I’m thinking of changing from Sosh to Free, mostly because I prefer Free’s TV setup, but I’m a bit cautious of the risk of losing service during the changeover. Does anyone have any experience of how smooth, or otherwise, it’s likely to be?
I was with SFR for years until joining FREE about 8 years ago now and from what I remember, all went relatively easy but SFR still operate the email on FREE and the fibre optique was put in by Orange in this new house in 2022 that was organised by FREE. All technical problems with FREE were dealt with immediately and new control boxes were dispatched fast too when the originals stopped working. I have paid the same monthly fee for the past 8 years.
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I’ve just signed up with Orange and they preemptively offer an extra 200gb (presumably 5G ) free to “keep you going” over the transition to them from another ISP. So it may not be as smooth as one would expect for a flick of a switch.
Fibre has only reached us this month. Free would be my preferred supplier. But having suffered the ADSL finger pointing of SFR and I can’t remember who in the past I’ve opted for Orange end to end initally. After we’re stable and I’ve no more need of one throat to choke we’ll move to Free.
Mine is being installed tomorrow. I’ve gone with RED (SFRs cheaper sibling) as I’ve been with them for over six years with VDSL over copper and not had any issues. They say an engineer will come to install the fibre and the box which should be easy as we have underground gaine from the pole to inside the house where the copper cable goes. They say that they won’t disconnect the copper until the fibre is working so the change should be seamless. I can’t think why there should be any interruption in service for you but then again, we’re talking about Orange 
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I already have fibre so it’s changing from one provider to another and I just can’t convince myself that it will be smooth.
Our experience with Orange was fine. Despite the need for a major re-route in the lane hey did an excellent job with no interruptions and no charge for installation nor for the usage afterwards.
We’re looking at doing that too - mainly because Orange shafted us with the initial fibre installation. We wanted a straightforward replacement for our ADSL and actually got a top-of-the-range system (albeit no faster than friends who have the basic one).
Looking at changing perhaps to Bouygues… Like you, I’m not at all sure how smooth the transition will be.
We have been with Free since way back when in the UK… and wanted to stay with them now that Fibre is available to us …. since April 2025.
Been asking Free month after month, but they can’t connect us for some reason. aargh
We’ve been to the Free shop (lovely people) and even had a Free technician out to see what’s what…. (lovely guy, he couldn’t understand why we couldn’t be connected… obviously something missing further up the chain ?)
Finally, OH snapped! We were the only ones in the village who hadn’t got Fibre and ADSL-copper was getting slower and slower and slower. Free kept apologising… but… aaaargh.
After research we opted for Bouygues (we call it boogie-woogie)
Spoke at the Boogie shop on the Friday and their technician came on the Tuesday. It took him less than 90 minutes to have us up and running.. hurrah.
Excellent! OH can’t believe the speed downloading/uploading whatever.
(Free are aghast that we’ve left ‘em 
and want to know why??? 
)
We’ve had no hiccups since the changeover.
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Haha, I’ll think of that the next time I see their advert on telly.
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Well, no matter how I try.. I can’t pronounce it properly and my French friends have been getting just a little exasperated with me… now they laugh, we all laugh ..
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We know someone who can’t pronounce it either. Boo-eeg doesn’t work for her and she says it as bougie, like candle in French.
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I pronounce it Bweeg as per the son of my old employer who was a director there.
I have just got Starlink - latest offer is free hardware if you commit for one year at €40/month. Less than orange ADSL at €41. Delivery was one week.
Orange were due to finally convert me to fibre shortly in our small hamlet. They came to the nearby town hall 2 weeks ago and could not give a date. They have put up posts with fibre wire through the woods!! Then the storm came and standard internet down till next Friday. Now a new text saying 27 November.
Two friends who live opposite each other have Starlink and Orange Fibre. The one with Orange is half the speed at 150mbps.
I hate Musk but in this case needs must.
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If that’s Orange fibre, and they’re using a cable to connect their device, then something sounds wrong.
If they’re measuring that over WiFi then all bets are off.
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Good point. I asked them to use Speedtest. I suspect both used a laptop. I recently moved from Belgium and with fibre was meant to have 300 but generally it was around 150, which is plenty fast enough for everyone except advanced gamers (so I am told). Anything has got to be better than the 10 that I get now.
If one is using wifi and sitting by “the box” it will surely give a decent measurement.
We have “the fibre box” at one end of the house. Then 3 repeaters (?) transmit (through the stone walls) to all our various computers and the TV. Very happy with the speed and the signal is strong enough for us to sit/wander outside and still be connected.. 
(now have to be firm and say “switch off” or I shall become addicted )
For context, I have 70Mb down (and 19 up) here in a village in the UK - that’s with normal broadband via “fibre to the cabinet” and copper wire for the last 150 metres or so.
That’s more than sufficient for 4K video streaming and for my needs in uploading photographs for clients.
Admittedly there are no online gamers on the premises!
Fibre to the house is available here but I see no point in spending the extra given that what i have is adequate.
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I had to buy a booster for my ring camera/bell as it fell about 2m short of the reception outside but other than that, can’t complain except when internet goes down and there is no TV or PC or tablet or gate bell.
I’m still on the DIY 4G (no 5G in the village) which varies from being as good or nearly as good as the old VDSL (FTTC) connection (which was generally 70Mbps down & 15 up) to being abysmal and/or refusing to work for several minutes.
This morning it’s a little better than average
I will definitely be getting fibre to the house when I can.
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