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Steve&Julie
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Re: Which Provider is best in Amelie-les-Bains?

Post by Steve&Julie »

I have only just found this thread whilst searching for a related issue, however these are our experiences in finding a solution: I apologise in advance for what is likely to be a long post:

We were faced with the same problem as the OP.
We live in the UK but visit fairly often
We can't even get a decent mobile phone signal in our village let alone GPRS or HSPA, so a dongle is out.
We tried free dial-up for a while but at up to 30mins to a web page it was hopeless for anything other than text only email.
We ended up with Orange.fr Découverte. We started with a mini BB modem (not wifi) which cost us 1E from the orange shop. We got this working after solving a load of problems with line and exchange faults and engineers who may or may not call etc. but, by the last day of our visit, it worked for one hour then stopped. The English speaking help line was essential. We advanced booked an engineer to call again on the first day of our next visit. After many "where is he" phonecalls he arrived 3 days late but got the BB working using a livebox he happened to have in his van, but he could not sell us the box. We bought one from Auchan and set it up as he had done and we now have BB.
The Découverte does not quite work the way I thought it would.
I am informed the contract is split between the phone and the BB. It is the phone part of this you can suspend and re-connect by telephoning the english speaking operator. the BB stays live 24/7 (we don't know for sure as we are in the UK whilst the line is suspended) I still don't fully understand how much we are saving but we need BB and this seems to be the only way we can do it here, irrespective of cost.

There is an additional issue. Orange.fr seems to block non orange outgoing emails from client servers such as outlook. So this means that we cannot use outlook to send or reply to emails via our UK email address from outlook. I have found a possible 'dirty' workaround for this, but it's not particularly suitable for guests.

The livebox signal is also very weak and does not reach fully around the house.

Hope this helps
Allan
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Post by Allan »

The service Découverte is a seperate contract from your phone line but you need both for broadband.

The key point of the service Découverte is that you can cancel it at any time. In theory you can cancel it when leaving France and order it again when returning. This is not a suspension, it is a cancel and start again.

Obviously you are dependent on FT reconnecting when you want it and other people have complained that they send paperwork to France when you have already left for England.

If you want to go that route, you need to suspend the phone line and cancel Découverte .

I use Outlook all the time with Découverte but I don't use Orange's servers
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Steve&Julie
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Post by Steve&Julie »

Hi Allan
We just phone the English speaking line 2 days before we leave for France and the phone is reconnected. We know this has happened because the ringing tone changes from unobtainable to ringing when we dial from UK.
When we arrive back home in the UK we phone again and the line becomes unobtainable again. I am told, however that the BB remains active throughout .
I believe we only get credited for full months of "disconnection" which, in reality are few.

I thought this was a suspension rather than a cancellation. There is a shortage of phone lines in our village and we had to wait in the queue for quite some time to get one. I would hate to loose it.

We have only done this twice so far, but each time it seems to have worked.
Allan
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Post by Allan »

Steve&Julie wrote:Hi Allan
We just phone the English speaking line 2 days before we leave for France and the phone is reconnected. We know this has happened because the ringing tone changes from unobtainable to ringing when we dial from UK.
When we arrive back home in the UK we phone again and the line becomes unobtainable again. I am told, however that the BB remains active throughout .
I believe we only get credited for full months of "disconnection" which, in reality are few.

I thought this was a suspension rather than a cancellation. There is a shortage of phone lines in our village and we had to wait in the queue for quite some time to get one. I would hate to loose it.

We have only done this twice so far, but each time it seems to have worked.
I don't think you read my post properly, Découverte is a broadband service which runs on your phone line, suspending your phone line does not suspend the broadband service even though it cannot work without it.

Découverte has no contractual period so you can cancel it whenever you like and re-order it again whenever you like but as you found out when you ordered it the first time, Orange is not the slickest organisation.

If you are away for many months it is possibly worth doing but otherwise it is probably too much hassle
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