Is it viable to still use my French mobile in the UK post-Brexit?

Reader Question: I have a Nokia mobile phone which I bought in Leclerc with a Leclerc SIM Card.

Now that the UK has left the EU, if I go over to England for a short holiday, will I still be able to use my French Mobile (with a Leclerc SIM Card) in the UK and, if so, will I incur roaming charges? Alternatively, will my French-registered mobile accept a UK SIM card?

Firstly, yes, you will still be able to use your mobile phone in the UK.

Whether you will be charged roaming fees depends on the tariff you use. Leclerc’s mobile network is called Réglo Mobile (formerly E.Leclerc Mobile), and customers can choose from several different no-contract pay-monthly plans.

The first is Mini+, which is the cheapest but which comes with roaming fees. Users would, for example, be charged nine cents per minute for calls to France from Zone 1, which includes all EU countries and the UK.

It will be more expensive to use your phone from countries outside of Zone 1.

Further information on the charges applied can be found on this tariff breakdown.

The other Réglo Mobile tariffs all begin with the word ‘Forfait’, and their monthly price varies mainly depending on the amount of data you wish to use.

If you are on one of these tariffs, you should be able to use a certain number of minutes, texts or data under your normal monthly allowance before you incur additional charges.

For example, you would be able to make an hour’s worth of calls and use a certain amount of data in a Zone 1 country such as the UK before having to pay roaming charges.

Again, details of the fees applied to these tariffs can be found at the above link.

Using a UK SIM card

You may be able to insert a UK SIM card into your phone but this depends on whether or not it is unlocked.

Réglo Mobile may sell locked Nokias, meaning that customers can only use them on the Réglo network.

You can check whether this is the case by inserting a different SIM card into your phone and seeing if it works.

If it does not, you can call Réglo’s customer service department on 0 970 806 970 to request an unlock code.

You can use this to unlock the phone, which will enable you to use it with any SIM card.

If your phone is already unlocked, you should not have a problem using it with a UK SIM.

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