ALICE ADSL

[audio]

I have ADSL with Orange. In my area the max speed available is 512.

 

I have been approached by Alice offering 512 ADSL with telephone.  are they any good and how do they compare to Orange?

For the same price, as I understand, Alice offer international free telephone calls, whereas Orange only offer France national calls. For free international dialing, Orange include calls to mobiles but this package is very expensive.

Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance.

[Martin963]

We're pretty happy with Alice since we changed from Club Internet(now Neuf).   Box resets itself when there's a problem,  unlike the CI box.   Fewer periods of down time (CI could be off 10 mins to an hour each day).

Other great bonus is free calls to Alice help line in the event of problems.   This is rare for the big operators in France.   I don't know what the mobile call rates are but I do not ring mobiles on principle,  they can d*mn well ring me if it's urgent!

Disadvantages - they charged me 10 days of service before the agreed switch on date,  and now refuse to refund me.   Annoying but for the sake of my BP I can't be bothered to pursue it any further.

The Sagem box they supplied is hopeless on Wifi - very hard to get computers to join the network,  apart from the very first time.   Pirelli boxes seem much better.   In my case the addition of a wireless router by Netgear has solved that.

Alice are apparently being bought by Free so maybe they'll go down the pan now....

Oh,  and I *adore* Vanessa Hessler (the girl with the long hair in the ads!)

[anniefromwales]

Been with Alice less than a year but happy so far. Good flexibility - can divert calls to another number, receive faxes and voicemails by email, collect emails automatically from other email addresses, etc, all very easy to set up. Alice were a few days late in connecting me - which I wasn't even aware of as I was in the UK at the time, but they sent a letter of apology and gave me the first month free. Their freefone helpline is a definite bonus, and they have a loyalty scheme where you can collect points and maybe earn a free month every so often. Inclusive calls applies to landlines only, though I believe you can buy add-ons to include mobiles. Only concern may be that Alice are reportedly on the verge of being bought by Free - will this change things?

[audio]

Thank you very much for this info.