Neuf plus landline from FT?

[mint]

Anybody know any thing about this topic, plea...............se help!

Have had phone call from Neuf with what I think is a good offer for me.  I am with FT and Orange internet. 

Have been waiting out my year's sentence before changing.  Viola, year is up and I can change![:D]

Anyone out there has done this and, if so, can you say whether you hung onto your landline with FT?  If not, is the Neuf internet line OK?

Would like to save the €16 for the FT line but I'm not so desperate to save this amount if it's going to put me incommunicado.

Advice, suggestions, please.  I have put off the Neuf people until tomorrow morning so that I can rely on you knowledgeable ones to give me the benefit of your experiences. 

[Danny]

here's some things to think about:

if you choose to ditch the FT line and save 16 euros a month, you will be completelt reliant on the voip service from neuf. That measns that if your modem or line is faulty you will not be able to receive or make calls for however long it takes to rectify the problem. Think sending modem back for replacement or getting through to customer service and paying for it to report problems.

After 2 weeks without Voip working in the past, I am glad that I kept the FT line.

Having got rid of the FT line rental, if there is a problem on the line, you will have to contact Neuf (and pay to do it) who will then have to get FT to do any work for them and they (all the alternative suppliers) tend to try to put off doing that - it costs them money.

Also with Neuf, you will not get inclusive VOIP international calls unless you lose the FT line. Only inclusive calls to french landlines.

For me, the others offer better value - Alice, Free. and others but I would still keep the FT line

Danny

PS only Alice and Teleconnect have free calls to customer service or tech help. Alice is in the process of being sold to Free so that may change in the future

[mint]

Danny, I hear what you are saying and have taken that on board.

I think I will be happier keeping the landline in the circumstances and look to signing up with Teleconnect.  Teleconnect mainly because they have contacted me in the past and I will dig up their document and have a closer look at it.

Thank you for spelling it all out so well.  I hope your post will benefit others as well as me.

[Tim]

I agree with Danny - I would add one other thing - if you are totally relying on the voip phone line, you would also loose that in the event of a power cut. Unless, of course, you also install a UPS (back up power supply).

I've been with Orange for two years with no problems (perhaps I shouldn't have said that [Www]) and the temptation to do away with the phone line is very strong, but having worked in telecoms in the UK for 25 years before I came to France, I am very aware of the possible complications and rows that occur between companies - so the phone line stays - for the time being at least.

Regards - Tim

[mint]

Thanks, Tim.  You have helped me make up my mind completely. 

[Maricopa]

I did exactly what you are (were?) thinking of doing over a year ago, and am VERY happy.  I am very close to the exchange, so have no problems with bandwidth, lost calls or anything else.  Personally very glad I made the change, but each to their own.[:D]

[mint]

Ah, Maricopa, you have now muddied the waters!  I am also very close to the exchange!

[Callie]

Hi Sweet - we are with Neuf and have kept out FT landline.  As mobile phones don't work here at the house, it was essential for us to keep a line should ADSL go down.  We have already been glad of this !

We have been with Club Internet/Neuf for e-mail for about 8 years and have always had good service.  Now we have ADSL with Neuf and are very happy.  Any queries have been dealt with promptly.

[Pommier]

We're with Neuf (without FT line). We pay €29,90 a month which gives free international calls to about 25 countries plus France, as well as broadband and Neuf television. We've had no trouble at all with line quality. The only potential problem would be that in a power cut the phone wouldn't work. To us the cost saving is worth that risk but that's for you to decide. 

[mint]

cheryla, I have been offered €35 for ADSL plus free calls within France as well as to 65 countries (not that I know anyone outside of 2 or 3 countries).

We hardly have power cuts and we do get a good mobile signal so perhaps this is the right route after all.

I thought I might try it for a month or two and then stop paying for the landline completely.  Goodness knows we could do with the saving!

[Clair]

We have been with Neuf for over a year.

We do not have any FT line any more and have not had any major problems and just a handful of minor ones, solved without delay.

[Rose (& Greyman)]

As a further complication ! We have no trouble with power cuts but for no reason our VOIP line from FT has just stopped working. They seem unable to resolve the problem but we're glad we have the landline. Sorry ......[:D]

[mint]

greyman, I've given this some thought and have decided to do without the landline.  To be honest, for the times that we use the phone (now that we are retired and live in the same house all the time!), it's not too bad if we have to use the mobiles for when there are problems.

In any case, we had nothing but problems with FT for months on end when we first came to France.

So, I think it's in at the deep end this morning,

[Benjamin]

FT have an office in your local town. I know that some of them are more helpful than others but you can go and stand in front of a real person as opposed to trying to decipher technical French from a help line.

[Roz]

Hi Sweet17, We have just recently taken up the Neuf offer, the Neuf box arrived within three days, the following day the line went dead as promised, the next morning I installed the Neufbox, added the telephone, and hey presto, the line was on. There was a minor problem though.. at first every time I picked up the handset the line was dead and it took a few taps of the button to get it going.. This meant people phoning us were getting a funny beep instead of a ring tone.Also calls would drop out after a few minutes which all made me think I had made a terrible mistake!   However, I called the free helpline 1077 and the technician, whilst not speaking English seemed to grasp the problem despite my awful Franglais! The line dropped out while we were speaking, within a couple of minutes he rang back to say everything was bien!  Haven't had any problems since - and lots of nice long FREE calls to family and friends in the UK and US. Tres bien!!

I used Clair's cancellation letters on here to cancel Orange at Bordeaux and to cancel the prelevements at the bank. So far no probs. Good luck!

[mint]

Roz, thanks for posting.  I have already written my cancellation letter to Orange (but, as a matter of interest, where does one find Clair's letters?)

I am not sure how to cancel direct debits at the bank because, in the past, the bank told me I had to pay something like €13 to cancel a dd.  I thought it was outrageous but that was last year when I'd only just arrived in France and I was cowed into submission!

I should really like to cancel the 2 prelevements I have with FT.  Have already had a nasty experience with FT taking our money a whole three months before we had any service and that money was never replaced.  So, I am rather anxious that FT does not continue to debit our account................!

[Roz]

 The letteres are right here in this thread - first topic Cancelling a French ISP  http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1076170/ShowPost.aspx  I used the first two, the second one I sent to my bank to cancel both Orange and FT prelevements. Even though Neuf say they manage the cancellation with FT for you, I thought it best to cancel the prelevement with the bank so there would be no misunderstanding. It's only been a few days, so I'm hoping everything will fall into place.. fingers and toes cross of course..

[mint]

Thanks for the link, Roz.

I think Clair said the notice period is usually 2 months but the Neuf woman told me I could cancel more or less immediately because I have finished the minimum period of my contract with FT.  She claimed that my line should be up and running by the end of the month so that I would not need to pay FT next month.

Hope this woman is right, otherwise I shall end up yet again paying FT for services I have not had!

[gosub]

You can also get all the info from the site below.

http://www.ariase.com/fr/guides/resiliation.html

If you wish, you can fill in the form on-line and even have it sent for you, Courrier en recommandé avec accusé de réception for a small charge, and no queuing at the post office.

You can on the same site, with this link, cancel a direct debit with your bank.

http://www.ariase.com/fr/guides/procedure-resiliation.html

[mint]

gosub, wow!

I am endlessly amazed at the know-how you display on many of your posts.

Thank you so much.

[gosub]

You're so sweet 17[:)]

[mint]

And I love you too, gosub! [kiss][:$]