Pan-European Mobile Phone?

April 5, 2015 4:09 AM

I need a mobile phone/SIM plan that will allow me to cross an international border every day. Someone told me that she paid €100/month for a plan with unlimited data, no roaming within the area encompassing the EU and Schengen, calls and texts all included. Unfortunately I can't find this mythical plan online. Does anyone know of an inclusive plan that allows users to cross borders within the region(s) without going to roaming?
posted by Enchanting Grasshopper to Travel & Transportation (8 answers total)

If you get a plan with Three you can roam across a fair number of countries for no extra charge

Their "unlimited" data is really 25GB and here are the sim only plans.
posted by emilyw at 5:25 AM on April 5, 2015

It'll probably help if you can name your home country. I was thinking of posting emilyw's link to 3 UK's plans, but was assuming if you're going abroad every day you're not in Britain (if you're traveling between the two jurisdictions in Ireland daily, you have quite a lot of choices).

I suspect an operator in your home country will have a better plan than any specialist international SIM provider would for long term contracts with full included EU roaming.
posted by ambrosen at 5:40 AM on April 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: It'll probably help if you can name your home country.

There will be a lot of (nearly daily) travel between France and Switzerland, and also a bit of travel within other Schengen countries. I may go to the UK from time to time but it's not a priority in terms of phone coverage.
posted by Enchanting Grasshopper at 5:52 AM on April 5, 2015

I'm English living in France, and my last UK contact change with Orange lets me use my phone in Europe for the same price as in the UK.
posted by ellieBOA at 9:31 AM on April 5, 2015

And actually I'm now with EE in the UK as they bought Orange.

Think this is the plan I'm on.
posted by ellieBOA at 9:33 AM on April 5, 2015

This should be pretty easy to find if you walk into a mobile store in France or Switzerland. I had a plan from T-Mobile in the Netherlands. I paid something like 16 euro/month over the monthly contract for seamless data in Schengen countries and I think my total bill was still only 60/month or so.
posted by ista at 9:35 AM on April 5, 2015

Best answer: It looks as if the best offer from the French operators is Bouygues's at €49.99 a month with a 24 month contract. SFR has a €69.99 tariff which has unlimited worldwide roaming. Orange's is similar to SFR's, and Free doesn't list any obvious roaming options for Switzerland. I didn't dig into what the Swiss operators offer, which might be worth it.
posted by ambrosen at 4:27 PM on April 5, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks for all the great suggestions! I will be going with SFR.
posted by Enchanting Grasshopper at 10:16 AM on April 7, 2015 [1 favorite]