handy. I use the 09 one to make all of my calls for free and I give the normal one out to people so they don’t have to pay extra to call me.
We also went that route b/c I need phone & internet for my job, and that way if our internet every went down, I would still have the FT line to use, as well as their pay-as-you-go DSL service until our regular internet got back up and running. So it means we still have to pay the line rental fee, but at least I’m always guaranteed to have some kind of access.
Can you not use the calling card with your cell phone? It would still be like calling a local number? Normally, I just copy the euro sign and paste it in, but I just discovered while writing this, that this Acer laptop has a key for the euro sign! I think there is a keystroke you can use, but I have no idea what it might be.
I can use the card with my cell phone but it seems to me that cell phones are much more expensive here. We share 2 hours of talk between to phone numbers on a split account for 42€, Option shift 2 gets you the Euro sign, so I could do that but we’d run out of minutes quickly.
The interesting thing is that you don’t use your minutes on a cell phone when you receive a call, just when you dial a call.
We have unlimited text messaging, I hate texts though. Maybe I’ll get used to them. Lots of people here use them like “I’m at Bapz, meet me”. I guess it is no better or worse than a short cell phone call. I just don’t like typing on such a small keyboard.
I totally agree with you on texting. I have enough trouble typing on a regular keyboard. Except for rare exceptions, I only use my cell for phone calls and it is my only phone.
What is Option Shift? Is that a Mac thing?
I didn’t realize that cells were so expensive in France (Europe??) but at least you don’t have to pay for incoming calls. I pay about $70 a month for a Family plan. We get 700 shared minutes per month and we each have our own number. Also, if we call anyone else with the same company, the minutes do not count against us. Since we mostly call just each other, we have a ton of unused minutes every month. It’s too bad they don’t roll over. Our provider is T-Mobile (out of Germany).
I think cell phones and their calling plans are expensive here in France. Many other things are not but all the French people we know have a “system” for dealing with cell phones so they don’t go over their minutes. Maybe we will move to the Mobicart when our forfait is done.
Ah, but with Free, the international calls and the television are free with the 30€ adsl service.
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