Finally, we are being offered a connection to the fibre that was laid in our commune at the beginning of the year and we are trying to work out the total costs of switching over before we start talking to Orange.
At the moment we pay for the Orange livebox AND a fixed landline.
Can someone please confirm - does the offer of 22,99 euros a month for fibre INCLUDE the landline costs? Or is the landline cost on top?
Thanks for any help/advice.
Lucky you Sue. I drive by a Telecom cabinet a km from our house that has fibre lurking inside everyday. I watched then pull the fibre two years ago. However, I do get regular chatty emails from Orange telling me that fibre is coming soon…
You shouldn’t need a landline at all. In the “old” days one had to have a landline and then subscribe for broadband on top of that. Then there was the miracle of unbundling. So for a while I paid Orange for my landline and some other provider for my broadband and then, the big breakthrough, you could dump the landline (ie the voice contract) and just keep the broadband one and use VOIP phone calls. Your number will change to an 09 from (in our case) 04.
BTW, it would be interesting to know if you’re getting fibre to the house or if the “last mile” is copper.
I think the final bit will be copper. The fibre goes along the road and we have a turning off down a “chemin” just to our house.
Do you know John whether we can keep our old number? We were able to do so when we got rid of the landline to our gite and just kept the livebox.
I think the price of keeping the old number may be keeping your “landline” subscription. Though I’ve seen some debate somewhere on here about that. Off the top of my head I’d say no, because the “exchange” number changes to “09”. On the other hand it’s all switched through software so there’s no technical reason I can think of why you can’t keep the old number. I guess it’s a policy matter. Best to call Orange (good luck 
).
I shall be very interested how you get on when you do.
I am one of many who have had execrable c/s from Orange, to the point where an Orange person, having declared there was no fibre available in my street but was then told that I could send her a photo of a guy installing a fibre box with the Orange logo on it, over our street door, put the phone down on me.
My last attempt at terrestrial broadband ended when I cancelled my contract with SFR.
The line had been down for weeks so SFR sent out a technician who checked inside the house and found no problems (I could have told them that) so he promised to get an Orange technician to check the outside line. A few days later Mr. Orange pitches up and tells me there’s no fault outside. So I went back to SFR… we went through exactly the same process again with exactly the same result, so I gave them the heave ho.
I don’t think customer service is really a differentiator for telcos, they are all rubbish. Apart, that is, from when they are signing you up.
It’s one of the reasons why we stick with Orange for all our telecomms. If you use more than one provider it’s too easy for each to blame the other. We watched friends struggle for 10 weeks to get Free / Orange to sort out their loss of service. In the end they chucked Free and went back to Orange for everything and (amazingly) it was all resolved.
Yes, a single throat to choke as we used to say. In fact I’m doing exactly that now with a major pool, garden, garage, etc. etc. project. If it was in English under laws and contracts I’m familiar with I’d enjoy managing the whole thing myself, but here I need “one throat to choke” 
Great phrase - is there an equivalent in French?
Would “une gorge pour étrangler” work?
We managed to move our traditional phone number to a voip provider (but this was in UK). Now in France we can still use old UK phone number which is handy for UK based friends & family. We have now also taken a French phone number with the same voip provider.
You may be able to keep your old phone number with a voip provider for a fraction of the cost.
It may be different in towns but in rural Normandie all the fibre installations I’ve seen are FTTH (Fibre to The Home).
Hi can you tell me who provides your voip and how do you go about it as we still need to use our Uk no for family but need a French no but don’t particularly want a landline .thanks .