Graye Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 I asked several questions previously concerning our move from Spain to France and am appreciative of the help you all offered. We are now happily settled but certain aspects of internet connection are foxing us.After a couple of false starts we managed to get a phone installed. We are told there is no broadband availability in Mareuil (24) and after enquiring at a shop in Riberac we have set up a PAYG account with Wanadoo/Orange. This is amazingly slow and, for the amount of time we need to be online, very costly. We do not have a French bank account but are going to try to open one next week when we have our appointment with the local bank manager - at which point I understand we can sign up for a contract which will at least let us be online for a fixed fee. We are only here for three months and are not employed in France (nor own property). Does anyone know if opening an account might be problematical? I ask this because in Spain it is everyone's right to be able to open an account and in a very straightforward way.Can anyone recommend a better/faster/cheaper ISP than the one we have? Or perhaps confirm that ADSL is really not available in this area? This seems odd as there are major towns all around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeanneclaire Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 ADSL is not widely available, especially in rural France. We are 5 kilometres from a town of 45000 and can't get it. We have a "Livebox" but I doubt whether it will be worth your while for three months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tj Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 HiIf anyone can give you ADSL it will be thru france telecom (orange), but the contract is for a year and will only accept payment thru the bank, for 3 months its a little pointless.Unless of course the year premium will work out better for you financially! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob T Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 If you can't get ADSL why do you have a livebox? A livebox is an ADSL modem/router and will not work with a dailup only ADSL. If anyone wants to test the speed of an ADSL connection then go to www.internetfrog.com and click on the speedtest button on the right, this will give you download and upload speeds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceni Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 [quote user="tj"] HiIf anyone can give you ADSL it will be thru france telecom (orange), but the contract is for a year and will only accept payment thru the bank, for 3 months its a little pointless.[/quote]Not necessarily so - when broadband arrived here FT claimed not to be able to provide but Alice could and did. Suggest you search the archives for the URL to check whether BB is available for yr phone number and take it from there.Johnnot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mik from LA Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 If you go to www.degroupnews.com you can type in your telephone number and find out where your local exchange is and if it is ADSL enabled. If it is not, and you leave an e-mail address, they will tell you when a change is planned to take place. Our dial up service is the digital equivalent of a cleft stick but we have just heard from degroup news that ADSL arrives next Jan. Not holding my breath though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 [quote user="Bob T"] If anyone wants to test the speed of an ADSL connection then go to www.internetfrog.com and click on the speedtest button on the right, this will give you download and upload speeds.[/quote]Out of interest I tried the internet frog site to test the speed of my newly acquired adsl connection and was astonished at how low a reading it gave. I tried http://zdnet.fr/services/speedtest/speedtest500.htm and got a reading twice that given on internet frog, so then I tried http://www.auditmypc.com/internet-speed-test.asp and got a reading between the other two. I am aware that the actual connection speed varies constantly but the differences here were quite large:internet frog: 678 kbps download, 164 kbps uploadaudit my pc: 1064 kbps download, 262.6 uploadzdnet : 1452 kbps download, 177.9 uploadAs a newbie to adsl I am intrigued and wondering which of these tests is/are the most accurate.Sue [8-)]Apologies if this is deflecting the original post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob T Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 I have just tried all three and they are all similar. Internetfrog is slightly lower, but the zdnet one gives me a download of 1160, This cannot be correct as I have 1 meg ADSL and that should be a maximum of 1024 kbs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 My internet speed is so slow it nearly goes backwards - but I have improved it and the amount of times it disconnected or took 5 goes to dial up by changing the preferences for the modem from V92 to V48.Why not use an internet cafe or get AOL free for a few months if you want a connection for such a short period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graye Posted October 24, 2006 Author Share Posted October 24, 2006 Thanks for the input. We will see if we can't at least get an Orange connection which they advertise without contract on Thursday - we have an appointment to open a bank account then and should be able to at least sign up for something at that point. Money isn't really a factor in this and we would consider a 3 month connection for the cost of 12 if we could just get away from the snail's pace connection we have at the moment.We managed with an internet cafe for a week or so but run an internet based business and need to be online for several hours a day to keep on top of things. Also I touch type and just cannot deal with the French keyboards in the internet cafes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graye Posted October 26, 2006 Author Share Posted October 26, 2006 In case this is of use to someone else I'm happy to say that after opening a French bank account today I was able to sign up online with Orange on an unlimited time account for a bas debit connection for 25 euros a month on a non-contract arrangement. No quicker but at least I'm not checking the centimes running up as it struggles to get where it's going now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted October 28, 2006 Share Posted October 28, 2006 Apologies if you've already tried this, but generally this is the best site to test ADSL (rather than dégroupage) eligibility:ADSL eligibility Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Hi all, after 3 months of arguments with Tiscali/Alice over the ADSL line that does not work I have negotiated with my attached neighbour and today we have thrown an Ethernet cable out of their window and in through ours and sucessfully and surprisingly easily created a local network and we now share her ADSL connection with no discernible degrading of downloads or uploads even when we are both working. We will one day I am sure route the cable properly but for now we are both happy to cut the cost of our ADSL in half.regardsDave[geek] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Dog - thanks for the hint about dropping back from V92 - it made a big difference to my Free.Fr dialup - at 31200 bps I can actually download emails! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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