Getting a line in the first place

[MisterC]

Might as well completely dominate this forum with my queries! Sorry if I am being a pain! Our house has a phone connection point and cable to the phone lines but we don't know if it is live. We are told that the former owners (English) took the number with them. How do we get it re-connected and do we have to do this and pay Orange France/Telecom for line rental before we can go to any of the competitors for an ADSL/phone package? Even more confused than before.......

[Will]

Unless you are in a 'zone dégroupée' (unlikely unless you are in a major city) you will need to have a FT phone line before you can have any internet package. Just apply to France Telecom to have the line re-activated. You can do this at any FT shop, it will help if you know the name of the last occupant of your house.

[NormanH]

I believe that one of the competitors can take over and open the line, but remember that if the connection goes down or you have a problem with your xxxbox you won't have a separate phone line.

This doesn't bother me too much as I am in town, but some posters in isolated locations prefer to keep the FT line, accepting the 16 Euros a month extra charge.

PS hadn't seen Will's post: he may be right about non-dégroupée.

[MisterC]

Thanks both

We won't be back in France now until we move in at the end of April. I know the old number and the name of the ancien proprietaire who I'm told took the number with him - can I do the reactivation through the Orange english helpline or do I have to visit the shop in person?

Cheers

[Will]

The Orange English helpline might be able to advise, but we have always found the best way to get anything done with FT is to go to the shop.

There seem to be some very strange rules about degroupage. I found one site, for example, which implied that even if you moved into a place within a zone degroupée that already had a FT line it was more difficult to get a line from another supplier. I may be wrong, you may be able to go straight to one of the other suppliers, but I would personally always feel more secure if I had an FT line as back-up, and because it seems a bit easier, on the whole, to get line problems attended to.

[pachapapa]

I live in Deux Sèvres, a couple of weeks ago we were put on Red Alert at about 2:40 early on sunday morning 28th february the power went off affecting some 150,000 homes.

The power was restored in my area in the early evening of monday 1st march ubscribers had immediate internet and VOIP connection. There is only one Orange subscriber in the hamlet with both a VOIP phone and an analogue connection; fortunately they were able to use their Orange VOIP phone to complain that the conventional phone was not working. It apparently spluttered into life on Wednesday 2nd march.[:D]

[MisterC]

Thanks to all contributers for your help. I have checked on the various sites using the old phone number and we are in a zone non-dégroupée. Best things seems to get the line reinstated and then worry about the rest - anyone know how long people like orange take to set up ADSL etc once you have a line?

[Hoddy]

Are you sure ADSL is available in your area ? We've been waiting for eight years.

Hoddy

[Will]

Orange says it takes 15 days from the date of subscription. Our experience is a somewhat shorter time, others may say it has taken longer for them. I think that includes the internet phone option, internet access will be available before the phone is activated.

[Quillan]

[quote user="MisterC"]I have checked on the various sites using the old phone number and we are in a zone non-dégroupée. [/quote]

You said in another post that the previous owners took the number with them. If you used these websites to test the number its for where the number is now which is not where it was i.e. your house so you can't rely on the results. In our village (pop 200+) some are non-dégroupée and others are not so be careful.

[Will]

It's all very hit and miss. On the one hand I'm surprised Quillan's small community (even in part) comes in a dégroupée area, on the other hand I'm not, because there is little logic where FT and the like is concerned. We lived - and I worked remotely over the internet - for several years in a village (pop 400) where even getting a satisfactory dial-up connection was rare; FT said the infrastructure was not good enough for us to even have ISDN, so ADSL was totally out of the question.

We didn't expect any different when we moved to our present place, particularly as the population is 55 and FT said we needed 100 households to sign a document before they would give us broadband. Then the main village got ADSL, we are 6km away, just on the limit for broadband, so we asked to be connected. Apparently that was not possible because the centre of our village was a further 1km away; we kept trying and were making some progress, then somebody in FT found that as our village centre was only 4km from a totally different broadband-enabled exchange we could have it from there - which happened surprisingly quickly, including renewing the cables.

I'd be surprised if there are any more than half a dozen ADSL-enabled households in our commune, but there you are. And we get pretty decent speeds, considering.