SIM SIM SIM

I am heading to France for a few days and I need to be reachable at all times. I thus need to buy a sim card. I will go deep in the countryside and would need a good coverage.

Several years ago, there were three operators. France Telecom had the best coverage but was very expensive. Bouygues was the exact opposite. (cheap but bad coverage in the countryside) and SFR was in between.

How is it those days? What would you recommend? Any idea of price? (or a comparative study online).

Thanks!

Orange remains the best.

Meanwhile: "Orange, SFR et Bouygues Télécom condamnés à une amende record de 534 millions d'euros" -- for price fixing, of course. Nothing has changed.

For a casual user who wants to but a "pay as ou go" simcard, there will be very little difference in costs between the various French networks. My advice would be to get whatever simcard may be on special offer at the time you want to buy it (outside of special offers, French SIM cards tend to be much more expensive than in the rest of Europe, at about 30 euro each initial credit included). Also notice that credit "expires" quickly, for the lowest amounts it may be as little as a week!

I just checked this out at Carrefour. They have their own system which was quite a bit cheaper than SFR or Orange. The SIM card plus a tiny bit of credit cost 15€ so I was advised to buy a refill at the same time. But if it's mostly for being reachable, it's good for 6 months. Otherwise, the credit had to be used up within 2 weeks. They had a comparative listing of all the operators and both SFR and Orange were more expensive than Carrefour.

But your phone has to be unlocked first, of course.

And naturally, if you buy at Carrefour, Darty, Virgin or whatever, service is through one of the 3 national companies, as they are the only ones with a network, so you need to know which one it is if you are going "deep into the countryside."

Thanks to all for your responses. I did a bit of research on the web and found this:

Bouygues. SIM costs 15€, and call/mn is 0,5€
SFR: SIM costs 30€, and call/mn is 0,55€
Orange : hard to find, gosh their website is a pain. I guess they are no cheaper than SFR.

New comers in town:
Tele 2: SIM costs 20€, including 10€ of calls. call/mn is 0,39€. But SIM only valid for 6 months. Using Orange network.
Virgin: SIM costs 15€. call/mn is 0,42€ .Terrible reviews on the web about this provider.

and the winner is....

Carrefour! (thanks bjd!!) SIM costs 15€, and calls are 0,39€/mns. Using Orange network. I would never have thought Carrefour would be involved with mobile phones...

Thanks again guys.

Fairly sure that Leclerc sells SFR SIM for either 15 or 20 euros ... might be worth going on their website

Kira