changing ISP, from wanadoo(Orange)

[richyrich]

After 4 fairly hassle free years at wanadoo. It's time for a change. the grass looks greener and certainly cheaper. At the moment it's costing me 25euro/month ADSL, 15euro for FT. and approx 30euro for onetel. (70 euro).

Is it true that companies like Free, offer an all in one package for 30 euros?? or do you still need a french telecom abonnement? Are there still hidden extras? Can anyone reccommend a good ISP, preferably one that doesn't direct spam that only partially resembles my email address.(Upto 70 day!!!). all suggestions appreciated. thanks.

[Danny]

We are happy with our current Club Internet offer  (zone non degroupée ) 34.90€ per month ADSL up to 8 MB (depends on your location) includes rental of modem which gives you unlimited VOIP telephonie in France and 41 other countries - Europe, USA etc. We still have FT line but it is much cheaper than our old set up with dial up internet access, Primus for telephone and FT abonnement.

If you are able to give up the FT line (we were not), you will not be able to use the phone in a power cut as the modem must be switched on. The quality of the internet calls has been fantastic. I don't find any difference to the normal landline calls  - except the price, of course.

As for Spam, it comes to us too and most of the rest of web users I think. My email address is on my website which I believe is responible for attracting a lot of spam but I prefer to leave the contact link there and delete the Spam.

Obviously there are other companies who offer similar packages but they seem to vary in certain ways - check the details...

Danny

[Deimos]

With French ISP's if you have something that works and you are not to unhappy with it then keep it and consider yourself very lucky. To change from something working well so save a few euros a month is madness.

There is a general high level of dissatisfaction with French ISPs. You are lucky in having something working and stable. You are asking for trouble to gain little.

For example, why are you paying onetel 30€ per month. What for ? Telephone calls ? There are ways to reduce this without changing ISP.

Ian

[richyrich]

Thanks for replies. I see your point Deimos, I do use skype too, but the wife uses phone alot, to call UK and Ireland, and onetel bills have been upto 60 euros a month. I also find the quality of skype questionable at times, particularly when calling mobiles. If another isp, allows free quality calls to europe, this is a big saving, and i imagine the computer doesn't need to be switched on unlike skype. I have heard fairly positive things about "free" too. And some packages they and other ISP's are offering could potentially save around 50euros a month. I feel this is worth the risk, even if there may be(like wanadoo) a few teething problems initially.

[Cassis]

I've had no problems with Free.  I had lots of problems with Club Internet when I went for 2 months unable to access my website server.  Other people have had exactly the opposite experience.  It's a very hit-and-miss affair.

Jane and Danny, you can hide your email address on your website by using a form and your cgi-bin instead of  a "mailto" script.

If that sounds daunting then you can hide your email address from a lot of spam robots by replacing the "@" in your email address with this code:

@

This gives you an ampersand when viewed in a browser and your email link will still work when people click on it.

[Deimos]

If a lot of your calls are international and you don't like your bills I'm amazed you have not looked at other standard telephone carriers that are much cheaper than OneTel.

At the moment you say you are paying Wanadoo 25€ per month. I would expect that is for a 1MB link. Thus, it is possible you are rural. When I tried to up the speed of my line from 1MB to an "indeterminate" higher speed (staying with Wanadoo), they increased the speed next day but it took over a month to get it switched back down again as the line would not support higher speeds. Everybody thought it would but it would not in practice so I lost my internet for a month. Many non Orange ISPs no longer offer 1MB speeds so if you are "line limited" (even though you might not know it), then changing ISP and increasing speed might not be totally smooth.

Skype sound quality is quite poor these days compared to other available (free) systems. Unfortunately Skype have not kept up with developing their software (partly because of the bug fixing the need to keep doing). However, one very easy solution is to use a carrier that allows you to use your standard telephone (connected to your standard FT line, no need to even involve your computer).

Ian

[samdebretagne]

I'd be careful about switching, unless you don't mind going without internet for a long period of time.  Most people I know who have switched from Wanadoo (Orange) over to another operator have been without internet for a minimum of one month, often two months.  I really think it's a conspiracy by FT in order to scare people into staying with them - but hey, it's worked in our case - I'd love to go with Neuf (Internet, TV and telephone for 29€) but couldn't stand more than a week without internet access.

[Matchless]

Is the problem of going without internet connection only related to trying to switch from Wanadoo/Orange or would I lose my current dial-up connection whilst I changed to an ADSL provider, whichever one that may be? We are due to have ADSL  in the next week or so, dont hold your breath, and it is imperative that I am able to stay online.

Peter

[suein56]

Hi Peter

We've just upgraded from Orange dial-up to Orange ADSL and we lost our internet connection completely for almost 9 days whilst the line was changed. It was awful - friends were very kind and let me use their computers/connections to keep in touch - but it just not the same as being able to use your own computer etc as and when you want/need to.

The worst part was losing the phone as well for a whole morning while the adsl was made live. Mind you, when I have described our experiences to other people, I was told we had been very lucky that the transition went so smoothly.

I am at present using a Livebox but you don't have to, vitually any modem/router would do the job I am told. I am hoping to learn enough about this so I can buy my own modem-router and then add on another computer wirelessly - brave words from someone who is flying by the seat of her pants here.

Computing - it's another world.

Sue [:)]

[Bob T]

When we changed from dial up to ADSL we continued with hte dial up till we got an email from Wanadoo, then plugged in the ADSL modem and it worked. No downtime or anything. That is when I went out and bought a decent modem/router.

[suein56]

Good grief - I am so jealous; you were fortunate. Still, never mind, adsl is here now; perhaps Orange did it on purpose to demonstrate to we plucky punters just how precious adsl is and how grateful we should be to be able to access it at all.

Sue [Www]

[Eslier]

Spg, this is another example of those lovely people at FT/Orange/Wanadoo not explaining properly to people what to do or more importantly what not to do.

If you upgrade your Orange account from dial-up to ADSL then you still have an Orange account even during the interim period and you can still connect via dial-up until your adsl line is activated. There should never be a time when you can't connect, it's just that they're not good at telling you how !

The problem is that Orange will swap your account over from the date that they ship you the adsl modem (or, heaven forbid the Livebox). At that time, you will lose the ability to connect to the free telephone number that you have used up to that point to connect to the internet. The problem is that FT will then take anything from another few days to another few weeks to activate the adsl line so you won't be able to connect via that either.  What you need therefore to do, is use one of the standard call rate numbers that Orange have to connect to your dial-up account. If you have been foolish enough to load the Espace Wanadoo/Orange software then it is possible to reconfigure this to enable you to use the alternative dialup number. If you are setting it up manually then you will need to find out what number you need to use from Orange.  It is rather annoying that during this period you are paying for an adsl connection that they haven't yet provided and then having to pay call charges on top but I suppose that's something that you just have to put up with. If you then plug your modem in a couple of times a day you will see from the adsl light whether or not you have been connected. Once the led indicates that adsl is connected, then, and only then, should you reconfigure your pc to use the adsl line.

[Gyn_Paul]

When I changed from Wanadoo to Free I decided not to cancel the former until I had a chance to prove the latter to be working and bug-free.

I still have a problem downloading torrent files using the Freebox, so - for the next couple of weeks at least - I have kept the subscription to both running concurrently. Result? I plug the line into the wanadoo adaptor to download movies, TV programmes etc, then plug it back into the Freebox for the rest of the time, thus enabling the free phonecalls from the line plugged into the back of the box.  Both take about 20 to 30 seconds to hand-shake with their ISP on changeover, but other than that there are no problems.

So.. if you currently have a working ADSL ISP, there's no reason for you not to change to another, (Free, for example) and keep the old one going until you are sure the new one is working properly.

p