Livebox ! ? !

[Pulteauman]

Having bought a house and looking forward to moving out to the Vendee I have already got a phone line which is internet ready. However, it seems that I need a 'live box' to enable both the phone and internet to work. I believe I can get one of these from the local Hyper-U, but the thought of a sorting out the wiring and set up of this against the background of a french instruction booklet fills me with fear ! !

Does anyone use this system and if so, is it easy for someone who is no better than a 'plug and play' man?

[cerise]

Whichever ISP you subscribe to will supply you with the equipment you need. We are with SFR (used to be called Neuf) and pay 29,90 a month for broadband, all phonecalls (except to mobiles etc) and TV.
Other companies offer similar packages although with Orange I believe you have to pay line rental in addition to the basic cost.

[Rochej]

Not sure what you mean; if you want a telephone only just pop along to your nearest FT office and explain you want a phone and they will activate it; if the line is already there this takes about a day and costs about 60 euros.

If you want broadband you will need a router, a 'Live Box' is the name of the router you get from Orange (alias FT); but there are other better value suppliers (free call their router a freebox, sfr call theirs a neufbox, bouyages call theirs a Bbox...), depending on what services you actually want, there are even some expat firms doing a roaring trade because the service from the French companies is so bad, and if you don't speak French this is even worse.

uktelecom (http://www.inthevendee.com/broadband/) one of the leading expat suppliers even offer access to BBC TV programmes as part of their package.

[cerise]

The UK Telecom package seems a lot dearer at 49 euros (compared to 29,90 for the equivalent with SFR) just for the benefit of having English speaking help - unless I'm missing something?

[Rochej]

As ever it is difficult to compare offers; I believe the full cost with sfr, if you include the router rental is 34.90 if you opt to use the voip phone and cancel the telephone line. free.fr offer the same for 29.90. The challenge with losing your telephone line is the voip service can be temperamental - you may lose your telephone service and need to restart the router to get it back (even then it may not always come back). But the saving of 16 euros a month is very attractive, such that I am also with sfr - our line gives us a 3Mb upload speed (you need 2Mb to get a decent voip service), and I'd say we lose the voip line about once a week, on a bad week every day. The sfr support is not good, and they don't seem to be able to sort it out despite constant calls (which they charge for - they are the only paid calls on my bill!) (I use webcalldirect.com to call mobiles at 6cents a minute).

Orange (France Telecom) keep changing their offers to fool you; they currently have a similar offer at the same price 34.90, and for 1 euro will come and install it for you (I have had several calls to put the installation right after they leave and want 99 euros to come back to sort out the mess they have left); I can't find any small print to say they will increase this to the usual 39.90 after an intro period like they normally do. For 5 euros a month more you get calls to mobiles included.

You also need to check out the offers from Darty, Bouyges. Free have bought out alice.

The offers from uktelecom (currently) include the Ft line, but I expect they will respond to the commercial pressure soon and remove this necessity. The advantage of the expat suppliers is they speak english, and for many people this is a comfort worth paying for.

Unfortunately I expect this will all change next week as this is a fast moving market.

[Pulteauman]

Thanks for all your inputs... just confirms to me the minefield I'm into!

I already have a contract with Orange, so stuck with them for a while, but no livebox from them so I'll just buy one and wade through the details, cursing in English and hopefully improving French. The deal I have is for Phone, including 'free' international calls, plus 1hour to French mobiles, and internet for a total of Euro 41.88 including taxes etc. It strikes me as high, especially as I have been paying for three months now and haven't even used the service... novice or what? I'm surethat once we find our feet we'll sort out something a little more comfortable.

I did try the phone a Christmas, but t didn't work, apparently I need a livebox just to make phone calls, odd and confusing and I expect that evenentually I will have to call them out to fix their problem, and enjoy the pleasure of paying for it as well!

Anyway, thanks again for the inputs..

[cerise]

Yes these 'deals' can be complicated!
Our SFR/Neuf package is 29,90 a month because we're in a 'degroupée' area (or is it 'groupée - I get mixed up with the names). Whichever it's called it's because we're connected through a modern telephone exchange, so it's charged at a cheaper rate.
We've never had any trouble with losing the phone line. We've found that two times out of the three that we've ordered the service there has been a delay between the FT line being cut and the SFR service being connected. I suspect FT of deliberate delays as when our current line was connected to SFR (fairly quickly) we received a courtesy call from the telephone exchange who said 'but we thought you were with Orange!'
Some ISPs will pay cancellation fees for you to entice you to be one of their customers.

[Rochej]

How did you order your FT/Orange service? It seems strange that they provided you with a voip only telephone service and didn't provide a livebox? How much are you paying (by knowing that we can tell what service you may have signed up for).

Usually there is a 12 month minimum period with Orange, so if you signed up at christmas you've some way to go before you can change

[spotty]

my Mrs installed our Livebox as I was away paying for it, so it must be easy !
Just follow the instructions & all will be cool !
I've never, ever had any trouble with Orange & recommend them on that basis. Loads of my chums (yes, I'm that popular ) went for the cheapo players & get nothing but trouble.

Spotty