Getting Internet Service

Getting Internet Service

France Telecom, otherwise known as Orange, is the big gorilla of Communication providers here. Of course there is not an office here in our little town. I did my online research and learned that the new company, SFR, has a better deal on internet and cell phone bundles.When you’re number two, you try harder.  However, when I went to the SFR store in the nearby town, I was told that I would have to go through Orange, because SFR did not serve my area yet. No big deal, the Orange store was just down the block, a short walk away.

Once in the Orange store we took a seat and waited for our turn. It was crowded and the wait was about 45 minutes. Our name was called or at least the French version, and we went with the kind lady to her work station.

“Do you speak English?” I enquired?

“Non.”

“Is there someone here that does?”

“Non.” She then talked to several of the other employees nearby and after receiving only head shakes, she replied, “Sorry.”

I then gestured and stumbled through a few common words, “telephone, internet, iPhone” and we came to the understanding that Alice and I had moved to Bagnoles (which everyone in the different towns around here pronounce differently, which does not help in our communication).

“Non, must bank France.” She said politely, but I was ready and pulled out my French bankcard.

“Oh, oui! Maison? Address en France?”

“Oui,” I replied and opened my iPad to show her our France address which is longer than hell’s seven levels  (13 Ter Rue de la Sergenterie de Javains-and that’s just the street).

Then the doubtful look passed over her face and she rattled off a lot of questions and seeing my blank expression, finally gestured with her hands out.

“Long? How long? How long are we going to be there? How long do we want the contract to be? Oh, we would like a one year contract, please.” The last part I said in butchered French and with a single up raised finger.

She smiled and we got down to business picking out a phone and a plan. She of course tried to explain each of the different options. Speaking very slowly, but slow French was as useless to us as fast French. It just took longer.

We had the phone picked out and the phone cover, when she looked down at her watch and tried to explain to us that the store was now closed for lunch. It was actually a little past noon, so she was working into her lunch time. We should come back at 2:00 pm (14:00) and we could finish then. We were walked to the door, Big smiles, Au revoir. We now had two hours for lunch.

Two hot salads, four glasses of wine, one chocolate mousse, a cappuccino and an espresso found us back at Orange at 14:00 on the dot, where we were met by the same kind lady. We reviewed what we had accomplished and moved on to a maze of bundled plans listed in company brochure where she could point and explain all the virtues of each. Halfway through I got a little antsy and decided the hell with it. I pointed to the very last plan. The “Open Premium Extra Special Get It All” plan with TV, internet, cell phone, house phone and a little guy that comes out to your house and wipes your butt for you on Sundays. Well that may be an exaggeration, but it was the top plan with everything and what had caught my eye was the little line that looked like international calling was free.

“That’s for us. Je vousdrais Open Plan, S’il vous plait.”

The lady was quite pleased and went on to explain all the benefits. Alice asked about the international calling and the lady was happy to explain the international calling. Alice asked if it was unlimited and the lady repeated what she had said before. Alice asked if she could call mobile phones in the U.S. and the lady repeated what she had said before only very slowly., syllable by syllable. Alice looked at me and I shrugged, “I think so.”

We signed papers, turned over banking information, (almost all the utilities and phone services demand automatic bank withdrawl), passport information, driver’s license information and checked out at the front cash register. Then we were taken to the counter where we picked up our equipment, LiveBox for internet, Decoder TV box, several pages of instructions (in French), papers listing our access codes, passwords, phone numbers, email accounts with Orange, and TV code. The gentleman took our iPhone, activated it, set it up and handed it back with a piece of paper that had our unlock code written on it. He explained/wrote that we could expect internet service within 15 days. After two hours in the Orange store and a two hour lunch, we went home with smiles on our faces.

Fifteen days later we still had no internet service. I called and they set up an appointment for a technician to come to the house on the following Monday. He arrived, spoke no English, and looked the system over. He called his boss. He then tried to explain the problem. We called a friend to translate over the phone and apparently there was a problem with the phone line. The technician had set up an appointment on the following Tuesday to have another technician look at the line and repair it. He shrugged, gathered up his stuff and left. I talked to my friend on the phone and she said, “Yes, that’s the way it goes. Sorry.”

Three weeks later, we do have internet service, Hooray!

The plan includes internet, cable TV, and unlimited cell phone usage. The cost is 95€ per month, about $124, very reasonable. We do get unlimited free calling to the U.S. on land lines only with our cell phone, and unlimited calling to landlines and mobile phones in the U.S. through VOIP, which I have not tried yet. A friend of ours here said she gets cable TV, house phone, internet and unlimited minutes of cell phone for 60€ per month.That's less than we paid for cable TV in the States.