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Totally in the dark, so hope someone can help


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We don't currently have a phone line but need to have one installed in order to get Internet and UK TV - we do not need a home phone (unless its included for free in any plan) or a mobile contract.  Is such a package available in France?  Therefore firstly, how do we go about getting a phone line installed.  Is it best to go with a company who will install the line and then use their "package" or as someone suggested, get the line installed and then shop around for a good deal.  I have tried navigating several different providers websites to see what's on offer but in order to contact you need to already have a log in or current contract!  Any suggestions or recommendations would be great especially if they have an English speaking helpline. Thank you all

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Marais, do you have a line connected to your building already or will the work involve a completely new connection from a nearby pole on the roadside? This might affect the timescale offered by Orange(FT). 
  Your main requirement seems to be broadband for internet and particularly for UK TV. Others on this forum may be able to offer advice about the UK TV aspect but although we have Orange broadband we have been unable to receive UK BBC TV because we are in France. We have tried several VPNs without success as the UK companies are constantly blocking their attempts to hide.

  We rely on a satellite dish for Uk TV though that is dependent on your geographic position in France. We had to replace our 80cm dish with a 100cm diameter one which works very well. We are in central France.

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1 hour ago, Hectorsdad said:

We rely on a satellite dish for Uk TV

I regularly use THIS site. It contains 141 pages of global tv stations. There is a 'Choose Country' and 'Choose Category' on the homepage and on the right-hand side of the screen there is a top 100 sites list which contains a selection of UK stations and their channels.

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British TV in la belle France?

Load of rubbish!

I would suggest you buy a cheap flat screen TV in France and at first, watch French TV with, where possible Sous Titrage: literally "Under Words in text", which will greatly assist you with your French language skills.

All new sets come with the de-coder built in for the French equivalent of Free View digital service. All you need is a terrestrial aerial.

But of course, if you must watch such junk as pretending you can dance whilst the professional waltzes around...

Or you could buy a Firestick from Amazon and watch zillions of good movies for free, once you have broadband. As well as excellent past TV series.

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If you are in an area where fibre optic is being installed, you may find that you can do (or be made to do) other things, we shall loose our standard fixed line when this happens (not our choice, but it seems that copper cabling is being phased out as soon as possible).  This is through orange and they do have various options with TV, mobiles etc etc.  We inherited a satellite dish and box enabling us to watch UK TV (OK, down boys!), we'd watch French TV if we could find much we liked!!, but would love to find alternatives too to the satellite but I have a hubby who resists change so it is easier to stay as is for now!

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3 hours ago, cajal said:

I regularly use THIS site. It contains 141 pages of global tv stations. There is a 'Choose Country' and 'Choose Category' on the homepage and on the right-hand side of the screen there is a top 100 sites list which contains a selection of UK stations and their channels.

Just looking, tells me little, ie is it a subscription paid serivce .. any further info please??  Seems too good to be true to be free ... in spite of the name!

 

Edited by Judith
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3 hours ago, Gluestick said:

British TV in la belle France?

Load of rubbish!

I would suggest you buy a cheap flat screen TV in France and at first, watch French TV with, where possible Sous Titrage: literally "Under Words in text", which will greatly assist you with your French language skills.

All new sets come with the de-coder built in for the French equivalent of Free View digital service. All you need is a terrestrial aerial.

But of course, if you must watch such junk as pretending you can dance whilst the professional waltzes around...

Or you could buy a Firestick from Amazon and watch zillions of good movies for free, once you have broadband. As well as excellent past TV series.

 

French telly ?????

God it is awful. Jeeesus....it is awful. I am not surprised for one minute France has a delinquency problem. With kids and adults.

Rodeo anyone ?

Amazon Prime, Netflix.....You Tube is great once you get the hang of it.

French telly. Apart from undless episodes of 'Rex'... which is Austrian BTW....it is wubbish!

 

Edited by anotherbanana
Naughty ALBF, bad words, please be a nice wabbit!
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2 hours ago, Judith said:

we shall loose our standard fixed line when this happens

You will still have the option of 'fixed line lite'.  That is,  you can still use your existing phone by plugging it into your Livebox where it takes on a voip protocol and will still perform as it used to do, (until the internet goes down.).

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1 hour ago, cajal said:

You will still have the option of 'fixed line lite'.  That is,  you can still use your existing phone by plugging it into your Livebox where it takes on a voip protocol and will still perform as it used to do, (until the internet goes down.).

Absolutely - which is why we had and wanted to leep the original fixed line, in spite of the cost ... mind you, today I find that line fixe is not working, rings beautifully if you try to ring it but not a sausage of sound does it make her (I wondered why hubby was not answering my phone call!!),  .. and the line is dead  .. here I go contacting Orange .. tomorrow - now! We wonder if they are trying to tell us something!

 

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Appreciate all these replies, very helpful indeed. We have a 130cm dish but can't receive any decent programmes from the UK or France apart from the God channels and sometimes a shopping channel.  Never had a problem until 2015 and despite upgrading satellite box/dish, absolutely nothing for the past 6 years.  Agree with most others, French TV is absolutely awful.  Have organised phone line and broadband connection (phone line was installed but never connected 12 years ago) so am hoping it will be OK although we have just been informed that despite me telling the agent on the phone that we wouldn't be coming to France for another month (but someone would be able to see the engineer into the house) the router will be delivered to a central depot some 30kms from our house and must be collected within 7 days.  So have had to cancel because I can't ask my neighbour to go all that way to pick it up.  Honestly!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 21/01/2022 at 15:33, Marais said:

They also tested the available download speed at the property, its 5mbs per second!!  Fibre coming in June apparently

 

Did you get sorted with a line etc?
If not i'd go down the 4G route
Satellite wise, your dish should be ok, needs aligning, where about are you?

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On 20/01/2022 at 19:46, cajal said:

Free, gratis, zilch, nada, etc. ?

I've just tried it in Britain,   I selected TF1 - the symbol came up - but when I pressed play it's showing a film that ISN'T on TF1 at the moment.   I tried to change to France 3,  and a few other channels,  but this film just comes up every time.

Thank goodness for trusty old satellite,  it isn't just ex pats in France watching the British TV,   some of us in Britain would be lost without French TV given how AWFUL the BBC and other main channels have become.   And now we no longer have the house in France we don't even pay the redevance..... (although I'd far rather pay that than the BBC tax,   for a TV service that I haven't watched for two years now).

I'd guess that Marais is in the far south or south east of France,    sounds like they lost their channels when Astra 2D/1N was replaced by Astra 2F.    There are some places where you just CAN'T get a signal now off the UK footprint,  or at least not without a dish nearing 200 cms.

Edited by Martin963
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