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Three has drastically reduced coverage in France |
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#26 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Suffolk, East Anglia
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Yes, Free use Orange for a lot of 3G coverage (and all of their 2G). I think the Free coverage map includes the Orange roaming that their own customers can use.
http://www.antennesmobiles.fr/ In the field box "Géolocalisation" you type the name of the French village e.g. 'Calais' |
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#27 |
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Join Date: Jan 2002
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so now two French 4G services I can find but not one on any network in my own town!
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#28 |
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Join Date: Nov 2014
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I'll bet you are a "If I speak loud enough in english, they will understand me" person!
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#29 |
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but Vodafone, O2 and EE all have 4G in Folkestone.
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#30 |
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Kent
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I guess so, but he said he couldn't find 4G on any network
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#31 |
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Join Date: May 2006
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Are you sure?
If you are in France at the moment, can you reboot and try to manually select Orange France? Three have changed from Bouygues to Orange France (Dec 2014). Free has always been a 2nd roaming partner since Feel At Home started in France. Yes you were right, after manually searching I was able to use Orange in France and now have even better coverage than the original Bougyes telecom. Thank you so much! Two questions (not to anyone in particular) - why didn't it just switch to Orange automatically? (it does now after the first manual change) and more importantly - why didn't the idiot in the Indian call centre tell me that there was an alternative to Free when I called to complain about their abysmal service instead of spouting drivel about new masts being built? |
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#32 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
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I love you squawkBOX!
Yes you were right, after manually searching I was able to use Orange in France and now have even better coverage than the original Bougyes telecom. Thank you so much! Two questions (not to anyone in particular) - why didn't it just switch to Orange automatically? (it does now after the first manual change) and more importantly - why didn't the idiot in the Indian call centre tell me that there was an alternative to Free when I called to complain about their abysmal service instead of spouting drivel about new masts being built? |
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#33 |
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Central Scotland, UK
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Sorry to bring such an old thread back to life, but I can see that Three have removed Orange France as a roaming partner and their site is showing Bouygues and Free as the roaming partners.
![]() I find in the areas that I visit, Orange France is superior in so many ways. It looks like I might have to acquire an Orange France PAYG SIM. From my reading around the web, it doesn't look like this is the easiest process in the world. Anyone with any experience of the best way to go about purchasing an Orange France PAYG SIM? I am just interested in data. |
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#34 |
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: London
Posts: 538
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Hope this is not true, I was in calais for Christmas and New Year and Free was awful. Bouygues seemed OKish but not good. Can't remember if I ever connected to orange on my last trip.
RE the posts above, this is how far I got across the channel and was still able to use EE. At this point my phone was not able to communicate back to the UK mainland and the French networks kicked in. I could still see EE in Calais though. http://postimg.org/image/fbm23tdpl/ |
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#35 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
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Sorry to bring such an old thread back to life, but I can see that Three have removed Orange France as a roaming partner and their site is showing Bouygues and Free as the roaming partners.
![]() I find in the areas that I visit, Orange France is superior in so many ways. It looks like I might have to acquire an Orange France PAYG SIM. From my reading around the web, it doesn't look like this is the easiest process in the world. Anyone with any experience of the best way to go about purchasing an Orange France PAYG SIM? I am just interested in data. don't forget they'll need your passport and may require you to sign a document (not usually with Orange F)On Orange you can buy a 1GB data bundle valid for 14 days for €10.00 |
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#36 |
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Join Date: Nov 2009
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There looks nothing wrong with that coverage map (other than it being of France of course). And if you can use Orange as well then this thread is just another example of miss placed online outrage.
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#37 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Suffolk, East Anglia
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"La carte prépayée Mobicarte" = Prepaid Mobicarte
More info here: http://boutique.orange.fr/mobile/car...ayee-mobicarte Mobile Internet Bundles with 4G: http://boutique.orange.fr/mobile/rec...internetMobile |
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#38 |
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Yes, in the same way that just outside Plymouth there is a beach which I can pick up Orange France 3G, SFR 3G, Bouygues 3G, Sure and Vodafone Jersey but I cannot log onto any of them as my phone isn't as powerful in the other direction.
http://s11.postimg.org/uilll91mr/screenshot_58.png Anyway, my point is, you are 140Km from Cherbourg here and I can always get all the French networks on a network scan. But yeah, the 40 odd watts of power from the mast easily travels that far. The 1 watt from my phone, well, er, doesn't! |
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#39 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
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I was at Hallsands near Start Point today and once you get down near the sea there is great 3G/4G that comes across the bay from the water tower mast near Stoke Fleming, Dartmouth which is damn near line of sight albeit 13Km away!. Could be Tor point mast near Slapton but it's way out of sight behind a really high hill. Tor point mast is red square on here. Amazing how the coverage is coming from much further away.
http://s11.postimg.org/uilll91mr/screenshot_58.png Anyway, my point is, you are 140Km from Cherbourg here and I can always get all the French networks on a network scan. But yeah, the 40 odd watts of power from the mast easily travels that far. The 1 watt from my phone, well, er, doesn't! ![]() https://goo.gl/maps/XMgYqSyvrW12 |
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#40 |
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Join Date: Mar 2015
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Go to this beautiful part of the world and VOILA! You will be immediately welcomed to France every time you visit, all French networks pick up perfectly including 3G and sucessfully logged onto them all here, not a UK signal in sight
![]() https://goo.gl/maps/XMgYqSyvrW12 Orange and Bougyes were fine, including 3G. Had a 3-4 bar signal too on Orange. SFR I could pick up but not connect FREE I could sometimes pick up but could not connect even once Tests were done with 3 different devices: Blackberry Q5, iPhone 6S and Nokia C2-01. The Nokia was the most reliable, with the Q5 and iPhone being ok but not great. |
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#41 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
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That's not strictly true. I was there just the other day and out of curiosity I tried signing on to French networks with a few different sims.
Orange and Bougyes were fine, including 3G. Had a 3-4 bar signal too on Orange. SFR I could pick up but not connect FREE I could sometimes pick up but could not connect even once Tests were done with 3 different devices: Blackberry Q5, iPhone 6S and Nokia C2-01. The Nokia was the most reliable, with the Q5 and iPhone being ok but not great. different atmospherics i suppose but i did manage to use them all including SFR. Any UK networks coming through down there?
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#42 |
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Join Date: May 2006
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It's quite true. After only 1 year with 'Orange', 3 have reverted back to using 'Bouygues' and 'Free' in France. Whilst the 'Bouygues' coverage is not nearly as good as Orange was it's still a darn sight better than the abysmal 'Free'
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#43 |
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Join Date: Feb 2015
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Free seems quite interesting. Using 2600 as their main rollout frequency for a while. I often wonder if it would have been better for Three to do that because the penetration would match more with their 3G network then get 10MHz of 800 or something. Can anyone report how it's going Three's rollout?
Also rasseru16 that map of the French mobile antennas is great! Wish we could get one like that for Britain. |
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#44 |
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Free seems quite interesting. Using 2600 as their main rollout frequency for a while. I often wonder if it would have been better for Three to do that because the penetration would match more with their 3G network then get 10MHz of 800 or something. Can anyone report how it's going Three's rollout?
Also rasseru16 that map of the French mobile antennas is great! Wish we could get one like that for Britain. |
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#45 |
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Join Date: Jan 2002
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For a location map of all French mobile phone masts this can be found here which is always up-to-date:
http://www.antennesmobiles.fr/ In the field box "Géolocalisation" you type the name of the French village e.g. 'Calais' It looks like mast location is publicly accessible information in France - the data on that site has come from the ANFR, aka L'Agence nationale des fréquences, a government body. |
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#46 |
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Join Date: Mar 2015
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Interesting! thanks for the feedback, will be going back to do some more tests myself
different atmospherics i suppose but i did manage to use them all including SFR. Any UK networks coming through down there?![]() Where exactly were you when you were able to use all networks? |
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#47 |
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It's not easy to get a decent UK signal in the area. Most of the time Orange FR is stronger than all UK networks. I assume they must have decent coverage in France
![]() Where exactly were you when you were able to use all networks?
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#48 |
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Central Scotland, UK
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Sorry to raise an old thread, but a quick check on Three's roaming agreements show that they've got Orange France back again! Their partnership seems to be on, then off, then on, then off...
Screenshot: http://imgur.com/Yj1I29N I'll still be taking a Tesco Mobile SIM to France with me this summer though... Handy to know I'll get my calls / SMS on Orange France though on a backup mobile! |
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#49 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
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Sorry to raise an old thread, but a quick check on Three's roaming agreements show that they've got Orange France back again! Their partnership seems to be on, then off, then on, then off...
Screenshot: http://imgur.com/Yj1I29N I'll still be taking a Tesco Mobile SIM to France with me this summer though... Handy to know I'll get my calls / SMS on Orange France though on a backup mobile! |
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#50 |
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: East Midlands
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That's not strictly true. I was there just the other day and out of curiosity I tried signing on to French networks with a few different sims.
Orange and Bougyes were fine, including 3G. Had a 3-4 bar signal too on Orange. SFR I could pick up but not connect FREE I could sometimes pick up but could not connect even once Tests were done with 3 different devices: Blackberry Q5, iPhone 6S and Nokia C2-01. The Nokia was the most reliable, with the Q5 and iPhone being ok but not great. And a network scan revealed Orange F F -Bouyages Telecom F SFR Free NL KPN Free as well as a few text messages saying welcome to the Netherlands, and Welcome to France |
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different atmospherics i suppose but i did manage to use them all including SFR. Any UK networks coming through down there?