Simon_Catlin

Can someone please give me an update? Has the service improved on VoIP and stability of the Internet? My wife is going to our flat possibly this week or next, so I am trying to get a feel for what she is going to walk into as she will need internet access at the very least. Thanks in advance Simon

Another Update (The following takes place between 9 am and 12 pm - said in a Jack Bauer voice): Cannot get through at all. Calls via TC to their own support centre are always engaged via VoIP.  Routing without the router gets the voice of a lady, who sounds fairly fed up; as am I, who kindly cuts me off after 7 minutes and invites me to send an email and it will be looked at quickly.  24 hours later and I have not had a response to the email I sent... So she is lying! I now have to go back to London and I am not scheduled to come back here until July (may sneek in a long weekend in June), so I cannot perform any tests that they wanted me to perform because they cannot answer the phone. I have been with TC for over 2 years and the only thing that disguishes them is the VoIP calls to the UK, which I require when I work here and the 0844, which I can source myself. So my question is-who else is offerring the TC type service, but one that works?  No need for television neither, just straight Broadband and VoIP to/from the UK. Thanks

Ernie, I have struggeld like everybody else with the isses over the router "upgrade". I believe that the 10mb down and 1mb up (sync speeds) that I had has been taken away by provisioning my line incorrectly when TC moved the servers (for what ever reason), which is linked to "upgrade" farce. I am 2 km away from the Exchange (in Antibes) so how come I am now getting 1.2mb down and 0.3mb up.  I have trying to get TC to agree there is a problem, but they refuse to answer the phone and when reposnding to emails, seem to lack the technical expertise that is required.   A small update.  Still cannot get through on the phone after 5 hours of trying.  Sent an email 2 hours ago as well.  They asked me to call them in a previous email.  Now they do not both answering.

Well - it has been quiet here for long enough. Tried getting through to Support for two hours this morning to discuss my speed issues as they requested. Two hours later and still not got through.  Lost my circuit for an hour completely.  Got that up and if Teleconnect want proof of VoIP not working correctly, just look at the number of people who called on VoIP to Teleconnect support.  We all get engaged, but on French Telecom you get through. I've unplugged the phone from the router as it C**P!   Can I make a suggestion.  Next time TC, trial a product please.  Simon Catlin  

I wrote to TC to complain about the ADSL speed that I was now getting.  They told me that they could not get on my router, even though I could.  They refused to do anything unless I was sitting in front of the router.  As TC supply my second home and I am only there once a month, I find their reposnse annoying, especially as it is likely to be a line fault that they will diagnoise the next time I am there. Anyone who wants access to their router, but cannot gain access via the html interface can connect via telnet. I would also recommend that everyone changes their passwords.  I accidently connected to the wrong TC router, i.e. someone else's box and was able to logon.  This means I could change anything on the router!  

This is strange - could not get the cam to work in the flat using DynDNS, but once in our London home (and with no further configuration) it worked. I can only assume that when using either DDNS or using the static/current IP address on the home/host TC network, the router takes precedence. Thanks for all your advice. Tomorrow (15th is D day). I need to get my speed sorted out now, but not heard anything from TC yet.

@gas We have only ever seen one set of accounts and there were four who were "heavily" in arrears, i.e.more than one quarter.  Two of these have paid after the first AGM (last July - 19 months after the Syndic was set-up).  Since then, we have not been informed of any movement on this matter until our representative spoke with us this weekend. €500 may seem small to some, but with our family income halved in the last 2 months due to redundancy, we are watching the cents at the moment.

Thank you for the advice.  You confirmed my thoughts that we were screwed...  I am thinking that maybe we could try and put some pressure on the first Management Company for negligence. I like the comments regarding the French not paying, however, I understand that these two are non French.  I am also concerned that we have no provisioning fund for the future work neither and your comments on mainainened property proves this is the norm.

I had to reset my router as part of the upgrade and took ErnieY's advice regarding DDNS and set this up.  On the Webcam, the default port is 80, but you can setup an secondary port of 81, which I have done and this port works locally. However, when ever I use the ext IP address (or DDNS name) on the port (81) I cannot see the webcam and get web page not found error.  I have even tried DMZ (with a very worrying error message about disabling VOIP), but this still did not work.  I have tried using port 80 as well, and the modem "allegedly" moves to port 8080, but when you reboot it reverts back to port 80.Do you know, through your own experience, if TC or the new options have disabled port forwarding?

[quote user="ErnieY"]Are you sure you had a static IP address with Teleconnect. If you have not specifically arranged this then I doubt you had one. With 'always on' services you will hang on to the same one for extended periods, and even retain it through a router reset, but a reasonable period off line would likely have seen you pick up a different one, especially so at the moment where there is probably a lot more router cycling going on. The only way to ensure your webcam stays up is to use something like DynamicDNS and once you have signed up with them (free) the Tecom router has section where you can set it up. I use this for my TiVo recorders. [/quote] Ernie, Yes, I had a static IP - I did not specifically ask for it, but phoned them and they advised me that it was static; it has been the same one for over 18 months.  The webcam can also supports Dynamic DNS as well.  I may give this a try later anyway as it will help if the router does lose the IP address. Thanks - Simon

Helllo, We have an apartment, in a block of 20 flats, which is managed by a Management Agency.  The apartments are just over two years old and the builders setup a Syndic with a large Management company, who were at best, useless.  Effectively, the Sydnic fired them and took on our second Management Company, who seem more proactive.  However, the first management company did not notify us of 10 issues, which the second Management Company are now drawing to our attention. One of the major issues is that for over two years, two owners have not paid their maintenance charges, which is approx €9,000.  I know that legal action is being taken against the two owners to re-coup the money, however, the Management company want the other 18 "law abiding" to fund the €9,000 shortfall and the legal fees.  This shortfall is now causing other issues such as non-payment of the contractors on-site.  We have lost the "climatisation" staff as they had not been paid for three quarters, our buildings cleaners have not been paid for four months etc. So, my question is Can the Management Company ask us for the 18 other owners for the additional funds of the shortfall?  Should we only offer to pay for the legal fees initially? Any other comments greatfully received. Thanks in advance Simon    

Hello, (I am someone who has a second home and was unable to make any changes until we go here Wednesday night) As some who did the modem/router update Wednesday night (and did not see this post..gggrrr), I was back on within 11 hours. My VOIP had changed and so had the SMTP (which I do not use anyway).  However, my bug bear is something which has not been mentioned here yet and I am wondering if this is effecting everyone else as well. My static IP address has been changed. This has caused issues with the webcam we use for security. I have lost ADSL2+ and now only have ADSL. I disabled G.DMT and then had no sync, proof of no ADSL2 or ADSL2+. My Downstream has gone from 11,000 to 1,216. My Upstream has gone from 1,200 to 320. I have written to TC this morning asking why I am getting a 10th of the service. Anyone else having problems? Simon

Pray, Tell more... TF1 on a PC?

Matt, Unless the TV is SECAM, then no.  I have seen 14" Colour non HD ones in Carrefour for under €100.00 recently. I understand all the matches have been on Terrrestial TV. I will also be in France this weekend and being a Welsh man living in London, married to an Anglo-Irish woman makes for an interesting choice of Rugby shirt for the match.  I will probably try and find a Northern hemisphere one!

Martinwtkins comments on Slingbox are very correct.  Just to clarify the one question he asked himself: You can only watch it on one PC at a time.  The box is also password protected with two passwords. A guest one and an Adminstrtor, which can cut off the guest at any time. As to France and Sats, well I cannot have that option as I live in a block of flats were we are not allowed to have Sats on the outside fo the building.  You can place it on the Balcony, but "she who must be obeyed" does not want this as it will take available space away. The other option is to learn French and watch the programmes "au natural".

Rang bang on 9:00.  FT - All lines engaged. Tried again and was in hold for 8 minutes.  Got htrough and after 10 minutes, they have set up my direct debit.  All they wanted was my IBAN, not my RIB, which surpirsed me.  They are now sending to me in London a form I need to sign and send to my French Bank. Thank you all for your advice. One piece of information I did gleem, is that they are a very, very small team.  The lady I spoke to said that sometimes there maybe only 2 people working at any one time, up to a maximum of 5.  Simon 

Chardie, I have set the Alarm clock! [:D]

Okay, I have 2.2 Mb down and 0.4 Mb up in London.  I have 11Mb down and 1 Mb up (ADSL2+) in Antibes.  I do have French TV in Antibes (nice new Sony flat panel with a "community" cable subscription that gives me all the 6 FR channels, plus others, such as Eurosport).  One reason for the Sony is that it does have a PC input on the back, so I can plug my PC in if I want to. The picture quality is not brilliant  if you have full screen.  The smaller the window the better.  Sound qulity is very good.  It is designed to be used where you should not or could not get a proper solution.  Lets say I watched the Italian Grand Prix in France on my spanking new 32" TV and listened (admittely with a 10 second delay) to Martin Brundle's very fascinating insights.  I have to say the picture is watchable, but blocky and it also depends on the type of screen you are watching it on as well.  Sometimes it does jitter as well. I have been discussing with my ISP about getting a faster upload speed in the UK. But it all boils down to cost. The Slingbox is very clever. I have only hooked up an aerial (for Freeview) and my SKY+ box, but I could hook up another unit as well if I wanted to.    While in a hotel a few weeks ago, on a wireless network, I watched the World Cup Cricket on Sky Sports.  The other really weird (and clever) bit, is that you are controlling the whole SKY + box. This means you could watch something you have recorded, or setup a recording remotely, using a virtual SKY + remote on your PC. Recently they have launched new Players, which not only works on the PC, but also a Pocket PC e.g. Ipaq and now they have announced a Symbain S60r3 player as well.  I have tested this on my Nokia N80 (which is allegedly not supported) and it does work on my internal wireless connection.  If anyone wants to know anything else, please let me know.

Eslier, Thanks for the info and that was very quick.  I am not back at the Flat until later this month and then it is over the weekend, so the forms  from FT maybe the best away around this.  But does it normally take 45 minutes to get nowhere? Again, thanks for the very quick response.    

It's a shame he does not have an internet connection as he could have used a Slingbox on a PC. The current Slingbox comes with a DVB (Digital Freeview Tuner) in built. 

Is anyone else having the same difficulties as me? I started ringing them last night from the UK.  Closed at 17:00 (FST), so no problem, called today. Started at 09:00 (UK) and got the a male voice in both English and French telling me that all the lines were engaged.  Kept trying for a hour about every 10 to 20 minutes.  Finally got a female voice (at 14:00 UK) telling me "Welcome to F.T.Orange English Speaking Line, but all the lines were engaged"  Kept trying this for an hour.  Finally got through - 30 mintes hanging on the phone with a recorded announcement in English telling me they'll speak to me soon.  After 30 minutes I got a French ringing tone, a long silent pause and then a French voice telling me the same thing.  After 45 minutes of holding on a French number from the UK, I got the dreaded silence again.  This kept on for 2 minutes.  I gave up and hung up. So, is it normal to wait 30 minutes before being diverted to a French voice? Is it heavily engaged all the time? Does anyone have an email address that they accept in English? All I want to do is setup a Direct Debit on my bill, rather than having to write a cheque and risk getting cut-off.   Any advice (as always) will be received with glee!  

[quote user="tel"] Hi, Unless your new building supply you with Broadband as well as the other services you will still need to plug in an ADSL filter of the type shown in the link: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=45155&&source=14&doy=16m1   Regards [/quote] Many Thanks for the link... I got one from Maplins Hounslow (sorry to anyone else - it was their last one).  The guys and girls were very good and made sure I understood that this was for Ireland only.  I then explained it was for France and then told me I would need to get a different connector as the French Telecom scokets were not the for the item I was about to purchase  I was amazed they were that clued up and impressed.  I did say I only needed the RJ11 version and thanked them for checking.   Tel - Thanks for the link again.

[quote user="nicktrollope"] The RJ45's (aren't they?) are a new-ish standard for French telephone wiring - the existing socket is of quite an old design & noone uses all 8 connections any more. I suppose that the idea is that we all go over to digital telephones, which will just be part of our internet connection. If this is the case, the socket will just be a connection  to a network hub with the internet on the other side. To answer your question, unless you have evidence to the contrary, you will still require an ADSL modem or modem/router and a filter. As I understand it, you can use the socket for telephone & network (not just ADSL) concurrently. [/quote] Surprisingly, BT still install 4 pair cabling (8 wires).   They carry the extra so that if they have a break in a pair, there is always a spare pair.  If the BT futurologists have got it right, BT will soon be offering services on the spare pairs anyway (VOD, next generation SDSL etc).  FT (from what I have seen) seem to have installed 4 pair as well as we still have a junction with the old socket on for "test" purposes, which then runs out to the RJ11 sockets.  RJ45 is defined here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rj45 RJ11 is defined here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJ11 Thank you for those who have taken the time to reply.

[quote user="Mikew"]If you want to pick up adsl around the house, it will depend on the quality of the house wiring, if it cheap stuff there may be too much loss for adsl to work properly. My solution to this was to fity the modem where the phone line where it enters the house and go wireless. A cable from the other filter connection feeds the cordless system.[/quote] I have checked and they have installed commercial UTP through out.  France Telecom have ben out today to check everything as well.  So - touching a large plank of wood - everything should be ok.......

[quote user="Kalyn Computers"] Chances are that it will work. You will need to change the VPI & VCI value for the French system and enter the user name and password issued by yor French ISP.   HTH   Tim [/quote] Tim, for the rest of us, what are the VPI and VCI for France?