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Am I paying too much for my phone and internet?


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Assuming that you are not a long way from the exchange and because of that restricted to a slow speed, the answer is YES!.

For 30/35 Euros you should get 8meg speed and  free phone calls.

Now to get that you would have to move to someone like Free, or Neuf Telecom.

Even if you don't change suppliers you should be able to get a faster speed from Orange. Check on their website or visit an FT office. With Orange there would be no free phone calls.

If you changed suppliers you could even save your 15 Euro line rental, but as that would mean all your calls being VOIP I couldn't really recommend that. But perhaps you should discuss the pros and cons with cheryla!

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You can have VOIP with you wanadoo (orange) ISP by downloading Skype, so you don't need to change ISPs for that. I would suspect that if you were near enough to you phone excange, your existing ISP would offer you a faster connection, so you could change to any ISP you want and not get anything faster. As I have said before, others will offer you UPTO 8 meg, but you lines may still only allow 512kb so there is no point in changing.

I think though that you should only be paying €24.99 for the internet. Check that with your local FT shop.

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I have heard of this Neuf offer and have checked it out on their website. It seems too good to be true, which usually means that it is!

Can someone first explain the rule of Degroupage and secondly does anyone have personal experience of this service from Neuf and have there been problems eg Poor telephone call clarity which happens with Skype, lost internet connections etc etc.

Perhaps Cheryl could comment.

Many thanks

Piddy.

ps. Just noticed I joined the same day as BJSLIV. Funny name that!

And I'm only 1665 posts behind. And yes I did need a calculator for that, too early in the morniing for brain to do maths (or much else for that matter!)

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I'm afraid I don't know how it works - I'm not very good with computers! If you go onto the Neuf website and put in your phone number it tells you what you can have and how much it will cost.

I found it very easy to install - the booklet was obviously written for people like me and it'd be hard to get it wrong.

The phone works just as it did on FT, although we were advised that the best thing to do was to use cordless phones, with the base station plugged into the modem and other phones plugged into just mains sockets as normal. As that was what we already had, it was no different. I think that with corded phones you need to plug in a filter (we had some in the pack with the modem, but didn't use them). Calls sometimes have a very slight echo, but it is slight, and we don't find it a problem.

The only biggish drawback is that if we get a powercut, we'll lose the phone, but powercuts don't usually go on for long (famous last words!!). Also, I don't know if there would be a problem if the phoneline came down - whether it'd be Neuf or FT who would fix it? Overall though we think that the benefits greatly outweigh any disadvantages (and broadband is luxury after the dreadful dial-up we had).

Hope that's helpful

Cheryl

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It is also offered in some areas non degroupé by Free, Club Internet and Alice and probably others. Referred to as ADSL nu ( no need to pay FT for line)

It depends where you are. Club Internet and Neuf are 34.90, Free is 29.99 and Alice the same but reduced for 6 months to 24.99 at the moment if I understand their website.

So you pay one amount per month for adsl, line and usually mostly free and unlimited telephone calls through the modem. I have had no problems with the telephone for 8 months with club internet. Lots of long calls to the UK and Canada and others all included. I am thinking of changing to Free or Alice after my year is up (both a bit cheaper) I still have FT line at the moment but I think i will be happy to save 15 euros a month soon

Danny

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Put your number in either of these sites to get all the stats on your line, as well as finding out what offers are available to you.

http://www.dslvalley.com/

http://www.degrouptest.com/

I've been with Neuf, and now Free.

No problem with the service from Neuf, expect when moving and then when cancelling.

Their call centre is not located in France, it took several attempts to find someone who I could understand. (and could understand me)

With Free, I've had no experience reporting problems (touch woodl) so cannot comment on their customer care.

I have the degroupage package which gives me up to 30meg internet, free calls throughout  Europe, US, Australia etc, and about 100 French TV channels for €30 all in.

It's great value, but is it any good?

Well, yes.  It's been reliable so far, the TV is good (for those who are interested, it now includes TF1 and M6) and I can call landlines in Ireland for as long as I like, all included in the monthly charge.

From a technical point of view, you get nice features like a static IP address, sending a recording of your voicemail to your email account, the TV box contains a hard drive so not only do you get a PVR, but you can upload to it and watch your divx movies on your TV...

What's bad, if you're dependant on your phone, I wouldn't recommend it.  It's a VOIP service, and the quality can be patchy.  You also have an usual number (087/095) which costs more to call.

Also, you can have only one phone, as it connects directly to your modem.

None of these things are a problem for me, but everyone's situation is different.

I'd still have no qualms recommending it.

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[quote user="irlandais"]

 You also have an usual number (087/095) which costs more to call.

Also, you can have only one phone, as it connects directly to your modem.

[/quote]

I read that 087/095 is charged the same as an FT number are you sure that it is not?

You can connect a DECT phone,  which will normally allow  for 6 handsets, will it not?

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[quote user="Leslauriers"][quote user="irlandais"]

 You also have an usual number (087/095) which costs more to call.

Also, you can have only one phone, as it connects directly to your modem.

[/quote]

I read that 087/095 is charged the same as an FT number are you sure that it is not?

You can connect a DECT phone,  which will normally allow  for 6 handsets, will it not?

[/quote]

Valid point, you could of course have multiple DECT phones, what I was implying was that your current phone sockets will be of no use, once you have been "degrouped".

People with house alarms connected to a phone line, have reported problems.

I'm uncertain about the call cost within France, certainly it costs more to call this number from Ireland than a regular French landline.

I also remember hearing something about these numbers not being included in mobile operator's bundled minutes, however this situation may have changed as I have been told they are now included in Bouygues packages.

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Can't be worse than Germany (or Luxembourg) The very fastest you can get is 3 Mb, and then only if you are in a big city and it will cost around 60 euros a month plus line rental. Why?  Well, some years ago they invested billions in upgrading the phone network, replacing copper with aluminium!!! How daft can you get? It can't support decent speeds and is now gently decaying into aluminium oxide and is failing all over the place.  I expect someone in the phone company (yes there's only one) got a fat bonus for that.
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Piddy

Not sure about call quality with those companies but VOIP calls with club internet have been great for 8 months. I can't honestly tell the difference from regular FT calls. Call quality may of course depend on other things than choice of company - condition of telephone line etc

Just a thought

Danny

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[quote user="Piddy"]

Thank you to all for some useful advice.

Irlandais, can you just clarify if the quality of calls with Neuf and Free is patchy. We use Skype and at times it can be awful so we revert to ordinary phone.

Thanks

Piddy.

[/quote]

Hi Piddy, 

I only had Neuf internet (on a FT line) so cannot comment on Neuf's telephone service.

With Free, the quality is below that of a land line.

What I mean by patchy (in order of frequency):

  • An echo on the line
  • Speech breakup
  • Calls dropped
Don't get me wrong, the service is generally fine, but be aware the above points occur from time to time.

If you need a phone line for business, or if you have no other means of

phone communication, especially for emergency purposes, keep your FT line.

For my part, I use Free to call friends and family back in Ireland, and that's about it, so none of the above bother me.

As I said before, it all depends on how much you rely on your land line.

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