Free.fr questions and hopefully answers

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]

[quote user="Gyn_Paul"][quote user="richyrich"]sadly non degroupee area, but the offers still appear with Neuf, club internet, and free, to take over the line rental from FT. I imagine they rent the line from FT, and you pay this within the 30 euro tarrif. Calls other than free internet calls, ie from landline, are then charged by free etc. do you think this is correct? still confused[/quote]

 OK:

1)    If you sign up to Free, your landline calls (using your original FT phone number) are routed by FT to Free and charged by Free. these are cheaper than the FT basic tariff (largely) anyway so you're already a winner.

2)    With the Freebox installed, you have ADSL at whatever speed your line (and your contract) will allow. You can now use something like SKYPE for free internet calls using your computer.

3)    Additionally, if you go onto your page of the Free website, you can activate the socket on the back of the box (and pick a phone number for it). This allows you to plug in another phone directly into the system. This is the one which they advertise as providing free calls to a whole host of countries.

Depending on the speed of your connection (how far you are from the exchange etc), you may find the phone plugged into the Freebox gives you absolutely crystal-clear phonecalls, or something only a little better than SKYPE. The advantage over skype is that it has its own number (currently an 0872 number, but due to change shortly), and that it works independently of the computer, and doesn't require the PC to be turned on to make or receive calls.

There. Any help?

p

[/quote]

Sorry Paul but I don't think that is quite right. The 'portabilite' part means that you as well as saving on the FT line rental, your present FT number is transferred to the Free line so your VOIP calls through the modem are to and from the same (old) number. Not the 0872 or other number. (Portabilité du numéro géographique incluse pour continuer à recevoir sur votre ligne Freebox les appels vers votre ancien numéro)

Danny

[/quote]

Danny,

I think you're thinking of conditions in a degroupee zone. Sadly I too am non-degroupee.

p

p

[BJSLIV]

There are now, to add to the confusion, two types of "Degroupee", which is what is causing all the confusion. So no misprints!

There is the original full blooded Degroupage, largely found in the big cities and towns which is usually very fast and gives the cheapest cost with additional services.

Since last year there is a new kind of Degroupage which is available in many remote rural areas.

In this case instead of linking into the Internet operators equipment at the exchange, you in effect still use France Telecoms kit and line, but this is rented to you by the Internet Operator, who buys the service from FT "Wholesale". This means that you no longer have any contact with FT and all your dealings are with the Internet provider.

You can transfer your old number (Portabilite) but your calls will all come out of the back of your ADSL modem, so any other sockets won't work. You may also have problems with fax machines, and any links to heating controls or burglar alarms will also cause a problem.

This kind of service is offered by both Free and Neuf.

Testing your number on one of the operator's sites will show you what is available. On the Neuf site you go down the Zone Non Degroupee route, but it will offer you the option of economising on your FT rental.

However I think that the service provided by IPs is very similar to banks. They can all be very good or totally lousy. Its the luck of the draw.

If I were tempted by one of these offers, I would sign up but keep my FT service and see how it suited me. Only when I was happy with the ADSL service would Ipossibly  think about ceasing the FT subscription, and risking all my eggs in the one basket.

There are too many stories of people finding themselves with no service whilst FT and the new operator sort themselves out.

 

[Pommier]

I think this is the service we've got. The phone is connected to the back of the modem, but we use cordless phones so we aren't limited to just the one phone. So far we've had no problems, and the phone was only out of service for a couple of hours on the day of the changeover. We kept the same number as we had with FT, and as we haven't got a fax machine etc that wasn't a problem.

I know that if we get a power cut, we won't have phone service, so we'll just hope there aren't many!

[Me0wp00]

[quote user="richyrich"]

Just about to sign up with free, and i'm just as confused about which offer, "freebox only", or "non degroupee." Really want to scap FTel, but would like to keep our phone number. Is this possible with free?  and which offer terminates Fr Tel.

thanks

[/quote]

You want the freebox only if you want to get rid of French Telecom and you get your number ported over by free.  If you havent been with french telecom for more than a year then FT may charge you a fee but DO NOT cancel your FT line as one of my friends has done, causing nightmares.

Be warned though that FT aren't being that quick with the cabling in my area and your phone gets ported over rapidly but means your cut off without a telephone until FT email free and tell them your line has been *adsl'd*

Also make sure once your free account is active and it shows on the account screen that you have an active line that you choose your free telephone number as you won't be able to make or receive calls until this is done and the number been registered.

Also, another thing if your electric goes off your router will too which means you can't make or receive phone calls but to save the FT line rental you may find this not a problem.  I know many people on the freebox only offer and they are very happy with it. 

[BJSLIV]

Just about to sign up with free, and i'm just as confused about which offer, "freebox only", or "non degroupee." Really want to scrap FTel, but would like to keep our phone number. Is this possible with free?  and which offer terminates Fr Tel.

thanks

 

go to http://adsl.free.fr/

enter your phone number in the box        ABONNEZ VOUS

then assuming you are in a non-degroupee area

select freebox only

They will do the rest.

personally I would get set up with Free , keeping my FT line until I was happy with the ADSL / VOIP service, and only then move over to the sans FT option.

 

 

[Danny]

[quote user="richyrich"]

Thankyou for the clarification. Finally feel confident about the process. Will sign up today, and see what happens

[/quote]

I hope you will keep us all posted how it is going. Of course, that is presuming you have internet access!

I am planning to sign up to Free when my Club Internet subscription is up in May unless something better is offered. I have been using the VOIP with C.I for 8 months with no problems at all. I still have the FT line at the moment but it is going to go come May.

Danny

[richyrich]

Thanks for all the input. finally got the ball rolling. Actually went for the non degroupee option, in the end (not free box only). So will keep my FT subscription for time being.  Theres still a box to tick later on in the sign up, that appears to route call charges from FT to free. So going for that. I Want to check it all works, before ditching the landline. I imagine it must be easy to do to this at a later stage. ( But this is France) so who knows. Went for inscription on line, not by post. You still have to print 2 copies of their automated prelevement authorisation, sign,and send 1 to your bank and the other to free. Finally respond to cofirmation email, give them your telephone number, and free then do the neccessary changes with fr tel. Just calculated a 10 min call from land line with free, is half that of onetel.

 Sent my cancelattion letters to orange and Onetel. (registered). Incidently onetel needs 1 months notice, or else they charge you 2.5 euros a month for not using there services.( so much for no contract!!!) 

fingers crossed, in 3 weeks all will work well.

[BJSLIV]

 I Want to check it all works, before ditching the landline

I'm sure thats the right order to do it!

[Martin963]

I'd like to thank everyone who's contributed to this thread,   as the questions posed and problems raised will help me decide what to do when we go back over to France in April.   A quick test of our line from the UK suggests that we will only get 640 k,  and in addition the Club Internet site disagrees with the testing site as to whether we can go for degroupée or not.   So we'll probably sign up for the basic ADSL service and see how that goes first.

It does seem to be a complete minefield,  and knowing how difficult it is to get out of a contract in France (whether the other side troubles itself to fulfil its obligations or not) all this info has been enormously helpful.   I'm sure I'll not be the only person grateful if this thread becomes a sort of sticky....

Many thanks everyone!

[ChezShells]

One good thing i've noticed is that you usually get it up and running within a week or so of applying, ours was 4 days.

2 members of our family in the UK recently got broadband and had to wait 7 weeks!

So, however far behind the UK France may appear they seem to be ahead in some cases.

 

Lee

[richyrich]

All up and running in about 10 days, about 2mb connection speed. Another 36 hours for free phone to work.Free took over landline charges within a couple of days. Quality seems perfect, on both phone lines. Not too complicated.  Only complaint, is too many wires, but will try and cut those with wifi.  No tv, as non degroupee, but i knew that before- they do send you the remote control though, which could bode well for the future.

All in all very happy. The ethernet connection means you are constantly logged on, when computer is running, so no log in screens. web mail seems excellent, and in english if you want it, no spam as yet!!!. The customer service web site is also much more user friendly than orange, very easy to moniter call charges, and change personal details etc.

Box did freeze, when the free phone line was initiated, but after studying manual, gave it a reboot.(on and off 5 times). now works fine.

I'm converted. should save me 40 euros a month on phone charges, and another 15 when I ditch french tel.

[Danny]

great to hear

Danny

[AnOther]

[quote user="richyrich"]...they do send you the remote control though, which could bode well for the future.[/quote]Don't mean to burst your bubble but I wouldn't pin any hopes on this I'm afraid. The length of your line from the exchange is the determining factor in what speed you can get and in reality this is never going to change so unless some new revoloutionary technology suddenly comes along what you've got is what you've got and it ain't gonna get any better.

Very interested in the whole thread BTW because I'm about to make the decision myself and although I'm in a slightly better situation in that I have up to 2mb ASDL nu available (thanks Jane & Danny) I still think the prudent course will be to go FT initially and then perhaps change later when it's proved itself and my French is up to it...!

[Martin963]

Having got more and more submerged in the muddle that seems to be degroupage in rural areas,  I've hit a new snag in my research into Club Internet - maybe someone can confirm....?

I appear to be in "zone 2" which seems to imply that all the prices are higher than those "advertised" (for zone 1) on the main welcome pages.   Ordinary ADSL jumps from €14.90 to €26.90 per month,  and with unlimited phone calls thrown in the price is €31.90 (excluding renting the box) instead of €26.90.   Coupled with paying France Telecom for the line it suddenly works out quite a bit more expensive than I was reckoning.

Looks like we'll be staying on dial up for a while yet.

Is this zoning universal or are there other companies that don't penalise us rural dwellers....?

[Danny]

You are correct, Martin

If you are not degroupé, it costs more full stop (there is also a lack of other services e.g.TV by internet etc.) We are with Club Internet and it costs 34.90 per month but we still save by having no other telephone charges. In May I am planning to change to Free.fr who do exactly the same for 29.99. Beware the small print!! With Club Int and Free and Neuf and Alice it is possible to stop paying 15 euros pm to FT but with CI there is a 45 Euro one off fee for the privelege. With Free there is a 96 euro resilation fee should you want to cancel ( this goes down over the months) so there are little differences between them all. The best choice seems to be Free. So for 29.99 you can get adsl, inclusive tel calls to 49 countries, fairly cheap telephone charges outside the forfait, no FT line rental all equipment etc

Danny

 

[Martin963]

Very kind of you to respond so quickly. In fact while you were so doing I found the right bit of the free website and am offered (on my line) basic ADSL for €19.90 per month or 100% Neuf box for €34.90.   I'm trying to figure out what you're on (will be on) for 29.90.   My bottom line is that we MUST keep the analogue baseband phone due to the number of power cuts we suffer.  Do you know if 100% Neuf box is degroupage partiel or whether it's just phone calls over ADSL but with France Telecom rental....?

In doing the comparisons I have just been trawling through our Onetel phone bills on line and realise that they haven't charged us for a single international call since June, normally we are up for €18 per month calls to the UK.  They've managed to bill us for the France calls.   Maybe my bloody-mindedness not to go on to their preselection but to carry on with the prefix of 1638 has paid off.....    Mind you they may have turned us off completely as we've been back in the UK since October!    Will own up when we get back over to France.

[Martin963]

sorry that last post is nonsense of course because my mind has become addled - a neuf box is not the same as a freebox!   Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[BJSLIV]

The 100% neuf is the option whereby you move your line rental to Neuf , which in effect means that you get it free, because its the same price as their other ADSL offering.

I was about to opt for that, tempted by the 8mg speed. Unfortunately you are then 100% VOIP , so no power, no phone. Probably a minor risk, but more importantly, no access for the alarm or the heating controls.

Consequently I remained with Neuf's 512k option at  19 euros per month. Prior to moving to Neuf I used to pay 10 Euros a month for 30 hours of dial up for the months I was in France. So I now pay 230 per year instead of 70. Its more expensive but worth it. Unfortunately I can't justify to paying 350 per year for the faster service, which is why I had been tempted by the thought of saving the FT rental.

addled - a neuf box is not the same as a freebox

They probably are, apart from the labels!

[Martin963]

thanks for that bjsliv.  Curiously enough I notice that the Neuf offer of ADSL you mention and which I could have (and which is now tempting me) says:

Haut débit à 512k à

19,90€/mois

• Pas de frais de mise en service, pas d’engagement de durée
• Nombre d’adresses emails illimité, espace site web 100 Mo
• Téléphonie Neuf en présélection

I take that to mean that you could cancel it when you're not there.   As we are in Devon for most of the winter each year it could be worth cancelling.   Could you (without appearing to pry into your movements!) not do that for the periods you're not in France?

[Danny]

Martin
you must have been looking at the Neuf.fr website. Free.fr is the one I was referring to. The Neuf offer is (in non degroupe areas like ours) 24 euros pm (Note: it is only 19.90 if you suscribe to their preselection service so that all telephone calls are taken and charged by them.

The basic deal with all of the providers is roughly 24or 26euros for adsl or 30-35 euros for adsl and telephonie. they all try to vary the charges but make it up in different ways. Cancellation charges etc It all mounts up

With all of these, you can now choose to give up the FT line rental charge and just use the adsl line for telephonie if you want. How many power cuts do you have and for now long? we have the occaional cut here but only for half an hour at most and what is an analogue baseband phone(sorry - you lost me there.)

Danny

[Danny]

Nartin,
Neuf charge 45 euros for cancellation...also all telephone charges go through Neuf plus 15 euros pm to FT (edited)

Danny

[Martin963]

Yep absolutely right - I was muddling up my operators!  And yes when I cost it all out it all seems to add up to about €500 - €600 per year whether I stick with dial up and Onetel and France Telecom or go for one of the ADSL options with continued FT line rental. 

We had a power cut of over 30 hours last October (with the Maire coming for drinks and nibbles as well,  came on just in time to cool the wine);  most of the cuts are much shorter of course but the mother in law I think would be worried if we were out of contact that long.  Having just had a call from a friend in Exeter (30 miles away) via VOIP I must say the quality was odd (to put it mildly) and I'm not sure I'd want to rely on it - it was quite an effort at times and I didn't recognise his voice at the start.

Amalogue baseband is how the a conventional phone works (baseband because it's not modulated onto any sort of carrier, ie works at audio frequencies) and analogue because it's not digital (analogue because at any point in the system the signal is analogous to the original).  Sorry, broadcast terminology crept in......

[Martin963]

Danny - yes I see the small print now - I would call some of the puffs misleading.   I would certainly think twice about signing up to Neuf if one ALWAYS has to pay €45 to escape.

I've been researching this for two hours now and I'm no more confident about any of these operators than I was before.

Makes Eclipse in the UK (who we've signed up to recently) look superb;  they were highly recommended for Broadband and have totally lived up to their recommendation.

[BJSLIV]

Yes thanks to a change in the regs FT are now obliged to provide a wholesale service, whereby the other IPs rent their lines and exchange equipment, without having to provide all the kit they need for full Degroupage. This is now available virtually evrywhere not just in the big towns.

Advantage         You get free line rental , as they charge the same as theor normal service.

Disadavantages Still a lot more expensive than full Degroupage

                        Slower than full Degroupage    No 18meg service

                        No ADSL TV

                        On a VOIP phone service.

 

[Martin963]

Thanks to all who have clarified things.  I'm very grateful.