We move into our new French house Thursday week. Rural part of Deux-Sevres, 5-6km from a town of any size. No phone line. (The old number disconnected in 2004 and now reallocated).
Selectra recommend a 4G box via SFR that plugs into the electricity supply and magics the internet into the house. According to them, our village has a decent 4G signal…according to a map of 4G coverage, it doesn’t - though a village around 2km away does somehow seem to register.
Is the only alternative a new phone line with an ADSL i/net connection ? And how long would that take to fix up ? And how much would it cost ?
Anyone have experience of i/net via satellite with SkyDSL ?
(Getting cellphone access doesn’t seem a problem - and in any event, we can continue ‘roaming’ with our non-French plan for a while yet.)
Trying to find neighbour’s email. Prob is if I do need a new landline + i/net, this seems to be a relatively lengthy process to get up/running and I don’t honestly fancy living off our phones for the first month or so in France - esp as the cell plans aren’t French !
Probably a bit late to this party but… the SFR 4G boxes work great. I live in a place that according to the 4G map also doesn’t have coverage, but apparently either the map is wrong, or I’m just lucky. It does get signal, 4 out of 5 bars. It’s fast enough to Netflix with, and thus by extension to pretty much do everything else.
If you cellphone works, chances are you do get 4G because, well, it works - and you’re most likely roaming on SFR, so the SFR 4G box will also work
The SFR box itself is a case of your order it, it comes to your house (or you get it at the store), you plug it in, and voila, all done. WiFi credentials are on a sticker on the box itself.
SkyDSL is something I would stay far, far away from. Any internet that involves satellites is slow, and if it isn’t slow, it’s going to cost an outrageous amount of money. The latency (time it takes for magic internet bits to go from A to B) is also very high since you’re going off-planet and then back again, so overall it’s a frustrating experience. Also thunderstorms tend to lead to lost connections and other such fun.
Thanks Ben…very helpful comments abt the SFR box. Could I ask what the signal’s like throughout a house - and whether plug-in repeaters might be needed ? (Not a big issue if they are…) Wireless printing Ok with this system ?
Just one thing to note on the cost side of things. The SFR box comes in at 35€/month and the Bouygues one a little less at 33€/month - both with a 200GB limit per month. However, Bouygues offer an ‘unlimited use’ option for 43€/month - not sure if SFR offer the same - maybe @benvanstaveren knows?
On the Bouygues system - no repeaters necessary in my thick walled , stone house - printer, home security, surveillance cameras, video doorbell (125m from the house!), smart TV, IPTV, Google WiFi network and all our devices work seamlessly. The 4G box can cope with up to 32 connected devices.
Hi Simon,
Ive been looking at the Bouygues 4G box as well. My (soon to be) new house in Aude has only 3mbps according to Ariase. Wont be upgraded for 2 yrs accordingto maire. The online bumf at Bouygues dosnt mention support for VOIP telephone, which is supported by all the providers over ADSL/VDSL/VDSL2/Fibre. I have this at my current abode and its great. Do you get this with the Bouygues 4G box ?
No Raymond - no VOIP - they’ve disabled the socket on their routers. Maybe use your own router with their SIM in it? Maybe someone else has tried this?
I scrapped my landline at the same time as I got the 4G box last March - no need for it - we have those portable phone things !!!
Yeah, want to scrap the physical landline as well if I can. No point in having it really. Trouble is, I dont like these new fangled mobiley thingamajigs :-). Just looked up the SFR 4G box, and it does do VOIP with free calls to fixed & mobile. This may be what I go for.
Edit: And the SFR offering is a rolling monthly contract rather than fixed 12 months that increases after that.
