They've added Orange back to France, which is great as when I was there last year, Orange seemed to have much better coverage than Bouygues.

Are you sure this isn't just showing a guide of people you can call/text from the UK TO Abroad on the respective network?

O2 Germany being added might actually just be by default as they would have to keep the E-Plus roaming agreements. But could be a new agreement I guess.

I asked 3 what their network roaming partner's in France were over in Twitter DM and they said it is just Bouygues & Free Mobile.

See Link: http://postimg.org/image/6saa7bj9b/

So when roaming do we have to select the network manually, or will the phone only lock on to the correct network?

As in Ireland, it will only lock on to the correct network(s).

Feel at home applies to any network you can log onto, as Three have an agreement with all their roaming partners in those countries. If you're near a border though, just make sure you are on the correct network.

Is this new?? When I was in Austria in January I thought there was one network (and I cannot remember the name!) that the phone refused to connect to. I had assumed that this particular network had not agreed to be part of "three like home"

I have a friend currently roaming in France with a Three SIM in his iPad. We did not set up an online account prior to his departure and now he has run out of data, with a few days to go. Is there any way I can top him up remotely from here? With Three Ireland, it's a cinch, they even have a Facebook topup page, but it seems nearly impossible on Three UK, save you first create an online account.

I must point out that he's not very savvy; buying a voucher and then explaining him to go to My3 in Safari and inputting the code is more than likely, a bridge too far.

You are in trouble with it being an iPad as, AFAIR, setting up a 3 online account - which would be the easiest way to sort him out - sends the initial password by SMS!

Yes, that's correct. However, I'm well used to all this and if I were there, I could sort it in minutes. But the big eejit swore blind to me that he wouldn't need more than a gig while there and of course, he's used it up already! Sigh

Are they able to use Orange F do you know?

When I was there in January, I used both Orange F and Bouygues. I only ever got a 2G signal with Bouygues. However, this was before France was a Feel at Home country, and I was using the Euro Pass. The agreements for Feel at Home might be different.

Bouygues.

I'll be there next Tuesday and will give it a thorough workout.

I believe they are. It should only be Bouygues and Free (which isn't).

With the amount of traffic steering going on these days (where your home network tries to get you on its preferred roaming partner network) it's hard to tell what networks you really can use. Just because you do a manual network selection and get a reject doesn't necessarily mean there's no roaming agreement or you can't use that network.

If you keep hitting a less favoured network multiple times, it might let you on. The idea is that if a phone tries a less favourable network when set to automatic and gets rejected, the phone will move on and try another more favoured network. However if it keeps trying a network because that is the only one with coverage then eventually your home network will allow access as they don't want you to have no service. If you are doing manual network selections then you have to replicate this process manually.

I am travelling to a rural part of France tomorrow and only Orange F & SFR have the best available coverage, the Bouygues mast is somewhat further out... But I am certain I won't be able to access Orange F anymore, oh well.

In France at the moment also, only works on 'F-BOUYGUES TELCOM' and 'Free', not that I have come across any 'Free' coverage so far. Bouygues seems to have rather poor coverage compared to Orange F and SFR.

I was in Paris this week and found F-BOUYGUES gave excellent 3G or H+ signals wherever I was in the city, however the data delivered was somewhat patchy taking time to open up Google maps or other apps, streaming was out the question pretty much despite speed tests giving results that would normally be sufficient. I imagine there's some traffic prioritisation going on for us on Three roaming.

It seems that is the price we have to pay for these free or flat rate roaming deals. Three say in their FAQs that streaming is throttled and they don't recommend streaming video. O2 also say that their £1.99 per day unlimited data is throttled after 50MB of streaming which isn't much for video.

Yup, Spotify wouldn't stream in Paris, giving lots of stutters and breaks. Uploaded a video to facebook which took a while but got it there (only 15mb clip)

I did manage to phone home and send a text message while I was halfway throught the Channel Tunnel though

Which direction? The France > UK tunnel is covered by the French networks and this has worked for about 2 years so anyone should be able to roam as normal. The UK > France tunnel is covered by the UK networks but this has only been in place for a few months and initially at least, only for EE and Vodafone. Does Three have coverage now?

It is such a shame that Three are not allowing access to Orange France. Both their twitter teams and call centre teams have told me that Orange France is available to use for Three Like Home.

The French regulator Arcep carrys out its own coverage assessment and checks the accuracy of the network coverage maps.

The latest one is here (in French)
http://www.arcep.fr/index.php?id=857...75540b5e6b91f5

It shows Bouygues has the best 4G coverage at 70% (population). Orange has 66%, SFR 30% and Free 24%. Arcep weren't happy with SFR and Free's 4G coverage maps and made them change them so they are more accurate.

For 3G, Orange and SFR both have 99%, Free 98.5% and Bouygues 96.5%. For 2G they are all >99%.

Note the text explains that the figures relate to what customers of each network receive rather than the actual coverage of the network itself. This is different because of sharing agreements so the figures might not be quite the same if you are roaming on these networks.

More detail of the tests with maps and speeds here
http://www.arcep.fr/index.php?id=12433

Ok well just came back from a week away in the Limousin region of France & 3's feel at home offer has certainly came in a massive help. In terms of signal though while Bouygues Telecom is a very good network with preety impressive coverage, my phone went onto SFR & Orange F a good few times for emergency calls & their 3G coverage is practically perfect compared to Bouygues... still though I shouldn't moan if I got all my allowances for free, although a little disappointing how streaming radio or youtube etc is practically useless & connecting a VPN didn't solve anything, they seem to know your connected to a VPN and throttle it to ridiculously slow speeds to the point you may aswell not bother with VPN.

Conclusion: Perfect for keeping in touch with home or checking the weather etc, but anything like video, streaming radio or VPN use is pointless.