Telephone Tips

Public phones are found in cafes, restaurants, Métro stations, post offices, airports, and train stations, and occasionally on the streets. Finding a coin-operated telephone in France is an arduous task. A simpler and more widely accepted method of payment is the télécarte, a prepaid calling card available at kiosks, post offices, and Métro stations and costing 11€ to 16€ ($14-$21) for 50 and 120 units, respectively. A local call costs one unit, which provides you 6 to 18 minutes of conversation, depending on the rate. Télécarte is good for local calls in Paris or anywhere else in France, but is not valid for international calls. Avoid making calls from your hotel, which may double or triple the charges.

To call long distance within France, dial the 10-digit number (9-digit in some cases outside Paris) of the person or place you're calling. To reach the long-distance operator for AT&T, the Direct Access Number is: tel. 08-00-99-00-11 or 08-05-70-12-88; for Canada, dial tel. 08-00-99-00-16 or 08-00-99-02-16.

If you have a phone card, you can recharge it anywhere, anytime, with eKit (www.ekit.com), via the Web. You can recharge over the phone using a self-service recharge menu. If you prefer to speak to someone, you can call eKit's 24-hour Customer Service: tel. 800/706-1333 in the U.S.; tel. 0800/032-6297 in Britain; tel. 800/150-812 in Australia; and tel. 866/626-9724 in Canada. With eKit, you can save up to 70% on calls in 200 countries worldwide, including France. One of the many advantages is that family and friends can leave you messages at no cost to them.

To call Paris:

1. Dial the international access code: 011 from the U.S.; 00 from the U.K., Ireland, or New Zealand; or 0011 from Australia.

2. Dial the country code 33.

3. Dial the city code 1 and then the number.

To make international calls: To make international calls from Paris, first dial 00 and then the country code (U.S. or Canada 1, U.K. 44, Ireland 353, Australia 61, New Zealand 64). Next you dial the area code and number. For example, if you wanted to call the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., you would dial tel. 00-1-202-588-7800.

For directory assistance: For numbers inside and outside France, dial tel. 118-008.

For operator assistance: With the inauguration of increasing numbers of cellphones (each of which has a different carrier), and with the decentralization of what used to be the P. T. T., local operators within France are less and less widespread. Even if you dial "0," depending on where you are within France, it might not get you a live body. According to the director of phone services in Paris, everyone automatically expects that dialers know the codes of the countries or regions they're trying to reach.

As for reaching an operator for the placement of calls outside of France, the system involves bypassing French operators completely and relying on the operators based within the country you're trying to call. In any event, the prefix for accessing a foreign (i.e., non-French) operator involves dialing the access codes 0800-99-00 followed by the country code.

Toll-free numbers: Numbers beginning with 0800 within France are toll-free, but calling a 1-800 number in the States from France is not toll-free. In fact, it costs the same as an overseas call.

Cellphones

The three letters that define much of the world's wireless capabilities are GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), a big, seamless network that makes for easy cross-border cellphone use throughout Europe and dozens of other countries worldwide. In the U.S., T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless, and Cingular use this quasi-universal system; in Canada, Microcell and some Rogers customers are GSM, and all Europeans and most Australians use GSM. GSM phones function with a removable plastic SIM card, encoded with your phone number and account information. If your cellphone is on a GSM system, and you have a world-capable multiband phone such as many Sony Ericsson, Motorola, or Samsung models, you can make and receive calls across civilized areas around much of the globe. Just call your wireless operator and ask for international roaming to be activated on your account. Unfortunately, per-minute charges can be high -- usually $1 to $1.50 in Western Europe.

Buying a phone can be economically attractive, as France has cheap prepaid phone systems. Once you arrive, stop by a local cellphone shop and get the cheapest package; you'll probably pay less than $70 for a phone and a starter calling card. Local calls may be as low as 10¢ per minute, and in France incoming calls are free.

Voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP)

If you have Web access while traveling, you might consider a broadband-based telephone service (in technical terms, Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP) such as Skype (www.skype.com) or Vonage (www.vonage.com), which allows you to make free international calls if you use their services from your laptop or in a cybercafe.