Our 'phone line is now mended after one month from the first visit

When we reported a problem in August the repairman looked at the box, which had a wasp nest inside.
He closed the box and said that the wasps would not be the problem.
At the fifth intervention a new repairman called this morning and we told him about the first chap had not properly inspected our box.
He used our spray, killed the wasps and then said that there was water in the box, presumably caused by the wasps forcing the seal to get to make their nest.
He put a new line from the box to the connection on the side of our house and was stung by a wasp hiding in there.
We now have a functioning 'phone line and internet.
At one time Jim called the English speaking help line for Orange only to be told that we did not have an Orange 'phone.
We have not had a proper working line for a month and, if we believe, Orange have been going up and down poles and then telling us they had fixed the problem all because the first guy was useless.

A client lost their phone line and internet during a lightning strike on Wednesday the 4th of July and the line didn’t get repaired until Friday the 10th of August, no apology and no offer of any compensation.

Sadly, there are still folk waiting to be reconnected… :open_mouth:

That sounds about right.
It was a good job that we had all our bookings for the gite already made.
We used the sim card from our old I Phone so that we could still get our e-mails, but it was so slow.
The line is much better now, but it just goes to show how much you depend on these chaps being interested in doing a good job.

This client’s house is a rental so the first three sets of guests had no internet, you can imagine how pleased they were when we told them.

People pay money for holidays without internet!

Seriously - I’d be pretty miffed, we basically didn’t have t’ internet last stay and, while my wife quite liked it, I was getting a bit twitched.

At least in our case Orange came out reasonably quickly (a day after they promised but in context that seems pretty good) - the main problem after that was that they obviously re-set the line so it tried to sync at 80Mbps - great for the half hour that it worked but it then became unstable while the equipment figured out over about 72 hours that was too fast and settled back to where it had been at which point it all worked nicely again.

If it’s with Orange, they never offer compensation, but if you call them and ask, its refunded through the next reduced monthly payments.

You can also make a claim on line. https://espaceclientv3.orange.fr/formulaire-de-reclamation-en-ligne

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We offer our gite with or without internet.
As our site is relax-in-rural-burgundy.co.uk it could well be that some guests want to do without it.

When I reported a problem to Orange they did an online diagnosis and once they had identified the problem I immediately received the offer of a free 4G box to use while I was without the internet.

I have some sympathy with Orange in that it’s very difficult maintaining fixed lines in rural areas and with a diminishing demand it’s no surprise that as from November they will stop installing fixed lines only.

But they still have to maintain the old, above ground copper wired network from the new fibre hubs.

True, although there are still savings.

Take my line - for reasons I won’t go into I still have the phone via “ligne fixe” so the line will run to the VDSL node in the village (235 metres according to degrouptest) and thence to the exchange about 5km away. If (when) I switch to Orange’s VOIP offering they can ditch the 5km bit - multiply that by a significant fraction of Orange’s customer base and it is a significant saving. Not to mention quite a lot of copper to sell :slight_smile:

Perhaps I should have said ‘new fixed lines’.

We stopped using our Orange landline a year ago and in a storm last month the cable was brought down again and hasn’t been repaired fully as no one in our hamlet of five houses uses it. We’ve got a 4g box but many small villages in our area can’t get it so a fixed line is the only solution apart from satellite.

That would s fine if you have 4G and we received the same offer.
We used the sim card of our old smartphone through the router which achieved the same result.
It was tge fact that the first guy was so useless and actually getting to talk to an engineer was so difficult.

They are starting the work to put in fibre along the road above our house but according to the engineer, that will not help us.
We are the last on the line from another line 10k away and will have to wait until that line is upgraded and still the last on the line.
Alice in Wonderland springs to mind.

If your SIM card worked so would the box that Orange would have provided. I think that the fact that they offered to keep you connected needs to be acknowledged.

I did say that was offered.