New Samsung Phones, 4G Coverage and Reglo Contracts

Technology
#1

Please bear with me - as I am a complete novice with all of this, so apologies if I’ve not understood.

We have finally bitten the bullet and just bought samsung galaxy phones.

We live in an area where we have very poor 3G coverage and have to wander round the garden trying to find a signal BUT looking at a 4G coverage map it looks as if we do have coverage for Orange 4G.

So we blithely went into Leclerc just now to have our Reglo SIM cards transferred to our new phones assuming that they would pick up the 4G signal. But still no joy.

On further investigation, it looks as if Reglo uses the SFR network and they have no 4G coverage here.

The staff in Leclerc implied that we would have to increase our current basic 3.50 euros a month contract up to 9.95, but if SFR has no 4G coverage here, presumably that wouldn’t make any difference.

Do we need to look for a SIM provider who uses the Orange network in order to be able to get our phones to work?
Do we have to use Orange itself, or is there any other provider who is cheaper but uses Orange?
Will we have to have new phone numbers? Or can we transfer the numbers we got from Reglo onto a new contract?

Sorry if all of this seems terribly obvious, but we really don’t know what we are doing when it comes to mobile phone technology. Thanks for any help.

#2

OH has a Samsung Galaxy…
Go into Settings > Connections > Mobile networks > and set Data Roaming to On and Network mode to 4G/3G/2G (auto connect) and VoLTE calls SIM n to On and see if that makes a difference.

#3

@Graham_Lees Thanks Graham, I knew I could rely on you. :grin: All fine, except I can’t turn VoLTE calls SIM on. It stays greyed out.

#4

Probably to do with your abonnement… (or lack of it :laughing:)

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#5

I feared as much! :grin: But if we pay more, and carry out your suggestions, does that mean we can stay with Reglo because we won’t be tied into SFR? It would be easier/cheaper and it means we can keep our phone numbers.

#6

I frankly don’t know - you would have to ask the techie at LeClerc about that.
If you change provider you can port your number to the new contract. It might take a few days to establish itself but it is a right. V did that when she changed from Reglo to Bouygues. I had no compelling reason to do the same so accepted the new Bouygues number. The old number (Reglo SIM) died some time after leaving us free to still collect any SMS’ in the meantime. You get ad nauseam emails telling you that your credit is about to deplete until eventually it drops off the system and the number is (presumably) re-allocated somewhere.
If you still have your old phones that could be a bonus of course…
The Bouygues mobile deal is still sans engagement…
Is there any particular reason for maintaining you Reglo account?

#7

@spj If I was you I’d start with the basics, ask someone with an Orange network phone to come round to your house & see if they get a signal, you can also ask others that have other service providers. Much better than getting a Bouygues & finding they do not cover your area.

#8

After lockdown of course :laughing:

#9

@Wozza Thanks for the suggestion Warren. We’re pretty certain we can - our gite guests never have a problem picking up 4G on their smart phones and we had friends last Christmas sitting at the dining room table saying, get 4G as they looked at their phones. :grin: We don’t like to rush these things.

Thanks for the extra info Graham. Sadly the so called techies in Leclerc only added to our confusion because they couldn’t get their heads round the fact that we can get 4G and not 3G and being young and understanding all this, they couldn’t explain to us - there was a language problem. Not French to English but tech to non-tech! :grin:

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#10

Back to Leclerc today and met a really helpful techie who really knew what she was talking about. She was able to show me in the shop on my phone that in fact my 3.50 a month SIM card DOES pick up 4G and that the problem is the SFR “reseau” - so going to a more expensive SIM card would make no difference. We are living in an SFR black hole. And since the whole idea is to be able to sit at home and receive the SMS messages from our bank etc without going out in the rain, we need a 4G signal.
Bless her, she told me about Sosh - I’m posting a separate thread about that - as that uses the Orange reseau. AND we can keep our existing phone numbers.
Thanks for your contribution Graham. And by the by, I’ve found out what VoLTE means. :slight_smile:

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#11

and will the Sosh offering allow you to use VoLTE?
We have a friend (yes, we do!) who subscribes to Sosh for his internet at home and is very pleased with the service.

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#12

Something to check. Thanks. I assumed they all did. It does say “Vous profitez des performances du réseau 4G/4G+ d’Orange.” for this meager 4.99 a month.

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