Well, we’re now into November and we still don’t have a phone line or internet connection (except we do have an Airbox on loan at the moment). The problem started on September 18th.
There’s been a major outage in our area and at one time more than 700 households were affected. Now it’s down to around 10. Stuart has been keeping an eye on the condition of the wires, connectors and poles around our area. Some of the new poles are already busted and the state of the wires is nothing short of disgusting. How anyone is connected is a miracle.
The Orange Help Line do call on our mobile to give us updates but even they don’t know the full story. One of the Agents said ‘don’t worry, I’ll be with you all the way until this has been fixed.’ We haven’t heard from him since! The info on our Orange account says ’ Rest assured, your service will be fully connected on …’ This has gone on for ages and the date comes and goes and a new ‘rest assured date’ is given when the previous date has been and gone.
What worries us now is that the latest date for connection is 6th November. We have Orange (or its sub-contractor) coming to connect us to Fibre on 7th November. Our new Livebox5 box will be delivered on Monday.
We’re fairly patient people and don’t ‘go off into one’ like some of the customers the CS Agent mentioned but what we can’t understand is why we haven’t been told what the real problem is.
Surely they could have built a phone line from here to Timbukto quicker than they’ve been working in our area.
They don’t have a problem with sending the bills out - we received our usual monthly one a couple of days ago. I know we will be reimbursed for the time we have been without the phone/internet but why was one sent out in the first place.
This has been grinding on for several months really - since August we have been had problems with our line. Thankfully at that time we managed to get an Airbox which, as I say, we have been able to use and have it now until December. Fingers crossed it’s all fixed by then - I’ve been looking for an emoji with hair standing on end but can’t find one, but I think you get the idea!!
Having previously worked for a Telco (back in the UK, and not Orange) I can shed some light on this.
The billing system is completely separate from the other systems, so it’s largely unaware of the operational side of the business. Billing systems - or Billing and Revenue Management to give it its proper name - sits under what’s called the BSS (Business Support Systems) side of the business, whereas the tools used to manage and monitor the state of the network sit under the OSS (Operational Support Systems) side.
Although BSS applications get some information from OSS systems, it’s limited in scope i.e. data about calls made or data consumed, etc… that is needed to calculate your bill. But the BRM system won’t be aware that the network for one particular subscriber is down so it’ll just generate the bill as per normal.
Bear in mind that these systems are provided by different vendors, and there are multiple vendors a Telco can choose from, so it’s not really feasible to expect these different systems to share that level of data. They’re complex enough systems as it is. It’s easier and cheaper for Telcos to manually reconcile billing issues afterwards, although I get that as an affected customer that’s frustrating.
We understand what you’re saying about the different sides of the business but in our case, apart from the information we have in the ‘depannage dossier’ in the Customer Area of our account, who else would know the problems we have encountered over the past couple of months in order to get reimbursement and compensation.
@SuePJ has given us the address of the CEO of Orange France to write to if we are not satisfied with the outcome and if all else fails, we will write to him but in the meantime, besides the help line, who else knows of our situation.
And culturally it seems very hard or even by default impossible to recover any overpaid amounts on subscription services where payments continued to be made or taken even though service was not provided.
I’m still trying to understand more of this. But from my observation it seems as though once a subscriptipn starts (ie service you’re signed up to that is charged monthly or at other intervals), it’s as though that right to take money continues no matter what but the obligation to provide an acceptable level of whatever service has been contracted for, does not. Until you follow some onerous procedure for cancellation involving you trapped in the service they’re not providing for far too long before you can get out.
So action sooner to receive a credit back each month till solved is what I’d try for. Or get out and find another provider and cut your losses with this one. Which loss, you may remain uncompensated for anyway even if you stay and regardless of lack of service being proved.
You can’t beat a good moan, can you. Well, here’s ours.
As you may know, we have been without the internet and the phone since September 18th. We were promised that service would be restored on about 10 or 12 dates and each of these dates have been and gone and we still don’t have a service. The latest date for the fix is 28th November!
In the meantime we had a visit from an Orange Sales Rep who offered us fibre and the installation was scheduled for today at 10.00hrs. Everything was in order and we completed the necessary details for the installation. Two sub contractors arrived on time and after looking around and climbing up the ladder fixed the coil of fibre wire to the outside wall. One technician made a phone call, didn’t sound too happy, and established that ‘there was a problem and you must phone Orange’. We called the Help Line and the agent said she had not received a report from the contractors yet, but would phone us this afternoon to give us an update.
So the promise of a fibre connection has not materialised and we are getting more and more frustrated. There doesn’t seem to be any urgency to get this (along with the copper connection) completed. Back in the olden days, one department knew what another department was doing within a company because there was communication between everyone but now, with the companies being so big, all that has been lost and each department is autonomous,
I think quechoisir.org has articles that are free to non-subscribers, on some level of compensation that exists, for non provision of services under telecoms contracts / delays to repair / missed appointments.
As there seems to be a local culture of continuing to take payments for services not provided, not just in telecoms, in various ways… And as it seems quite hard to recover all sorts of overpayments in various contexts one hears about incidents of…
Personally, I’d advise you to do s Google "site: " search on quechoisir.org, and check the fine print of your contract with whatever you can get of:
compensation
suspension of payments till fixed
reduction of payment amounts from now till fixed
full or partial refund for previous service not receuved and/or ongoing credit amount back till fixed
a serious reduction in your monthly.cost regardless of if problem is fixed, for 1-3 years ahead.
Latest development sounds like the wired signal is not even reaching your house.
It may need you to send them a tracked Mise en Demeure email or ADR hard copy, but patience and being nice alone haven’t sounded to get results in quite a few cases we hear about here.
Strange isn’t it, I’ve never had a problem with Orange either here in Normandy or previously in the Creuse. Maybe just an area thing, but always found the helpline(s) friendly and efficient too.
Never had a problem in the sense that they have responded to and fixed issues, or never had an issue to put them to the test.
To be fair I had ten years of quite reasonable service. On the occasion that updates to the water supply and drains left me with 30m of cable dangling from a pole rather than connected chez moi they had a team out the same week and I actually saw an increase in speed after new cable was affixed.
But the problems this year have been dealt with in a most unsatisfactory manner.
Well, yes the helpline has been friendly enough but engineering has been useless.
Getting ready for the next time the technicians come, Stuart is asking are there any rules and regulations for where, on the outside of the house, the box has to be fitted.
Our man wanted to fit it at waist height, drill a hole through the (3ft thick) wall and come inside the front room and tack the cable along the wall to the corner of the room where the Livebox is situated. He isn’t happy with that as it would be very unsightly.
He would like it to come in like the current ADSL line, through an upstairs window frame into the loft/attic and come down the wall in the front room at the corner and connect to the Livebox. Floor to ceiling is about 10ft.
It really surprises me how many people either stick with or go with Orange when for the majority of people, other options are available. Orange are the very worst, most dishonest French telco it will be your privilege (not) to deal with.
JUST DON’T GO ANYWHERE NEAR THEM IF IT’S AT ALL POSSIBLE.
I sympathise. I have had no internet since the 14th of October, particularly tedious as I’m still stuck at home. I’ve got an air box now. This is what it’s like chez moi, great innit. However they are apparently getting fibre to us soon, so time will tell.
