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LATEST BROADBAND ADSL
NEWS - PLEASE READ
FIRST
During the past two
years there have been some significant technological and operational changes to
the way your Telephone and Broadband ADSL is brought to you and managed.
I will try and explain these without being too technical. First of all
here in France we only have 4 Broadband providers compared with over 30 in the
UK. This means that there is very little price competition. If
you live in a major city or very large town, then additional equipment might
have been installed in your local exchange, alongside the France Telecom
apparatus by either SFR Neuf or Free Telecom, allowing you special lower price
tariffs with these companies. This is called ‘Dégroupage Total’ but is
only available to about 20% of the population. However, this is not the
case for 80% of the population; so be very careful of operators offering cheap
deals over the phone and Internet without explaining the details, which can
adversely affect your telephone reliability and quality.
For instance they do not explain that with
these lower prices you will lose your France Telecom line and that your
telephone calls are forced down the Broadband part of the
line. This means that if you lose your Broadband then you do
not have a telephone at all. In country areas, often due to the poor quality of the
telephone line between your house and the local exchange, this system can
also cause quality issues on the speech part of the line.
Our packages, including
Line Rental and Broadband ADSL from ourselves and our partner UKTelecom, whilst
the line you rent is still owned by France Telecom, we manage everything for
you at no extra cost. The same terms and conditions apply as if you
were a direct customer of France Telecom. To explain: France
Telecom has been outsourcing all local line work to private companies for the
past 2 years. All operators such as Orange, Free, SFR Neuf and ourselves
have to use these same local companies; unfortunately these companies vary in
their efficiency. Nowadays one of France Telecom’s excuses for
delays in repairs of landlines is that everyone has a mobile phone. We do
not agree with this statement.
The Broadband market in
France is very different to the UK. The principal reason for this is that there is very little
money made by Broadband providers in France, apart from customers living in
major cities downloading movies etc. At present the ‘payback’ time in
rural areas can be as long as 2 years. All Broadband suppliers now insist that you have your
telephone calls routed through them – for obvious reasons! Our
partner UKTelecom uses the SFR Neuf Network; however, we are only using the SFR
Neuf Network – nothing else. We provide the entire technical backup for
you in English through a French Freephone 08 number. Our Technical
Support has been upgraded in 2009 and we are now able to test your line with
the very latest equipment and report any failure to the relevant local company,
thus adding to our efficiency. We are confident that we are able to
improve upon our already excellent level of Customer Service, which we feel is
far superior to any of the French operators. We are now giving FREE
access to the BBC/ITV/CH4/CH5 IPlayers, which of course are not accessible here
in France.
Here is a more detailed
explanation about Broadband ‘VoIP’ calls (Voice Over Internet Protocol).
Instead of using your normal telephone line to connect to your local exchange,
calls can be routed digitally via the Broadband part of your line.
Imagine your telephone line as a dual carriageway, but the Broadband road as
being much smaller than the main trunk road i.e. the main landline. VoIP
calls are very dependent on the quality of the cable between the socket in your
house and the local exchange. This system is not as reliable as your
normal landline and if your Broadband fails then you will not be able to make
or receive telephone calls. All 3 of the major providers, Orange, Free
and SFR Neuf supply these types of calls with no other line; this is why they
are cheaper as they don’t have to pay France Telecom so much money. With
improved technology Broadband VoIP calls work well as in major cities and
occasionally large towns where SFR Neuf and Free have put their own equipment
into the local exchange. Using the
Broadband VoIP line for your calls should in principal work well and for some
people it does. However, in rural areas
this is often a different story and is very dependent on the noise figure and
the size and length of cable of the line between your house and the local
exchange and hence the quality. All
our Broadband packages come with a FREE 1 hour per month calls to 28
countries. This then gives you 2 lines,
which can be used at the same time, with two separate telephones, you then have
a choice of packages to suit your individual needs. We will continue to offer both a Broadband VoIP line and a
normal Telecom Network line. To summarise;
yes, we are slightly more expensive than other operators, because not only are
we providing you with a total English technical support, we are also providing
packages retaining your France Telecom line, so that whatever system you have
chosen, it gives you peace of mind, reliability, and a quality of call superior
to Broadband VoIP calls and also a 2nd line. Added to this you can now watch FREE all your favourite UK TV
programmes that you have missed by connecting to the UK TV
IPlayers.
As you will now understand, this is why there are so many
different packages and prices, which are dependent on your individual line
and the equipment available in your local
exchange.
Please fill in the following form and we will check your line without obligation and advise you on
the best package.
Broadband ADSL
Packages
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