| indyj02:11 UTC04 Jul 2013 | Just posting this for fellow travellers who might be interested to access mobile internet services outside Nouméa using their smartphones. In Nouméa itself it is no problem, many cafés offer free WiFi when you order a "petit café noir" for 200 XFP.
If you rough it a little and stay in the "brousse" or "en tribu" it might become more complicated. Here's the thing(s) to do:
1) get the SIM card package "liberté" which is explained in the lonely planet guidebook
2) with the initial 3000XP "airtime" you can do voice calls (everyone knows that:-)) but you can also get internet access (not everyone seems to know that - that is the reason for this post) with "Internet Mobile à la Demande" (IMD) with the following options:
For 100XFP you can send a Text Message with the 3 letters IMD to number 1110 to get 1 hour Packet Data Connection with a maximum capacity of 10 Megabytes of Data
For 210XFP you can send "IMD" to the number 1120 to get 24 hrs with maximum 20MB
For 420XFP you can send "IMD" to 1111 to get 24hrs access with unlimited capacity - they say! The truth is that after 20MB your connection speed will be limited to 256kbps but you will be still using 3G connections - if available.
Important: you have to configure an Access Point Name yourself: name it OPT and assign the APN "3G" to it, leave the other settings at their default.
Wait for the confirmation text message after sending your IMD message - then activate your package data transfer (otherwise it will be charged at a steep per kByte rate) and enjoy (the first ... Megabytes) at a really good speed in many parts of Grande Terre.
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