French mobile coverage.

[madmaggot]

Does anyone know which network is the best one for use whilst in France? I am going to buy a new PAYG sim to take because last year we had no service most of the time (on Tesco Mobile). Which would be the best one to get?

[sunny-dave]

Do you mean you want to buy a French sim - or just which UK network has decent roaming coverage through partners over there?

If it's the second option, then I've used Vodafone and Virgin sims in Fance & they both work pretty well everywhere that there is any signal on any French network.

[sunny-dave]

Fance !!

< big country quite near Bitain >

[beckersjay]

I have an O2 SIM and it seemed to have wide French coverage last year when we went.

[Nibble]

I usually use either O2 (on my personal phone), or Vodafone (on the company), but with the normal roaming of being away from home, your phone will lock on to the strongest available signal in France, which will be any of the following, assuming you have Network Selection to Automatic..

http://en.wikipedia.o...tors_of_Europe#France

[Baldric]

I live near Dover, when dogwalking on beach/cliffs I keep switching betwwen Orange and Orange France so they've got a good signal in Northern France at least.

[madmaggot]

Hmmm, perhaps I need to look at my phone settings then?

[Buenchico]

Tesco Mobile is actually 02. (Tesco don't have their own transmitter network).

02 buys coverage in France from Bouygues, Orange and SFR.

However Bouygues uses the 1800 Mhz band, so you'd need a dual-band phone to connect with with their network. If your French is good enough, you might be able to find a coverage map here:
http://www.bouyguestelecom.fr/

Orange and SFR are both available to users of any GSM handset, although SFR doesn't fully cover some parts of the country. Website here:
http://www.sfr.fr/
and here:
http://www.orange.fr/

Chris