what do you actually get.

[billy10]

Hi everyone,

                  I have been watching with interest all of the mails regarding setting up broadband and telephone etc , and being a relative bonehead on these matters I still think it seems relatively easy like just going to say FREE and subscribing to a package for around thirty euros a month, this as I understand it gives you a broadband connection and a facility to use a VOIP phone via the modem. Is it truly a free phone call , say that you use your VOIP phone to ring a UK landline is there no charge what so ever ??, also what if you ring a UK mobile No , or is that not possible, I also understand that it is normally required to keep the FT line so rental per month still happens as far as FT are concerned and providing the FT phone is only used for incoming calls I presume there is no other charge. Have I got it right because I will need to get on line fairly quickly after arriving in France permanantly on 26th August.

Thanks all

Billy10

 

 

 

[Martin963]

I can't speak for free directly,  but we have Club Internet with a similar set up and our bill really is exactly what they said it would be,  viz €31.90 per month.

Having said that,  I have been very careful ONLY to ring ordinary land line nos in the UK;  for example ringing an 0870 no via VOIP costs €0.99  per min,  yes,  ladies and gentlemen,  you did read that right.   Costs of calls like that would be added to the monthly charge.

So check the website for charges to non-landline numbers.

Indeed,  if you do not use the FT line for outgoing calls then you will only pay the €15 per month there.   Whilst in many areas you can dump FT I would recommend sticking with them at least to start with;  our ADSL falls over regularly of an evening but if we had a crisis we could still (at a cost) dial out with FT,  and indeed receive calls (if the ADSL falls over and you don't have FT then your phone won't ring,  as some friends of ours who dumped FT have found to their annoyance).

[Danny]

Billy

just to add... what you are saying is correct. I spent a year with ClubInternet and am now with Alice. We did not have any significant call charges for all that year. So I am very happy to use the VOIP. Just the occasional short call to a mobile. There are charges for countries not covered by the free calls and to mobiles and 0870 type numbers. But, READ THE SMALL PRINT.There are some not so obvious charges.

For example, with Neuf, Unlimited VOIP calls are only limited to France unless you give up the FT line. This is different to all the others.

 I have just changed to Alice and it is fairly straightforward. They do have 3 month free offer on at the moment which makes a good saving. The best thing about Alice so far is that it is the only ISP with free calls to customer service or tech help. When the Club Internet ADSL went down for 4 - 5 days about 2 months ago, it cost about 30 euros in calls to them to find out what was going on and basically their customer service was rubbish. This is normal with all the ISPs. They all seem fine when everything is working and really crap when it is not. So far, Alice has been very good in that department.

I have kept the FT line for now as Martin recommended. My main concern was not to make calls but to receive calls if there is an ADSL problem.

Also, allow about 2 weeks for the ADSL to be set up by the ISP and FT.

If you have any more questions, please ask

Danny

[AnOther]

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]The best thing about Alice so far is that it is the only ISP with free calls to customer service or tech help.[/quote]Sorry Danny gotta correct you there, Teleconnect's help line is a free 0805 number.

PS: Is that REALLY the best thing about Alice, not much of a recommendation.............[Www]

[Danny]

OK Ernie, stand corrected!

but Alice have so far answered pronto as well which is more than can be said for some of the others.

It is working very well too, Is that any better?

EDIT: still can't make the emoticons work...

Danny

[billy10]

Thanks for the interaction boys and girls , I think it will be wise to keep the FT line active for a while, since posting earlier today I have had a chance to look around the net and FREE seems a good deal with the FREEBOX setup for just under 30 euros a month so all in it looks like a phone bill of only 45 euros a month which still seems very low considering my other half ( some say other three quarters ) will use the VOIP phone to ring our six children in the UK probably more than she does now, I think it will take a while for me to get my head around the principle of free internet calls, It was interesting to note that some UK nos are not free so I think one has to be careful.

But thanks again for the very useful information , I now have a much better idea of how it works.

Regards

Billy10

 

 

[Martin963]

I'm gonna come to Danny's defence here - if I had known that Alice had a free help number I would have gone for them rather than CI.   I'd say it was a big plus.

As Danny says,  if things work OK there's little to choose between them.   If things go wrong they're as bad as each other.   But it was infuriating to pay €18 for two calls to CI to report that the system was down  (it was down for the whole locality,  all ISP's),  to be endlessly taken through menus that didn't solve the problem,  and still not have it working when I'd finished.

Mind you I had the satisfaction a few days ago of a poor young man called Philippe calling me from Club Internet to say that my line qualified for degroupage partiel and that I could ditch FT.   I told him in no uncertain terms that the VOIP service was far from reliable,  certainly not reliable enough to be my sole telephone link to the civilised world.   He asked if I'd reported it to "service client",  at which point I nearly exploded,   saying yes I had,  it had cost me €18 to do so,  and hadn't made any difference.

He went away somewhat crushed.  I did assure him it wasn't personal.