Me too.
It does seem to be too good to be true, and this is France…
Sosh has shown that fibre is available in our hameau for many months. It’s not. They have told me that they will install fibre when 4 properties (in a hameau of 6) ask for it. But they show it as available as the fibre cable ‘passes within 500m of the properties’ …
I’m also a little sceptical, but SFR happily accepted the fibre order as being valid for our address, and agreed to install on Thursday. A huge effort was made 2 years ago by a Departement-backed and subsidised consortium, to extend fibre throughout this rural area. The Mairie say that 99% of our houses are now capable of being immediately connected to fibre.
Inevitably SFRs ordering system refused to accept I could be called George, and insisted it had to be Georges, refused to accept I didn’t have an existing fixed line number, and demanded my department of birth number (for London!). I used 99, which I remember from my tax return, and the system liked that.
What did you put down for inside leg measurement?
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At least SFR’s ordering system didn’t ask about my house valuation 
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How close is the box/cable to your house?
When we decided we wanted cable to our cottage the technician arrived expecting to find everything ready for the final installation. When he realised we needed two posts and a cable extended from our entrance 75m down to our cottage he left!
I think you are very kind referring to them as a technician 
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At least it wasn’t “engineer”
Or “operative”. As in “refuse disposal operative” for “binman”. 
While we’re on job titles, the one I find most weird is signs in supermarkets that say “if you need help, please ask a colleague”. They may be your colleagues matey, but they’re not mine!
There’s a manhole cover with France Telecom in the verge, near our drive, and I’m guessing that’s where any cable would have to come from. Having just paced it out, it’s 70m from that manhole cover along the road, into our drive and up to our front door. I hope that’s not an unusual distance. I do wonder if they dig little trenches for the fibre cable along our drive or whether the cable simply sits above ground.
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Round us, the fibre along the road was dug in but then brought to the surface and a white box plus a length of cable attached to the nearest electricity or telephone post. The technicians who install the fibre then string it to the house. In most cases, that involves at most stringing to the highest point outside the property and then bringing it into the house. You pay to have it connected or do it yourself.
For our house, the fibre was strung down our chemain rural from the main road using the electricity poles already along our chemin. If you don’t have existing poles that they can use* down your drive I suspect they will not install.
EDIT: * or a trench ready dug
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We live in a mobile phone white zone , with poor to nil reception in a rural location .
Thus we were fortunate to get fibre for two years, and it’s fabulous!
Speeds exceed what we tolerated from BT in our past UK home in an isolated village.
Enjoy the connectivity!!
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If a trench and gaine is required, they’ll almost certainly expect you to sort that out.
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Exactly the same here. The department built in all the rural fibre here with government and EU financial support. My neighbour ordered fibre from Sosh and it was installed five days later. I think the installation of the fibre is done by the operating company that the department contracted to maintain the infrastructure. If it was done by Orange I suspect it may take a lot longer.
This is how it’s done in our village. The little white boxes are everywhere and we have one at the property boundary, next to the copper line box. We have gaine from there to the electricity cupboard inside the house.
or just getting over the hill…
Think we’re all in agreement that the illustration could be improved.
Unless you already have underground feed of electricity and telephone. If so they will simply push it down the existing tube, no need for any digging at all.
This is how we were connected to fibre last year, a box was placed across the lane years ago and all our overhead cabling disappeared into it, so the job was very quick and easy with no disruption.
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Thank you…Yes, there seem to be several electricity/phone style tubes emerging from the house, which disappear underground, and (presumably) are the same as the ones that pop up above ground at the boundaries of our house with the road. Hopefully this will help.
The ‘aerial’ route suggested by Sue is not unfortunately available - we don’t have nearby electricity or telegraph poles.
I take JohnHs point that trenches etc would be for our account (not heard of the word ‘gaine’ before today - now slightly better informed!).
They won’t run it through an electrical duct but, if you have one for telephone (usually green these days), it would be worth checking if it’s clear from end to end.
It means not to ask someone you see, but their colleague, and when you go to ask the colleague the same rule applies.
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