- Google Voice. Rather than just terminate our lines I ported the numbers to Google Voice. This has a big benefit in that I can still get messages that call in to the old number while here using the google voice app. The phone doesn't "ring" of course but at least I can take a message and call people back. The other benefit is that this number stays with me so when I return to the USA I can port it back to whatever phone plan I take out when I return. It'll be as if I never left.
- The process of porting is done online on the google voice website. Note that doing it will terminate your current phone plan so if you are still paying off your phone under contract you will face early termination fees. Check with the phone company first as to how much this is and you'll get it billed in your final bill once the port is done. The process or porting takes about 24hrs exactly. Your phone will be no signal and you'll need a new SIM card to use it. We did this just before leaving so it died on our last day in the USA. You may need to take an extra step of unlocking the phone by calling the telco but we found this was unnecessary for us and the foreign SIM cards we put in in france worked immediately.
- When you arrive in France (or wherever) sign up for a new plan. The one I chose in france was with SFR and I went for a 1yr contract, 16GB data, free calls and free roaming in Europe. It was expensive - €129pm - but worth it as I travel a lot for work. This way I can call anywhere in the world for free basically - both calls to and from other countries - although calling mobiles in other countries when in other countries seems to attract per min charges. I can use data in Europe free of charge, and 1GB per month in the USA when I travel there.
- Note that the data provided per month is generous (8GB, 16GB) - when you actually run out it just slows your connection rate, doesnt charge you more money, which is nice.
- Other plans are around €40 per month and the restriction is you get 8GB of data outside of france for the year. Once done you have to buy travel packs to cover data charges.
- Buying an iphone with a plan in France seem a lot more expensive than USA. An iPhone 5c was €399 plus the plan rate jumped to €100 per month (from 40) so I decided to buy a used unlocked phone in the USA and bring if back here when upgrading from a 4s.
- SFR coverage seems good but spotty. Traveling through france I experienced frequent disconnections and flaky signal problems. Flipping it into airline mode and back our would sometimes give me a 3G data connection again but it would often flake out, killing my ability to hold a call and navigate using my map at the same time. In Paris its excellent though, just an issue in the country.
