How much are you paying for broadband and phone today?

Okay I think I follow the idea of using VOIP/ISDN through a cheaper ISP provider, so I don’t need calls.

But what I don’t follow is that the ISDN line to the house (in my case from Orange) which runs down the lane on a number of their Posts to get to me (as the last in the line) will still be enabled/maintained if I go elsewhere. That is unless part of the package from the new supplier includes all the infrastructure and maintenance for the supply, presumably by either subcontracting Orange, or providing it themselves on Orange hardware, which if that’s the case, all seems to be at a cheap price beyond belief ?

So if I ditch Orange, and then say one of the Posts or part of the Line was to fail (say through a Storm, a not unknown event), then I simply sign up to Orange for a month, during which time they come out and make everything good, all in order for me to then cancel with them, and go back to the other provider. Unfortunately that sounds too good to be true, as I seem to remember the shortest contract Orange would offer me was 12 months, and that they have refused to provided any new Lines in our Village, so I’m pretty sure they would reallocate my line to another house. All assuming that they (Orange) were happily letting another ISP use their resources free of charge up until it went wrong.

Or am I miss-cuing ?

Hi James We have orange second home contract which we are changing as we are coming back to France to live again. (:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes::grinning:) Is the contract you have just taken out giving a good service and who is it with please? I asked the orange helpline once whether we had to have the landline and pay for it as we only ever used the internet service they said we did.Reading this thread think I was misinformed.
Thanks Briony

I’m not sure that you were misinformed, second home contracts are different.

I no longer pay line rental on a second home orange contract for phone/Internet. We now only have Internet. I now no longer suspend the service when we are away as it is half the price it doesn’t seem worth it.

No, absolutely not! Changing providers can be a very faffy business, you certainly wouldn’t chop and change like that. You simply contact your provider and report the fault. Your provider has a business arrangement with Orange whereby Orange continues to maintain all the lines, regardless of provider.
Some people assert that you get quicker solutions if you’re an Orange customer than if you go through a third party but in 10 years I haven’t had a line problem (touch wood!) so I have no personal experience. I did have a problem with my box and my provider was able to run all the tests, ascertain that it was the alicebox not the line that was at fault, they sent me a new box and everything worked again.

Other ISPs don’t use Orange’s resources free of charge, they have business arrangement with Orange. If you want to see what other providers are available at your address there are sites online where you can check - not every provider has an arrangement for every postcode.

I think you’re overthinking this. Probably more than 50% of people in France use providers other than Orange. The system works.

My experience with Orange is that they will tell you whatever you want to hear to upgrade/keep you as a customer. Their after sales service is appalling IMO!

I went in to one of the shops once, that’s not much better either.

The VOIP service I have is great, they are sending me a domestic system to try, if it’s as good, I’ll let you have the details, should have it soon.

http://www.survivefrance.com/t/orange-you-have-got-to-be-joking/3749

They have been absolutely brilliant in my experience. That’s the problem, a few customers have issues and a whole brand is slated. I chose Orange because it was the obvious choice and nothing that any of the other providers have offered have made me consider changing to them. Just because there is a choice you don’t have to opt for another provider.

I have a 2nd home in Vienne, I pay 31.50/month, no landline rental for unlimited internet and free VOIP calls to UK landlines only, it’s with PhonExpat. They have English speaking staff and good technical support. Even so I’ll be very interested in Jame’s experience. Most of our family in UK prefer mobile and rarely answer landline phone which means having to send a text & SHOUT pick up!

30 euros/month for internet, landline and one basic mobile phone subscription. This is with Sosh (lowcost brand of Orange), so excellent service quality of Orange but with bargain prices.
French TV we watch with Fransat via satellite, only an initial investment of 130 euros in box+card, no subscription fees.

We’re stuck with Orange for the line itself as we are not in an unbundled area, went with them for Internet as well as it turned out there isn’t much cash to be saved (or any) if you have to pay Orange for the line and another ISP for internet. It’s just over 50€ per month - the equivalent package on BT (phone+net+TV) is more, so I suppose it is not too unreasonable. At least the village has VDSL so we get a pretty decent line speed, generally 80Mbps down but Orange itself can be a bottleneck and it has slowed down to not much more than 10-15Mbps at peak times.

At the moment 600€ per year for the 6 weeks of the year that we are there seems a lot. If we ever get the place rented it won’t seem as painful. I haven’t even set up the TV box as I only took the TV because that was the only way to get VDSL and we have the UK catch-up apps on the telly, Freesat and terrestrial French TV. We don’t generally bother with the latter and as far as the Orange TV offering goes, I need 130 channels (or whatever it is) of French TV like I need a third armpit!

That’s about 35% more than I pay for 12 months with Orange.

What plan are you on?

I pay about €35 euros a month. I do not pay anything for a phone or phone line as VOIP calls are included.

So you are probably on Livebox Zen and are out of the 12 month discount period which means you will be paying 33.99€ (+ 3€ if you have the TV box) or on Livebox Play but still within the 1st 12 months in which case you pay 34.99€ which is going to go up to 39.99€ after 12 months.

Obviously you do pay for the copper pair to be provided within the above fees.

Yes, I considered going down the VOIP route with Orange, it is a bit cheaper as retaining your “ligne fixe” amounts to an extra 12,96€ per month.

However the original game plan was to run everything VOIP and provide a UK number for the house, as well as a French number and also allowing any renter a limited amount of phone use. All of that needs a custom SIP or IAX server and dial plan. Unfortunately that would not play so well with using the Livebox modem so keeping the phone line meant that I could use my own gear - which I did when I briefly had ADSL. Switching to VDSL stopped that at the time - I now know the configuration needed to get VDSL and the TV box working with a 3rd party modem but just haven’t had the time/energy to sort it. Too many other jobs around the place. I’m also going off my original plan for various technical and economic reasons but haven’t quite formulated a plan for how I do want to set things up.

Err, no. I am on a standard Orange contract that has remained at the same price for the last four years. I just need an Internet connection and to receive and make phone calls so VOIP is brilliant and saves a lot of money. There is certainly no need to pay for a landline and I believe that the fact that you do seems to contradict your comment about the cost. I have no idea why anyone would want a U.K. number linked to their French phone but I’m sure it’s important for some people. International calls don’t seem to be a problem for visitors, every single person who has stayed with me this year has used their own mobile to call home as they have all had international calls included in their contracts. In my opinion Orange provide a good service at a fair price. My mobile contract is with another provider but I have never been tempted by another company for my internet connection and fixed phone.

I agree with some of your comments but not everyone’s circumstances are the same - for one thing there is no mobile coverage in the house so you have to go outside where there is just about a signal - which is not so convenient. In any case post Brexit UK mobile phone companies will not be bound by the roaming rules so using one’s own phone might start to become expensive again.

I mostly agree about the UK number. It seemed like a good idea when we bought - I’m less sure now, but we’ll come back to the lack of mobile coverage. The number itself won’t cost me anything anyway as I have “spare” numbers from my UK VOIP provider that I’m not using.

Whatever tariff you are on it sounds similar to the current ones. Livebox Zen has definitely been going two years but I don’t know about four. Do you get international calls in the tariff, if so does that include to mobiles?

You are missing the point, my phone calls do not cost me a cent more than the basic tariff. My contract does not include calls to UK mobiles but that is not an issue because there are plenty of ways to speak to people on their smart phones without or, if the worst comes to the worst, the cost of an international call mobile to mobile is pretty insignificant. I could certainly do a lot of talking for the money you are paying out for your six weeks of convenience.

Neither do mine - once you have the internet part of the equation even if you retain the ligne fixe calls are free.

EDIT: Anyway we’re drifting away from the point. Orange will do you phone and ADSL internet for 33.99€ per month, that package includes international landline calls but not mobile. They have an English speaking sales and technical helpline but sales can be pretty hard to get through to. If you want VDSL and it’s available in your area you need to take the basic TV package for an extra 3€ per month (officially for renting the TV decoder).

If for some reason you want to keep a physical phone line which most people won’t care about it is an extra 12,96€ per month.

I now see what you mean about using one’s own phone; you meant visitors using their mobiles, I presumed you meant my landline. I don’t think that Brexit should make a difference to most visitor’s mobile calls, my daughter and at least one of my friends get inclusive calls and data worldwide, not just within the EU. I don’t know about the others because the topic never cropped up.

Brexit has the potential to make calls more expensive because it was EU legislation which forced the prices down, eventually making it that your calls had to cost the same wherever you roamed within the EU. Once we’re out we won’t be bound by that and it is not that long ago that using a UK mobile in France was pretty expensive.

I’m not aware of any UK domestic mobile phone tariffs which include international calls, not to say someone doesn’t offer one, of course. I think that there are some 3rd party numbers available that you can go through.