Teleconnect - problems galore

[Danny]

[quote user="Bluebell"]

I don't think Teleconnect is cheap at all. We pay the usual 30 euros and then another 5 for unlimited calls to some English speaking countries and have to fork out another 16 (?) to keep on our line rental with FT.  As far as I can see if you go with Free than for your 30 euros you get all this plus calls within France plus calls to most countries of the world.

It's a while since I looked at Free. Is this still the case?

[/quote]

Yes. For most people who can get adsl, it is possible to stop paying for the FT line with Free (and others - Alice and SFR also do this for the same price). This may not be available though on lines that are very far from the exchange, capable of only the slowest ADSL.

But don't forget that if you stop paying for the FT line, you are completely dependent on calls through the modem and if there is an ADSL problem or defective modem, you will have no telephone service at all unless you have a mobile. It is not cheap to call the helpline at Free either.

Danny

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Jane and Danny"][quote user="Bluebell"]

I don't think Teleconnect is cheap at all. We pay the usual 30 euros and then another 5 for unlimited calls to some English speaking countries and have to fork out another 16 (?) to keep on our line rental with FT.  As far as I can see if you go with Free than for your 30 euros you get all this plus calls within France plus calls to most countries of the world.

It's a while since I looked at Free. Is this still the case?

[/quote]

Yes. For most people who can get adsl, it is possible to stop paying for the FT line with Free (and others - Alice and SFR also do this for the same price). This may not be available though on lines that are very far from the exchange, capable of only the slowest ADSL.

But don't forget that if you stop paying for the FT line, you are completely dependent on calls through the modem and if there is an ADSL problem or defective modem, you will have no telephone service at all unless you have a mobile. It is not cheap to call the helpline at Free either.

Danny

[/quote]

Frankly for EMERGENCY use it would seem to me that the € 3/mois mobile activation fee Chez E Leclerc is a better deal than € 16/mois to France Télécom.

[Jay]

[quote user="pachapapa"][quote user="Jane and Danny"][quote user="Bluebell"]

I don't think Teleconnect is cheap at all. We pay the usual 30 euros and then another 5 for unlimited calls to some English speaking countries and have to fork out another 16 (?) to keep on our line rental with FT.  As far as I can see if you go with Free than for your 30 euros you get all this plus calls within France plus calls to most countries of the world.

It's a while since I looked at Free. Is this still the case?

[/quote]

Yes. For most people who can get adsl, it is possible to stop paying for the FT line with Free (and others - Alice and SFR also do this for the same price). This may not be available though on lines that are very far from the exchange, capable of only the slowest ADSL.

But don't forget that if you stop paying for the FT line, you are completely dependent on calls through the modem and if there is an ADSL problem or defective modem, you will have no telephone service at all unless you have a mobile. It is not cheap to call the helpline at Free either.

Danny

[/quote]

Frankly for EMERGENCY use it would seem to me that the € 3/mois mobile activation fee Chez E Leclerc is a better deal than € 16/mois to France Télécom.

[/quote]

It is NOT a better deal at all, take my word for it. I was with Tiscali then Alice for several years and gave up my FT line to save that 16€ a month. After 12 month something went wrong and I was 3 months with intermittant phone and 2 months with no phone at all, even calls to the Alice free helpline costs a fortune on a mobile. Danny is quite right, I would never recommend getting rid of your FT line.

[Kitty]

[quote user="Bluebell"]

[quote user="Lorribee"]Thanks for the lowdown guys & dolls,I was about to subscribe to Teleconnect after giving notice to Sky Dsl (Berlin) satellite broadband provider, but apart from being expensive their service is pretty good.[/quote]

I wouldn't. My husband was cut off in the middle of a phone call a couple of hours ago and we have only just got back on the internet. It is so annoying. 

[/quote]

I get cut off by Teleconnect mid call as well.   Then when I try to re-dial. I have lost my connection altogether.  This did not happen before the Teleconnect upgrade earlier this year.

[AnOther]

Touch wood, since losing my connection completely on Thursday and TC having FT tweak something at their end plus make some changes to my router config, for the first time in weeks, if not months, I've managed to get through the entire weekend without a dropout or router reboot !

I'm not completely out of the woods though because on a random basis I still find that some sites and links are not reachable without 2 or 3 tries, Google.co.uk is a regular offender. I have a tracing utility running in the background (VisualRoute Lite) from which I can see that the call is going to Google but being refused at 72.14.232.134 which is a Google server. Whilst I don't see how this can be directly down to TC that's not to excuse them as they should find out why this is happening and do something about it.

[IMG]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p123/biskitboyo/Copyoftraceroute.jpg[/IMG]

[Quillan]

There were some problems with google over the weekend but I don't know if it was in France with routing or the servers. There are no google servers in France according to them http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/address.html so we are obviously googling in a different country somewhere so it could be French router problem. Don't forget the normal port 25 is often blocked by some coutries when working from France. I have found this in the past, for my own server I have to use port 26 as port 25 is blocked externally for some reason and I have had the problem with other sites, email systems around the world and in America in particular.

[AnOther]

I didn't know that Quillan but I think you slightly miss the point. Google is reachable but not always on the first click, sometimes it takes 2 or 3 attempts only seconds apart, not symptomatic of blocked ports.

But it's not only Google, Yahoo for instance suffers the same and in fact an hour ago I experienced the problem with this very site.

[IMG]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p123/biskitboyo/completefrance.jpg[/IMG]

[Kitty]

Another - I have the same problem with connecting to Google from my Teleconnect modem.  I have to click more than once.

I was cut off most of this morning by Teleconnect.  What is going on?  I tried phoning them again but get the standard queueing system problem - holding on for 5 mins and then being told to go away by a recorded message.

[AnOther]

Cathy,

If I've learnt one thing it's never try and call them in the morning, they just don't answer - period. Try after 2pm.

My VoIP went off for about a hour this morning which may mean they were doing something - or then again may mean nothing - other than Teleconnect being Teleconnect.

Try downloading VisualRoute and see if your Google failures are the same as mine, I doubt they will be different though.

[Kitty]

Once again, I haven't been able to get online because of Teleconnect - on and off for about 24 hours.  I assume that others must have had the same problem.  I did get through to them a few days ago and they promised to sort it out.  They haven't.

I've had enough.  Their new system is NOT working.

Whilst the modem was down, I had a major crisis with a daughter being at a railway station two hours from me and no access to the Internet to be able to find out the rail timetable.

[AnOther]

Hope I'm not tempting fate here but in the near 2 weeks I have been away 'er indoors has had a virtually completely trouble free time with Teleconnect, could it be that they have finally got their act together [blink]

Does the absence of any other posts here since the 2nd support this ?

 

[tuppence]

Oh dear A N Other, I am so glad that someone else has had the nerve/bottle to voice this probable scenario of a troublefree Teleconnect at last. I am with you and yours on this, no line dropping for a week or more. I thought it was because I had changed my browser from IE8 to Mozilla Firefox (damn good too). Long may it last with TC[:)]

tuppence

[Bluebell]

I've just added two new memories and I've been so delerious with happiness that the computer actually responds in a nanosecond that I was unaware that I hadn't got to reset the modem several times a day. Alleluja!!!

[AnOther]

They say that 'One Swallow doth not a Summer make', but three, who knows...........fingers crossed [:D]

 

[Bluebell]

I knew I shouldn't have cheered so loudly as I lost the internet again this lunchtime!

[thunderhorse]

I've been noting when my VOIP goes down - more often than not it's about a quarter to the hour. And Friday it was halfway through a banking transaction. [:@]

[Jay]

Teleconnect rang me today to say they had found a problem with my line. They had checked it and found the noise level to be double what it should be. After several questions regarding the internal wiring of our phone sockets they said they were going to have FT investigate the problem. Now that is what I call service!

[AnOther]

They can get it right when they try. I have to say that throughout all the troubles when I have spoken to tech support they have been knowledgeable and helpful, the problems seem to be managerial and systemic not on the shop floor - but then what's new there ?

Did you report problem Jay or did they call you first I wonder.

For the future if your line is still with FT then you can get direct and prompt support from them by reporting it on 1013.fr.

[Jay]

[quote user="AnOther"]They can get it right when they try. I have to say that throughout all the troubles when I have spoken to tech support they have been knowledgeable and helpful, the problems seem to be managerial and systemic not on the shop floor - but then what's new there ?

Did you report problem Jay or did they call you first I wonder.

For the future if your line is still with FT then you can get direct and prompt support from them by reporting it on 1013.fr.

[/quote]

As I said in my earlier posts I have had very few problems, except for minor glitches just after the "changeover". I have had very little contact with their technical help line, I didn't report a problem and their phone call to me was a surprise.

[AnOther]

Lucky you then [;-)]

[Jay]

After your earlier rantings, that's what I thought

[AnOther]

An update for anyone who fancies an portion of schadenfreude::

Teleconnect have finally delivered the coup de gras. Their 'helpful' solution to my problems has been to have FT downgrade my line

perfectly good 2mb line down to 512kb, completely without my approval and it seems with no chance of a reversal [:(]

**** you Teleconnect [:@]

Small comfort that it is the one and only plus point is that the sole reason that I had

persevered with them this long is because of the incorrect FT statistics on my line 512kb is all any other ISP would offer

me so now I truly do have absolutely nothing to lose by dumping them.

I'm looking at the Orange ADSL by satellite package but as there is already a thread on that I'll be posting there looking for feedback and comments.

[AnOther]

Just thought I'd add that the downgrade hasn't even solved the problems. My VoIP is dropping out as much as it ever did and the router is rebooting it self just as frequently, it did it again minutes ago.

[Hammy]

I would strongly advise anyone thinking of moving over to Teleconnect to think again before taking up their service. They are all too ready to blame anyone else for their own faults, their customer service is a joke and they won't listen to complaints - and this includes their Managing Director, Luc Terral. After six weeks without broadband service - I wrote to them informing them that I wasn't prepared to pay them for a service I wasn't receiving. This has resorted in a flurry of demanding letters and a refusal on their part to address any of my complaints. They simply continue to make demands for payment and threaten debt collectors. In desperation I've now paid their latest demand, but they've simply added another charge in the meantime. I wonder whether anybody else has had a similar experience and can advise how to make them go away?

[Quillan]

Hammy welcome to the forum.

I used to be a customer of Teleconnect but just for my phone and mobile (no Internet). I cancelled both by sending them a letter by registered post. They never asked why or anything. The only bit they got me on was the deposit on the SIM card for the phone which they never asked to be returned nor did they give me the deposit back. To be honest I was just glad have got out of the contracts given what others have said about them ignoring letters etc.

So fire off a registered letter telling them you want to cancel your subscription. Keep it short and sweet (you can write in English if you wish) i.e. don't bother complaining about lack of service as you have already done that separately. The address to send it to is the one at the top of the bill and make sure you send it registered post.

If you are looking for a complete package including mobile phone with free calls for both landline and  the mobile you might consider Oranges UNIQ . If you make loads of calls it works out quite cheap. UNIQ uses your Livebox automatically to make free mobile calls when in range and it also uses 'hot spots' when out and about.

Good luck