Pay as you go ADSL pls

[Iceni]

Is there a pay as you go ADSL that anyone would recommend. I have it confirmed from Tiscali that my line is enabled and will give a good service (6 mbits)  but our Tiscali dial-in will cease next week and I have this funny feeling that due to the fact that we are swapping from credit card to bank payment it is going to be a fair haul till we get Alice batting her eyelashes at us. If I have to have PAYG for a month or so I would rather it was high speed.

I have a friend who is moving in the UK and has to have a phone and broadband put on PDQ - large town in the SE known for its Uni and high tech abilities - the struggle she is getting to get 1 mbit ADSL makes me realise that where ever you are nowt changes.

Oh yes, a recommendation for a good ADSL modem would also go down well. The Alice box will arrive one day - well I presume it will.

My main ambition at the moment is to keep a line - a fair amount of phone and electricity cables are on the road as trees are coming down in this wind.

Thanks

[Deimos]

I am told that when you get connected to an ISP for ADSL, the ISP asks France Telecom to set-up your line and connect it to them and the ISP has to pay FT for this. It was generally quoted as taking up to 7 (or even 10) days, though is often done in a lot less. In my case (where ADSL was new to the area) it took around 5 days.

If ADSL is enabled on your line and connected to your ISP then you should be fine to go and use it – there should not be any delays. Most ISPs who are half switched-on will get you your ADSL box at the same time as FT get the line enabled (or within a day or so). If it is already enabled for Alice then you will not be able to use it for another ISP (at least that is the case with what FT have installed for ADSL around me). If this is not happening that maybe ask yourself if you have the right ISP and maybe change before you are committed.

During the switch-over I had to use PAYG dial-up NOT PAYG ADSL. I would image most ISPs would not bother with PAYG ADSL due to the set-up costs and time.

Most ISPs will offer a low cost ADSL box. I paid only €10 for my Ethernet router, but could have got a USB ADSL modem for €1 or a WiFi ADSL modem for €20. They are much more expensive in the shops so I would go with an ISP who can give you a cheap one.

Depending on location, different ISPs will offer different speeds. When ADSL in new to an area there will probably be fewer ISPs offering fewer speeds. Generally Wanadoo will offer the fullest range of speeds. When I first got ADSL, only Wanadoo offered anything. After around 9 months Cegetel started offering a service but only at one limited speed – but they have subsequently “pulled-out”, now over a years later with only Wanadoo offering any service (and at all speeds). I would suggest careful consideration as to which ISP you select, particularly if there may be “issues”.

Ian

[Iceni]

Deimos, many thanks for this - a great answer.

I have been with Tiscali since we first started using the net here over 2 years ago and the difference in speed of my dial-up connection to others locally who use AOL and Wanadoo is dramatic - they simply do not understand why my connection is so much faster.

Alice gives the best deal and speeds for the area I am in and the box is free and the monthly charge for up to 8 mbits is good. I was very silly, I had the chance of keeping my current 24x7 dial-in plus the ADSL until it was all sorted but did not really believe that they would cancel the 24x7 at a months notice. Now having read all the small print and the mails they have sent, that is what they will do - so I lose 24x7 dial-in next week. I have the mail from Alice that confirms that they have agreed the ADSL with FT from the 21st October but have to wait for the modem and then for some reason another week for the number and other details so I can actually use the box (very strange). I also get free phone calls in France - local and national for the 29€ a month. For an extra 1€ a month it seems I can have a roaming account but that just blows my mind and I have not yet worked out how that works.

As I said, to make matters worse, my card expires this weekend and the site would not let me update it (not the only one with this problem) so I have agreed to pay via the bank - which it now seems will delay everything further.

If I check Alice it says that I am already on the ADSL 24/7 haut debit. There is 2 months free so I suppose that is the 2 months it might take to get it sorted. It does give me the monthly payment that I don't have to pay to use for 'pay as you go'. I will use the Tiscali account I already have which again is fast.

I think Tiscali/Alice are totally overwhelmed with the response to this new offer - just at the time I am trying to get ADSL enabled. Wanadoo would have been a very easy alternative BUT the cost is far greater and I am not impressed with the service that my colleagues locally have had as well as clients with Wanadoo in the UK.

To use the enabled account with an ADSL modem I assume I would need the phone number etc to dial into with user name and password???????? Mind I have the phone number for the free phone usage (this is non dégroupée), you plug the phone into the Alice box and they give you a number as near as your FT number which you keep - so you can use their cheap overseas calls or use a standard FT phone for another supplier's cheap calls. You also get Wifi with the Alice box - I hope it makes a good cup of Earl Grey as well.

It does look a good deal - just a very slow way of getting there.

Anyone else using an Alice box????????????????

[Deimos]

I have no experience of Alice so cannot comment with personal knowledge of how they operate. (I completely gave up on Tiscali UK a couple of years ago and would never go near them again). However, for the ADSL connection you should not need a telephone number to “dial” (as you do not dial). I sounds line when they talk about the “telephone number2 they are probably talking about the telephone service that you are getting at the same time.

The “telephone account” is almost certainly a type of SIP (or similar or proprietary) system which should be roaming. Most SIP phones are fully roaming without this needing to be enabled. Could be that Alice are doing something proprietary to enable this to be charged for. Normally with a SIP telephone you just plug it into your router and it works. Doesn’t matter whose router not on which ISP. Basically it will be a VoIP type of connection.

As for username and password, depends on how they are administering things. When I changed from dial-up to ADSL my usernames and passwords stayed the same so it was completely painless move.

Sorry I cannot be more help

Ian

[Iceni]

You have been a great help. Since Alice took over Tiscali they have updated their web pages and all the info you could need to get onto ADSL for any bought modem/operating system is fully explained. If, as I hope, my username and password will stay the same and the problem is that they have been overwhelmed by the take-up of the offer so the Aliceboxes are out of stock, I might just treat myself to a standard ADSL modem and see if I can get on.

The written info I have says that my ADSL account is 'active since October 21, 2005', and the Alice site confirms this.

Oh the joys of technology.

Luckily I have two modern PC's and the fastest connection is obtained using an external Olitec modem - a more buggy bit of hardware/driver software I have never yet come across but it works 99% of the time at max dial-in speeds. It is just when you close the PC down you have to close every single program in memory or it is a 'pull the plug' job. I know I am not alone in this but the other internal modems are 'crawlers' compared to the Olitec and I have done the speed tests to prove it.

Any suggestions as to a good external ADSL modem pls - thanks for all this wonderful help by the way.

[Deimos]

Quote: (Iceni): “a more buggy bit of hardware/driver software I have never yet come across but it works 99% of the time at max dial-in speeds. It is just when you close the PC down you have to close every single program in memory or it is a 'pull the plug' job. I know I am not alone in this but the other internal modems are 'crawlers' compared to the Olitec and I have done the speed tests to prove it.”

I also used to use an Olitec SpeedCOM USB modem and when it works it is fine, but periodically it would “lock-up” in the driver code (or somewhere internally and stop working and software using it would also stop. This always happened when dialling. Closing down gave what sounds like the same “… End Task” dialogs for all sorts of internal processes. The system would then get to “Saving Settings” and stop there. Olitec have never addressed this. I did download the latest drivers ages ago and no better.

Once connected it is actually a very good modem. Just the “lock-ups” that make it a real pain.

One thing to check is; your ADSL account may be active within Alice but have France Telecom done their “work”. With (some ?) other ISPs, they create your account immediately as they need to do this to be able to put in the request for ADSL connection to France Telecom. Having an ADSL account enabled with Alice does not necessarily mean that FT have completed their connection work.

As for an ADSL box, if you are getting one free from Alice in a week or two you only need one short term so it will be down to what your local computer shop stocks at a reasonable price (price functionality balance for the week or two). Anything requiring delivery, etc. may end-up not arriving until after your free one from Alice arrives.

Most ISPs will not supply a single type of ADSL modem and it sounds probably that Alice is the same (their phone needing only a connection to a router). Thus they will not be dependent on a single supplier so they should get more in pretty quickly (or should be able to).

IAn

[BJSLIV]

The easy way to do it is to visit a hypermarket and buy the Alice/Neuf/Wandoo box off the shelf, and then sign up for ADSL.They give you a credit if ,like Alice, the box is "Free" , or in the case of neuf it's 20 euros cheaper off the shelf than by post.

Just to cheer up Iceni I have been in Geant today  and they must have had about 200 Aliceboxes  on display!

 

[Iceni]

Well I now seem to have the log-on for the ADSL modem - it is an update of my current log-on for dial-in. They also say that both systems are go... I must say that I am very very impressed with the Alice website - apart from the missing modem everything seems to be there, including instructions for 5 other modems. They have also sorted the change in payments method (which by normal French standard is probably a record).

BJSLIV, I already had a Tiscali account so it was easy to just update via the website The ADSL installation locally is new and has been problematic (in actually getting it installed not since installation), so I did not want to buy a box (which is free from Alice) and then find that like our near neighbours (less than 1 KM away) we can only get reADSL which is another ball game altogether, different box, expensive installation and when it arrives probably not much faster than dial-in.

So, do I buy a cheap modem and see if I can get on or do I wait for the Alice box - well it depends if we go past a Darty tomorrow - we are a long way from any decent hardware shops or hypermarkets so it is a bit of a trek when we need stuff, hence the reason I normally have two of everything.

Thanks again

[Iceni]

Bought a cheap Olitec ADSL modem and put my French to the test. It is all working and I will sort out the network tomorrow. If Alice in her very pretty box arrives on Monday I will at least have a spare (I am always the first person that our friends think of when anything is fried as I have always got a 'loan' whatsit.

Thanks for your help and the speed is rather scarey - I forgot just how fast it all was. I used the backup (newer) machine to set up the modem so I have to reset the network tomorrow, ah well there is the autumn fair and an extra hour in bed to look forward to.

Friends were round today and they will not get ADSL till late Q1 next year but as they seem to live on top of the communicator they will get speeds up to 20 mbits - the rest of the large village have had slower ADSL for quite some time - they have tried to pretend that technology can be avoided but by the sound of one of the voices - this is one speed freak who cannot wait.

Cheers - in some cases speed does make a difference .