Unable to dial up Alice

[Bez]

For the last six or seven years we have used a Tiscali (Alice) dial up free account. All we need in France is the ability to check e-mail and make occasional hotel and flight bookings, print off boarding cards etc, so there's no point having an expensive broadband subsciption account.  Everything worked fine when we left France mid-September, but on return at end of October we've been unable to log in.  It appears that our PC talks to there's but we get the message that Username/Password are not recognised.  These are stored on our PC and have not been changed since September.  Funnily enough, we do still have an Alice mail account (I checked when we got home).

Has Alice shut down its free dial up service - there's no mention of it anywhere that I can find on their website?

We'd be grateful for any light anyone can shed on this.  Alternatively, are there any other services that are still offering free dial-up using France Telecom's intenet dialling charge that are still accepting new accounts?

[cooperlola]

I don't know, but it may be linked to my problem! :

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1903858/ShowPost.aspx

[Danny]

Bez

I am not sure why you are having trouble connecting but there is a possibility that they have discontinued the Alice dial up or maybe they have just changed the number to dial.... I can't find any info about it. It is likely that they have now merged it with the service of Free.

If you want, dial up is offered by Free here and here and Orange here 

Danny

 

[pachapapa]

Since the Reciprok Bas Debit option for Alice ADSL subscribers was suppressed the Dial Up is "problematic".

Cant stop due to footy on TV but the following Thread is informative.

Maybe Jane & Danny can help if your french is not up to scratch.

But it looks like you will have to reconfigure your connection with the help of the 1033 help line;

http://www.c-alice.com/phpBB2/precedente-vt16073.html?postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=reciprok+bas+debit&start=0

Note the post of an Alice Technician as follows.

Bonjour

Je sais que depuis ce week end nous avons des dysfonctionnements sur les serveurs bas debit.

Le serveur refuse les authentifications.

C'est actuellement en analyse....

Il faudra dans tous les cas, supprimer et re-créer la connexion bas débit

[Danny]

well, according to the thread found by Pachapapa, it seem that I was right about the changeover to the network used by Free. There is no definite date when it will be re-established. You can try the advice offered, i.e delete your dial up connection and recreate a new one, entering your login name and password and number to dial etc.

If no joy then the advice is to call up Alice help on 1033 but if your French is not up to it, maybe not. 

If that does not work.... unless you have a reason to stay there - email address etc..... it is probably best to give up on the Alice dial up and open a new account with Free or Orange. Free seems cheaper and more straightforward.

Danny

[Bez]

Thank you to everyone who has contributed above.  Looking at the link to the French discussion group it seems that they are discussing my problem exactly and, reassuringly(?) their problems seem to have begun at the same time as ours.  We'll now sign up with Free (though if Tiscali's merger with Free has caused the problem, I'm not too confident) or Orange (with whom we had horrendous problems in the UK) or maybe both, but will initially try logging on with Tiscali when I'm back in December.

[Chancer]

I have been with Free since 2007 and have only good things to report.

Good luck

[LaJamerie]

I'm having exactly the same problem - can't log in with my Worldonline account (bought out by Tiscali, bought out by Alice, bought out by Free). Has anyone managed to solve this, or do I need to set up a new dial up account with Free?

Margaret

[Danny]

[quote user="LaJamerie"]I'm having exactly the same problem - can't log in with my Worldonline account (bought out by Tiscali, bought out by Alice, bought out by Free). Has anyone managed to solve this, or do I need to set up a new dial up account with Free?

Margaret
[/quote]

Margaret, can you elaborate a little please?
Are you unable to use dial up to access the internet or are you unable to access your email with worldonline.

I think there is a strong possibility of either problem being caused by the migration of all Alice email accounts to those of Free.
With all the present difficulties, it may just be easier to start a new account with Free dial up and possibly use a new free.fr email if you can.

http://subscribe.free.fr/accesgratuit/

or http://subscribe.free.fr/free50h/

Danny

[LaJamerie]

Hi Danny

Yes, it's the dial up that is the problem. We had problems accessing email from 19/11/09 because they moved email servers without telling us and we stopped getting email until we figured out what was causing it. When we arrived in France last week, we found that our dial up access didn't work.  Looks like they lost some people's login/password details in the migration. Not a big problem, but it would have been nice if they'd kept customers informed!

I'll probably sign up with Free. One day it would be lovely to have Broadband, but I'm not holding my breath - it could be a while:)

Margaret.

[Bez]

AN UPDATE

Following the advice given earlier,  before going back to France I attempted to open an acount with Orange.At the final page of the sign up procedure, I was notified of a tech error. Tried again (having to use a different name) and on the final page - guess what- tech error. Third attempt didn't get beyond the first page without crashing. So, it was time to try signing up with Free. All procedures completed and details for logging on promised to follow by post.

So, a week later we arrive in France. No communication from Free (and still none when we left a week later). However, while we were there two letters arrived from Orange - one for each of the supposedly aborted attempts! Within two minutes I was online.

As for Tiscali: still nothing. The computer dials, converses with a computer at the other end of the phone line and reports that User/Password are unknown.

Anyway, problem solved.  We do have dial up access with Orange (though I swore I'd have nothing to do with them after the broadband problems they caused me in the UK). It's painfully slow compared with ADSL but, as I said in my original post, I only need to access mail and make occasional bookings etc.

[Kershaw]

I use an ISP in the UK for dialup from France that doesn’t need any subscription, registration, personal details etc so it can be used just as and when I want.  I don't pay anything at all to use it other than the call charges. Originally I used it as a backup connection to ADSL but now it's all I use. If you’ve got free minutes to the UK it's even better. Obviously not as fast as ADSL but ideal if you only go on the internet infrequently just to check emails etc. I can pass details on to anyone who wants to PM me.

[kevin owens]

Hi

I've got the same problem with dial up Alice as others in this thread but only just discovered it now checking set up in uk before going out to France next Good Friday.

Your uk solution sounds intriguing! More details please.

[Swissie]

Alice, who the **** is Alice?

[pachapapa]

Alice! It was a secret story 2.[:-))]