Gardengirl Posted October 12, 2009 Share Posted October 12, 2009 We finally have it! My OH has been going round all the shops, reading things on the internet etc for about 2 years now. He always asks me to go along to help out with the language (we're talking about maybe 6 times a year here!), and this time I said it would be the last accompanied visit. So we signed up with Neuf; it's dearer than I'd have liked, but as I've spent 50 euros at the internet cafe since arriving four weeks ago, there must be a saving to be made.So here it is, set up and working several days before the promised date. We've had problems with every blessed thing in this new apartment from poor workmanship by the builders to JLP losing our dining furniture between High Wycombe and France and lots more inbetween. However, this was early and worked immediately! So now we have internet and phone - free phone calls to UK etc. I'm thrilled, and it gives a member of the insomniac club something else to do in the wee small hours!GG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted October 12, 2009 Share Posted October 12, 2009 I think you have made a sensible choice.French friends are satisfied with neuf (isn't it SFR now?)I have free, but I believe the two are comparable.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gardengirl Posted October 14, 2009 Author Share Posted October 14, 2009 Yes, Norman, I believe it is SFR; in fact I think it said 'Neuf deSFR' on the box. I still find it hard to believe it was early and also works!No more wandering up to town to pay a fortune to the young men in the internet cafe, no more hordes of Americans needing to know how to use a French keyboard, no more terrible music playing, or invasions by young people at lunchtime and after college. It all seems very tame now!GG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Hi we have two sets of friends local to us who use Neuf/SFR with the all inclusive package including the telephone. On balance they seem quite happy with it and do benefit from the free phone call option. We have not gone this route yet, attractive though it is, and have an AOL box, also Neuf/SFR but without the phone connected to the box. We don't make many telephone calls and whilst our broadband contract charges our phone calls to our AOL/Neuf/SFR account we still pay a rental for the phone line to Francetelecom. This seems the cheapest of the three options for us just now, i.e. 1/ broadband only separate phone and line rental 2/ broadband and phone with separate line rental 3/ broadband, phone and line rental all included. Not making many phone calls as we do the middle option seems best for us and we don't need the AOL box working to make calls. Our mobile will not work chez nous as there is a big hill between us and the nearest mast, if it did then I might go for option 3/. I don't know if others would agree with my analysis? I would make a couple of points however. The first is that if you have a failure of the Neuf/SFR box you loose both broadband and the phone connection and it needs to be switched on all the time. We have had problems with thunderstorms taking out our phone a couple of times but I do have a spare should the need arise. The phones that went phutt were both of the electronic portable type and one supposes a bit sensitive to a few thousand volts on the line during a lightening strike nearby. Our ordinary non portable phone was unaffected. On another occasion a storm took out the AOL box but I was impressed how quickly they replaced it. One phone call and it was sent to a local garage for collection the next day and all for free. They seem to have drop off points around the country for just this purpose. All we had to do was hand in the old box at the same time. Another point is that the speech from people making a phone call to us and using that system often seems to have brief drop-outs on their speech, not seriously so but it can be annoying. I know it is them and not us as it only happens when the caller has that system.If you live in the countryside, as we do, with overhead lines for power and telephone then I would urge you to fit protection devices for both if you have not yet done so. Even then you cannot consider yourself fully protected and it pays to shut the system down and pull out the telephone line and power connection during thunderstorms. You can buy combined power and phone protection devices from places like Bricomarché.......................................JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 [quote user="JohnRoss"]... a storm took out the AOL box but I was impressed how quickly they replaced it. One phone call and it was sent to a local garage for collection the next day and all for free. They seem to have drop off points around the country for just this purpose. All we had to do was hand in the old box at the same time. [/quote]The same thing happened when our Neufbox died last week. SFR-Neuf also use the drop-off network used by the mail-order catalogues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 I should add that whilst it is sensible to pull out everything during storms it is a bit of a problem with sat' boxes as the feed from the LNB on the dish is usually an F connector which is a pain to have to unscrew, even more so if you have a double or quad feed from the LNB into something like a Humax box. We get storms several times a year and I don't think the connector would last long with all that unscrewing so we don't bother but hope that we don't regret this decision!............JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gardengirl Posted October 14, 2009 Author Share Posted October 14, 2009 We also suffer from big thunder storms; the phone and Neuf box have already been unplugged because of that. Thanks for the warning, though.GG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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