Hello everybody, I have just noticed that Orange have increased our internet tariff by 6€, we have the crapest, slowest internet here, despite promises of super speedy upgrades (of two years ago, still waiting) so I thought it was about time to look around for a better deal, what we need is internet and phone calls in one package, even better if the phone calls are free to UK landlines and mobiles.....is there such a deal? And how do we change over from the iron grip of Orange?
I don't think Orange TV has anything to do with it because if you check their website it will tell you that you need a minimum of 4 mbps otherwise it is a dish type installation.
We were upgraded just over two weeks ago and our speed went from 1 mbps (on a good day) to a constant 37mbps (it is supposed to be 40 mbps but I am not going to argue over losing 3 mbps at this speed) so they are rolling out faster equipment all be it rather slowly. All I need to do now is contact Orange to change my decoder from satellite to Internet and then I can rent films etc. That said I do understand what it must be like coming down from 25 to 1 mbps as for us going up to 37 mbps is fantastic, it's like winning the lottery.
Hear, hear Mr Dodgson!
Good rant and quite right.
I went to the Mairie this morning on other business but in passing echoed the sentiment expressed in this forum concerning the Orange internet tariff increase as the service diminishes to almost dial-up speeds. I moved to St Aubin in Lot et Garonne 11 years ago and then it was dial-up. in 2003 we got broadband and by the standards of the time it was very good (certainly better than dial-up). That was 10 years ago and there has been no improvement in this timeframe - in fact as more people in the village subscribed and Orange/FT added other features like TV on demand etc it has got more and more clogged. I now, notionally, receive 1.7 megabits/s but it is far worse than that most of the time. As I am mostly UK based and have just got super fast broadband at 25 megabits/s the poor performance here is probably more noticeable. I asked the mayor what official representation is being made to the governmennt to get internet service providers to supply a country-wide improved capability that is appropriate to 2014 and a modern forward looking France. He was embarrassed and said he would look into it! Nice man! I also made the point that if you live in the larger towns and cities where it is fast you pay the same tariff to Orange/FT as those living in the sticks. My point was that the only way national internet service providers in France are going to improve is if the government mandates nation -wide internet standards and sets a timeframe for achievement as has happened in the UK. Rant over #!
I have had the same thing with BT (phone) and BT Openreach (Internet).
Quite right Al and thanks for saying that Orange and France Telecom are the same thing. Yes they are and have the government as majority owner, but the quirk is that the two companies are separable when they want. Hence earlier in the thread I was saying that the Orange technician told us that FT own the lines, so it's examples like that where one and the same company wears two hats but nobody wants to admit it should be one.
Hey Al, do tell me you're joking! I.ve just tried the Frog test (InternetFrog.com) & haven't yet received any complaining emails from our Gallic members;-)
The reason the speed could be varying is because of Free. The do not cover much of France with their own broadband so they buy their bandwidth from Orange (because they are FT). Orange always gives priority to their own customers and can 'choke' other ISP's bandwidth so their customers get the best. Free took Orange to court over this just after Free started but lost (not surprising as the government owns 51% of Orange). Free also use the Orange mobile phone network as they gradually roll out their own.
I think it might be more appropriate to remove the word 'frog' from your post, I believe there are one or two French forum members.
Just checked my speed. Download Av. 10 Mbps. Upload Av. 0.86 Mbps. Anyone care to tell this luddite why there is such a difference between up & down? I'm assuming that "down" is what I'm receiving & "up" is what I'm sending!
Just had our Orange bill. 37 euros for the month. This includes 3euro hire of livebox, unlimited international calls, I hr to mobiles ,television & internet. We have our mobiles on a 2hr per month 2euro cost from Free.
G'Morning all,
Having read the thread I checked my connection speed.
When I had the frog test it three times I had 6,3 Mbps , 12.5 Mbps and 2,4 Mbps for the three tests , done one after the other. I've noticed before that often, when you test a couple of times within a short period, the second test is better than the first, as if you "wake up" your provider. The third result shows that it is very much thing of the moment.
After having been with Orange initially we moved to Free a couple of years ago. This meant a huge reduction in monthly cost. Of course they've raised the price since, but we still pay less than we did with Orange. It is somewhere just under €40/month now, and that is for Internet, unlimited telephone-calls to landlines in all countries except for a few, and one mobile phone connection with one hour communication included. I could get a second mobile Phone subscription for €2/month, if I wanted. (One hour mobile is more than enough to tell the other that you are running late, or not to forget the cheese when shopping).
Changing provider is never without a couple of weeks of non-connection it seems, even if they promise that you won't notice the change. In our case it coincided with our moving house, so we were too busy doing ather things to really notice. It was worth the wait, I think,
One advice : Whenever visiting friends and or family in the old home country (UK or Holland in my case) stay clear of computers because it will only leave you jealous to see what is actually possible with a decent connection. I ususally get over this by saying to myself that I at least live in a nice quiet rural village, and not in a congested urban area. Slow internet is a small price to pay for a good life.
You might check out Degroup Test http://www.degrouptest.com/
Bit of a compare the meerkat that gives you yoour theorectial speed as well.
Also double check your speed with http://www.speedtest.net/ to make sure you are in the ball park for your area.
Our two year contract with Orange ran out in May last year and we have never been approached to renew so we just left the existing contract rolling. This included mobile, landline, TV and the internet for about 53€ a month. This includes some but not all calls and texts. It looks like they have an offer on at present for about the same price but including free calls to named destinations and an upgraded and in theory faster Livebox. I will be checking this out myself in the hope I can get the KindlefireHDX connected to it. The computers and the iPad are fine just the Kindle the Sagem Livebox 2 has taken a dislike to apparently. It works fine in the local bar!! Speeds are low here compared to the BT Broadband in the UK and at times nearly down to dial up speeds especially at peak periods.
Try http://www.internetfrog.com/mypc/speedtest/ and see what you have in the way of download and upload speeds. My current download is about 3.77 Mbps which is not great.
I cannot use the Orange line test unfortunately as it is only Windows compatible and does not work with Apple Macs.
We lost the lot for 8 days in October 2013 and no luck with a refund and also our monthly bill for this period went up to 93€ which is the highest it has ever been, something dodgy going on here methinks. 60€ish has been the only other one that drifted far from the norm.
I have been with Free for sometime and had no problem to speak of. you get free hone calls to many countries UK included and for me to New Zealand as my daughter is there> Plus you can get good rates on mobile phone.
I did have Telecom around d the other day as they are installing fibre optics and wanted me to join. I did explain I was with Free and was told I could have the same deal for 4 Euro extra per month 'and super fast internet'. I must admit it would be nice, but for the time being what I have is sufficient
The map is a bit difficult to see in detail but I am fairly sure we are under an orange bit at best and an up to 12 years zone actually. The headlines are actually deceptive and the way they go into the topic as well. I searched and found an on line version of the map and it does not exactly correspond with the printed one, so I remain doubtful on that count too. I just wanted cheer people up with some glimmer of hope.
Hello Rebecca, I'm quite happy with SFR package. I have Internet up to 20 mega ( in reality getting an average of 8 but it's fine) Free unlimited international calls ( as long as you dont go over 3 hours in a single call) and TV and phone starting at 36 E per month. I have the TV evolution box there are lots of TV options available games etc and you can get an all round package including mobile, for us it works dont' get me wrong there are the occasional hiccups but we've been with them for a while now since they bought up club -internet and never had any major problems we moved house 9 months ago and the set up time for new connection was quite quick considering we had forgotten to tell them we where moving till the very last minute so less than 5 days we had everything up and running again.
The map in the magazine shows an awful lot of zones that will still not be covered bar Sarlat, Perigueux. I had to laugh because Belves made a big thing of the 12 million Euros that had been pumped into the area to bring it up to speed about 3 years ago - The 20meg or what ever it is they measure it in stopped just outside the Belves town boundary. Many of those hoping for a satellite connection couldn't have as they lived in the lee of hills etc.
So as far as I'm concerned our crappy connection will still continue - we now live right next to the telegraph poles about 1km from Siorac and the speed just dies early morning, lunchtime and teatime. There is no way that hubby could reliably work from home and in terms of tourism holiday establishments in a Zone blanche are still scuppered as satellite can't provide for heavy summer usage.
Hi, we are in the south deux sevres and just have an orange landline at the moment. we dont live there all the time but we want to get the internet as i spend a few weeks at a time there over the year. Is there anyone in that area who can say what the internet connection is like ? thank you
I have just checked my Orange account and all my Orange emails and I have nothing about the price going up.
We are currently on the Net Plus contract which is 40 Euros per month all in including Livebox rental and thats what we pay every month with no additions. It would be interesting to know what contract you (Rebecca) are on.