France Telecom - Best Option?

[mr1]

I am living in Nice and want to know the best package to take out with France Telecom for my landline. I will use the phone infrequently and will also want broadband. any help?

Thanks

[ruggie]

If you speak a little bit of French, the best bet is to find a shopping mall with a France Telecomm boutique. They are far less crowded than the Telecomm main office, and can give you 'what if?' answers and recommendations if you tell them about the way you plan to use tehir services. Telecomm advisers can and do study your billing hostory and recommend ways of optimising your tariffs. If you are a newish customer, you're probably best off taking the basic rental plus the broadband package (which includes rental of a router with ethernet, wi-fi and USB connections). At about 10 euros a month, the digital telephone over your broadband link gives you free domestic calls, but there's an ordinary telephone 'forfait' of about 6 euros a month that may cover your needs.

[BrianSmith]

I am living in Nice and want to know the best package to take out with France Telecom for my landline. I will use the phone infrequently and will also want broadband. any help?

Thanks

Avoid France Télécom if at all possible: overpriced, terrible customer relations, and very difficult when you want to go to another operator.
Try one of the competitive packages from Free, Club-internet, Neuf, Alice etc

I have a deal which gives me free phone calls to Fixed phones all over Europe, plus free calls to fixed and mobile phones in the US or Canada, plus Broadband ( up to 20mb) and TV .

[ruggie]

There are indeed plenty of lower-priced deals than those offered by France Telecomm, but there's always a risk associated with using third parties who, in the end, use the network operated by FT.

Although both providers will do their best to provide the assistance they contract to offer if something goes wrong, they will also try to avoid getting involved if it is likely that the problem lies with the other party. For a domestic telephone service, the risk is usually acceptable, but if you depend on your telephone/FAX/Internet link for your business, I'd recommend staying with FT.

[rich68]

I know this thread is old but just to add another point of view: I agree with BrianSmith - avoid France Telecom. I thought the customer service was awful and they are expensive. I managed to register for a landline account but was not informed of the standing charge or told about any of the charges except the one to create an account (about 45 Euros).

But the worst was when I went in to buy a telephone. I was at the front of a queue waiting for 20 minutes while the 3 members of staff were serving other customers, even chatting to them for *ages* after having finished serving them. So I just left and picked up a phone from a supermarket instead.

France Telecom seems to be linked with Orange these days so any internet they provide would be through orange. I scrapped France Telecom altogether (via the dégroupage total system which allows you to go with another provider). So I have phone and internet provided by Club Internet (the 'box' modem has to be on all the time though). Calls to landlines in 40 countries are free as BrianSmith said and the standing charge is cheaper and 3 months were thrown in for free.

I did have to connect my club internet modem as soon as it arrived though, rather than wait for the confirmation letter as I was told to, otherwise I would have been without a phone line for about 2 weeks - they had closed my France Telecom account for me so the phone wouldn't work without the modem which didn't arrive till a few days later. Then it was nearly 2 more weeks before I got the letter saying I could connect the modem.

I can imagine one company trying to blame the other though if it all went wrong.

[silane]

France Telecom has an English speaking customer service. it used to be a little busy but now they got new staff, you get through quickly. they also opened a technical helpline, for both landline and Internet issues.

the number is toll free from France : 0800 364 775 (it's ok from abroad too). opening hours are 9am to 5pm.

[ruggie]

An English neighbour now uses a third party VoIP service with an English-speaking helpline. Great when it works, but we often lose digital connections and blow up routers during thunderstorms. He's been without a phone for more than a week at a time, which is OK if mine is working.

Recently, I added a dedicated FAX line to my FT contract - I'm considering hedging my bets by running 3rd party VoIP on the FAX line. My problem is that the bulk of my telephone costs are for calls to UK mobiles. No-one seems to offer good rates for this.