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Thoughts on ditching a landline and going for mobile


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Welcome any thoughts and / or experiences:

When we bought our house in France 13 years ago we had Ft / Orange installed. We would visit 5 times a year so turning on and off was not economically viable plus it meant that we could arrive at anytime and phone and Internet was available.

However, Internet speed has only ever been about 1.5MB/s

Since retirement in 2012 our visits were 3 times per year and, in normal circumstances stay that way or possibly drop to 2 visits.

Doing a little research would seem I can change provider and save money for 12 months and then pay a little less than Orange (40.99 euros per month) in subsequent months. The other alternative is a mobile SIM with data which seems a lot less and, tether to the laptops if we wish to access the Internet that way rather than on the phone.

As I said at the beginning would welcome any comments and experiences.
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If you look back to last year (I think) there was a vibrant discussion on this. Martin .. who has now left France .. detailed how he got on buying a router, inserting a 100GB per month sim card and connecting his fixed phone to the back port of the router so as to be able to receive and make the free calls included in the sim package.

There are some small downsides but you will get whatever 4G speed is available in your area.

For us this is around 45 - 55 megathistles or Mbps, so better than the max of 6 we have to live with normally.

Though during the lockdown we shot down to around 3 Mbps via our Livebox.

I haven't gone down that route as I have a high data allowance on my mobile so, in times of need, I simply use my mobile as a hotspot.

This works extremely well .. and would probably be sufficient for holiday periods.

OTOH if you buy an actual sim router you can take it home with you or you can take it with you if you move about in France. They only need plugging into an electric socket.
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Sue many thanks for the reply and I found the thread (not much traffic on this folder).

Answered all my questions and looks good and can ditch Orange and the 0.5 to 1.5 download speeds.

We do not really look upon the house as a holiday home but our French home where we spend up to 6 months of the year....hopefully still from 01/01/21.
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Super .. excellent to hear your thoughts.

I think this solution would be ideal for you at your 1/2 time home in France.

There are some super French offers .. SFR regularly offers 60GB a month for around 10 ish € .. they recently offered 100GB for 12€ a month.

Others .. including Bouygues .. make almost equally good special offers regularly.

There are maps which will show you which providers are best for your area.

Good luck.
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I tried Bouygues 4G a couple of years ago when the promised fibre seemed to be drifting further into the future. It was good, when it worked. But I found the speed very variable and in the evening that dropped significantly and intermittent loss of signal. I cancelled after three months. Perhaps things have now improved now?

PaulT: I assume you are aware you will be a lot more restricted in your visits in the future? You will only be able to spend 90 days in every 180 days in the Schengen area as a whole without paying for a long-stay visa.

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Pomme, thanks for bringing it up and yes I do realise the restrictions and have not yet looked in to the possibility of a long-term visa. Was waiting to see the outcome of the 'negotiations' that seem to be heading where Boris (or those financially backing the Conservatives and those MPs who have certain financial interests) wants to be - a no deal scenario.

But sticking to the 90 days in 180 would mean we would have our normal July, August and September and then limit to possibly February and March or even just March. So a reduction of time in France but at the least 1/3 of the year.
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We've not a landline for three years. First we tried a Bouygues Telecom 4G box which was great to start with but for the best part of a year the connection would go in and out with a very slow speed when it did work. We've now ditched Bouygues and have a Sosh airbox which is part of Orange, this saves us 28 Euros a month.
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Excellent .. and good to know. For those of us who live here it is always good to hear what works in the sense of Internet at home and calls to other countries.

If it's not too intrusive .. what do you pay for your Internet and calls package ?
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We effectively just have two mobile contracts, the first has a second sim and the 'airbox' with an 81 gb monthly limit and the other an 50 gb limit with free calls etc. The total cost is 45 euros a month which is nearly half what we were paying with Bouygues Telecom.
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PaulT: Have you asked at your mairie whether they have any information on you getting a higher speed connection? The government originally was originally planning for everyone to have at least >8 Mbit/s by the end of this year by wire or by wireless with a grant of up to 150€ for wireless equipment, if needed

https://www.economie.gouv.fr/particuliers/cohesion-numerique-territoires-aide-linstallation-haut-debit

This is the broadband coverage i your area

https://www.zoneadsl.com/couverture/haute-garonne/boulogne-sur-gesse-31350.html
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pomme wrote : Have you asked at your mairie whether they have any information on you getting a higher speed connection? The government originally was originally planning for everyone to have at least >8 Mbit/s by the end of this year by wire or by wireless with a grant of up to 150€ for wireless equipment, if needed.

How lovely that would be .. because of the odd geographical location we live in there is zero chance of anything above 8 Mbps happening here in the foreseeable future .. there is a blank page on your link for our postcode.

If it weren't for the tourists and the revenus they (usually) bring to the area I doubt we would have our 1/2 way decent mobile coverage.

Orange owns all the lines here and they are doing nowt and plan to do nowt.
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BJSLIV wrote : Any news for your area of morbihan here.....?

http://www.thdbretagne.bzh/la-fibre-dans-votre-departement/la-fibre-dans-le-morbihan/

Zero zilch nada .. we're a lost cause for the time being.

There is a long story behind the reason why .. some people even tried to get together a group to organise a people-led outfit to dig a route but the logistics, because of where we are, were insurmountable. We're an almost island which sticks out into the sea and Orange owns all the connections and all the service rights until I-don't know-when. Most, but not all, people are with Orange, or Sosh, here because all other providers have to pay a fee per client to provide a service .. at present 8€ a month extra on your bill. And the lines are the same .. in fact Orange ascribe the crappiest lines to other providers. It should be scandalous ..
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As for a decent service by line think I will not wait. Our 0.5 to 1.5 MB/s is very good compared to a couple of our neighbours.

Financially, let alone a hoped for speed increase, it would be very advantageous to go with a 'mobile' solution.

Currently paying 41,80 for landline with calls and internet. SOSH currently 16,99 for a 100GB SIM and RED has an offer on at the moment of 12,00 for a 100GB SIM. Take into account cost of some equipment and the monthly cost of a SIM vs the landline the break even point is less than a year plus there is an asset that could be sold.

One problem is that not all 4G routers have an RJ11 telephone socket, it would seem that only some Huawei ones do. This enables the 'landline' telephone to be connected to the router and use the call package of the SIM.

Presumably, using the mobile system must prove cheaper than digging up roads etc and laying cables etc and their maintenance. 4G can give good speeds and 5G far faster speeds.

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PaulT wrote :

One problem is that not all 4G routers have an RJ11 telephone socket, it would seem that only some Huawei ones do. This enables the 'landline' telephone to be connected to the router and use the call package of the SIM.

The sim router including the telephone socket is, IMO, the way to go.

Since Martin posted last year the costs of said routers have dropped hugely .. as more and more have been sold.

SFR had a dreadful reputation a few years ago, but have improved enormously since then. At 12€ a month (no binding contract) for 100GB it seems a genuinely good deal to me.

You can check out SFR's mobile coverage for your area via any of their offers .. simply by implying that you might be interested.
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I still do have a landline and VOIP calls but cancelling it and relying on my mobile phone would make very little difference to my calls to the U.K. All my friends and family call me via Messenger, FaceTime or WhatsApp so that leaves very occasional phone calls to my U.K. bank and a once a year call to an insurance company. The cost of those calls is insignificant. I holding out to try fibre before changing to a 4G system for everything as the cables are already in my commune so, hopefully, should reach me before too long.

I’ve used Orange since I moved to France full time and found them very good but when the house was a second home I relied on my mobile phone for all calls and internet use. I have a Bouygues mobile phone because that was the signal my foreign mobile phone always connected to in this area.
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BB the thing in using a 4G router is that once you have bought the router you can, depending on signal, enjoy 100GB of Internet for, at the moment, 12 euros per month for Internet, calls in France and SMS plus an additional 1 euro per month if you want calls to landlines in, say, UK. How much will fibre broadband cost you?
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I have been trying to find the answer to this situation for a couple of years and canceled my basic landline in France (€18 a month) 2 months ago and bought a 2 sim mobile phone with the intention of getting a French sim when we eventually get there. About 2 years ago I bought a cheap Huawei mobile router and have been using "Three" with legs sims for data which worked well for us and grandchildren electronics. A bonus being that when mobile phone signal was weak and we had drop outs we put the mobile router up in the bedroom and connected to that. After reading this thread I am now considering buying a mobile router that has a phone socket and aerial. Does anyone know if I could keep switching the sim from the router to the mobile phone and back if we went out. As we are only in France for about 20 weeks over 8 months the lump of data sim for us seems the way to go.
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  • 2 weeks later...
"Does anyone know if I could keep switching the sim from the router to the mobile phone and back if we went out."
No problem, but you might need a sim card adapter. 4G routers often uses a full size sim slot while smartphones usually only have microsim. In that case you need an adapter to place a microsim in a full size simcard slot.

It is even possible to use a landline over a 4G internet connection. Just move your fixed phone number to a voip provider and enter the voip credentials in the 4G router. This action will automatically terminate the existing landline. Just in case someone wants to keep an existing phone number.

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Thanks for the information on the sim Jako and the tip on sim adaptor. I've just been having another look at what i would require and its a bit confusing. The router i was looking at hauwei b311 with rj11 looked ok but after reading reviews about it I find the rj 11 is disabled . The next router up is b535 and that has a better spec but no rj 11 socket so no phone ! So getting higher up the range they start getting expensive ! .As I have cancelled my landline contract I feel that i need a permanent French number so its looking like a cheap 12 month voice and data contract sim when we eventually get back to France and going back to a lump of data for the old mobile router.
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[quote user="pip24"]but after reading reviews about it I find the rj 11 is disabled . [/quote]

I'm in no way whatsoever doubting you pip24,   but can you point to the review you saw about this please.   Not for any other reason but to see why this was written,   as it seems really odd that the unit has a telephone socket,   the manual shows a phone being plugged in,  and there's nothing in the official spec to suggest it doesn't work.   So I'm just wondering if it was a customer review and that the customer in question might have been having "finger trouble" of some sort.

As I say,  no aspersions being cast on you personally!!

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Hi Martin. I found the info. I did a Google search for ' huawei 4g router with rj 11' on the results I scrolled down to 'kenstechtips.comindexphp' it states there that it is disabled. If you go into the site and read about the b310 it also mentions the B311 and that the rj 11 is disabled. Its very confusing because 5 lines earlier it says that the rj11 is there for you to connect your phone ! I hope that this leads you to the confusing info.
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