[iPhone 3G]Can I switch my US AT&T iPhone 3G to a French Orange service contract?

I have 3G iPhone service in the US and I might be moving to France in a few months.

Is it possible to suspend my AT&T service while I am in France for a year and get Orange 3G iPhone service in France using my handset from the US?

If so, how?

ok well since you are in the us, the phone is locked to at&t

if dev team/geo find a way to unlock the phone b4 you go to france, then yes you will be able to take an Orange 3g service for a year or you may also use pay as you go. But for the at&t part, no way in hell they will let you suspend your contract for a year. What I did when I was in a situation like you, I dropped the plan at the minimum (like 20$/month). But since it's a Iphone, then you will have to keep voice and data so it's gonna cost you more. Another thing that you could do

is sell your new Iphone 3g with you contract to someone in the states, go to france, buy a new one w/ the cash of the other and when you will be back here, well the Iphone 3.0 will be out (next year) so b4 leaving france, sell that 3g and take a new contract back in the states. You will lose your phone number tho...

I have not heard of anyone selling a 3G iPhone with contract.

Is that common? Would I get a decent amount of money for it or would I lose money in the transaction?

All I see on eBay are 3G iPhones for sale without a contract.

You can just sell your AT&T iPhone 3G (cancel your contract or keep it, but maybe change the plan to a cheaper one if you want to keep the number) in the US before you go to France and get a iPhone 3G with a prepaid SIM-card from Orange for 509/609 Euros (8GB/16GB), it can be unlocked for another 100 Euros or free after 6 months so you can bring it back to the US for use there. You can always buy with a contract there too though.

Anyways selling your current phone is what you would have to do. If you want to keep your number im sure you can reach some agreement with AT&T like transfer it to a really cheap (non-iPhone) plan. You could just buy a dataplan or transfer it to a iPhone plan again when comming back i guess. Never hurd of a such thing as selling your contract. I wouldn't think that they transfer a plan to another person.