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This page was last updated 11 April 2008. |
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| France: Phone, Fax, Internet, Computers, TV, Electric Plugs, Mains | |
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France Telecom has no monopoly on the physical line connection any more. That means that you can order you telephone line from anyone you wish. Beware that contrary to certain countries, the previous subscriber's phone number is never carried over to a new subscriber. The only thing you can do with the previous subscriber's number is to identify the line. You cannot use it for signing up for any type of subscription in that number. If you want a high-speed Internet connection in addition to your telephone, please skip the rest of this chapter and go directly to Internet. If you read this, it means that all you want is a phone line, perhaps a fax and perhaps a dial-up Internet connection via a classic phone line (RTC). Your most simple choice is a basic France Telecom phone line. You pay a subscription and all call charges to them. As France Telecom doesn't offer the lowest call rates, you may want to use a secondary operator, either by dialling a code before each call or by setting up an automatick preselection to route all calls through the secondary operator. In either case, you still pay the France Telecom subscription but you pay the secondary operator for calls routed through them. Note that special-rate numbers such as those beginning with 08 are always routed through France Telecom and billed by them. See the list of providers on our link page. FaxYou are settling in France for professional purposes and would like to have a fax? Do you share your voice line or do you buy a separate fax line? The choice is not obvious. Sharing your voice line means people cannot fax to you during perhaps lengthy phone calls. You also need to filter voice and fax calls, meaning that if you don't answer quickly enough, voice callers may hear a fax tone. If you transfer calls to your mobile, for example, faxes will be lost. A separate fax line is expensive, because you need to reserve a complete telephone subscription for it, and you won't be using much of its capacity. If you don't get your new fax number on the off-directory list (liste rouge) immediately, then you will be spammed with commercial faxes after just a couple of months. It's illegal, unless the receiver is a business, but no one cares, and public prosecutors in most cases cannot be bothered to pursue complaints. In my own case, I have estimated that about half of an ink cartridge has been wasted on ink-intensive commercial faxes, and when I needed to receive my annual accounts from my accountant, there was no more ink left; the spammers had wasted it. The solution: Receive your faxes by e-mail. There are several providers, and they issue you with your own fax number. Be sure that it's a geographic number, for example in Paris, and not an overcharged 08-number that may not be reachable from abroad. www.arobase.org/services/fax.htm has already gathered a small list of providers. I went for www.comparateleasyfax.com, which provides a decent service for a decent price: 29.90 € incl. VAT per 3 months for unlimited fax reception; cheaper if you pay for a year at a time. They set it up the same day. It's really simple - much simpler than configuring a fax machine. Faxes are converted to image files and sent to you by e-mail and also accessible on their server on the Internet. I have used it for more than a year with not even a hint of a reason to complain. It may be possible to find a cheaper service, but this one is a no-hassle service, and if you run a business, you have other things to do than chasing a bad provider. I do NOT get a commission, but between all the bad service you get in France, it's only fair to point out when something's working. Not only is it cheaper than a line subscription, you also save the ink, and you can access your faxes during travel. Spam is deleted at a push on a button. Of course, you need a mailbox that is large enough for several image files. Google's Gmail will do if your ISP doesn't give you enough space. It is also advisable to be on high-speed Internet. If you want the convenience of faxing by sliding the paper in a fax instead of using scanner/computer/modem, then you can plug the fax machine into your voice line and deactivate automatic answering, as it will be handling only outgoing faxes. You can also leave it without ink and paper. Just deactivate the printing of a 'send confirmation' page. If you have a scanner and you're happy doing it all on your computer, then you can save the fax machine too. Mobile / CellIn France, there are three mobile operators (SFR, Orange, Bouygues) with their own networks and more and more virtual operators that rent the physical network from the three aforementioned operators. In French, the English term MVNO - Mobile Virtual Network Operator - has been retained. They are also known as opérateurs virtuels. While I have little experience with the virtual operators, the three physical operators have a reputation for very bad customer service. As for technical quality, major independent surveys conclude that the SFR and Orange networks globally provide a slightly better cover than the Bouygues network. Most of France is covered, and the 3 physical operators are working together to provide common cover of the remaining parts. SFR consistently comes out with the best cover in the high-speed trains TGV, while only Orange covers Monaco entirely. It is very easy to change to another operator and keep your mobile phone number, and it only takes 10 days. After checking that you are not obliged to remain client until a certain date (période d'engagement), all you have to do is sign up with the new operator and ask them to take over your existing mobile phone number. You must ask at the time you sign up, or it will be impossible to keep your number with that operator. The new operator will cancel your contract with the existing operator. You most definitely should not cancel your existing contract yourself if you want to keep your number. If you do, you may lose your number. InternetFebruary 2007, you can get
a pack of ADSL high-speed Internet connections at
several megabits, unlimited phone calls to landlines in France and 40 countries
and a pack of TV channels for 30 € a month. There is a high availability of
ADSL throughout France, although some rural areas are still not covered. The only thing that lags behind is customer service and reliability, and all operators are concerned, although the latest experiences seem to point to Darty as the least troublesome. No matter which ISP you choose, the risk of encountering shorter or longer disconnections is not negligible. The large ISPs Orange (France Telecom), Neuf and Free will not spare you this either. You can't even trust that they warn you in advance when they plan work on your line, so you may wake up one morning without VoIP phone and Internet to be told that you will be reconnected some time within the next 7 days when they've finished migration work. This happened to us with Neuf. With Orange, we were disconnected almost every night during a period of 3 weeks without ever getting an explanation or a competent technical intervention. With Free, we were regularly disconnected for up to 24 hours at a time, getting no other explanation than being told that they were extending their netowrk so their servers could be unstable. If you are running a business or doing other work over the Internet and your work or business would collapse without Internet, consider very seriously having two independent ISPs. This is what we ended up doing after Neuf's disastrous migration. In an urgent situation, Orange is the only ISP we know that can get an ADSL connection up and running in just a few days, or even the same day. They saved the day for us after Neuf had left us dry. If you want to do away with the risk of disconnections because of cable failures, you could have an ADSL connection and a bi-directional satellite link as backup. Prices for this are now affordable. Ask yourself the question how much revenue you would lose per day if you could not answer order and quote requests quickly. E-customers don't have much patience, and many will start looking elsewhere if they haven't heard from you within 24 hours. You can quickly lose more than the cost of a backup connection, and it will save you the frustration of being cut off from the world. Would customers be understanding if you told them your Internet was offline? Sympathetic, maybe, but your customers don't care about your ISP, Internet or computer problems. They want answers and service, and quickly. If you can't deliver it for whatever reason, someone else will. If your geographical area is dégroupé, then you don't need France Telecom for your physical line. You can use of single alternative operator for phone and Internet. Phone calls are routed through the ADSL connection (VoIP) in that case, via a sophisticated modem (usually called box - Freebox, Livebox, Neufbox, Alicebox, Dartybox...), not the older RTC standard that phones normally use. But beware that if your Internet connection or the mains supply goes, so does your phone - and TV channels if your pack includes them. Also beware that before you can get rid of the France Telecom line, you must sign up for one. In practice, it means that you cannot degroup your line without having an active France Telecom line. With RTC, you can still use your phone, since it is powered through the phone line (unless it's a wireless or other model that needs a mains plug). The sound quality of the IP telephony that you get with dégroupage is better than the older RTC lines in my experience. A fax plugged into a degrouped line on a box is not guaranteed to work, and private alarm systems that must be in connection with an alarm central may not work either on such a pack. So, be careful to adapt your telephone solution to your needs. You may need to keep an old-fashioned RTC phone line with France Telecom. A disadvantage of dégroupage is that you can no longer use preselection to route your calls through a cheaper operator for mobile calls or international calls to destinations not included in the free call pack. ISDN lines (RNIS in French) are competitively priced and may be worth considering for Internet connection if ADSL is not yet available, although you should look at a satellite package before considering the outdated ISDN. France Télécom call this service Numeris. It is available throughout the territory. Be sure that your Internet provider includes the call charge in the monthly subscription rate (forfait) if you are using a traditional dial-up modem connection. If you're on high-speed Internet, it may be a good idea still to have a 56k modem and an 56k operator to use as backup when (not if!) your high-speed connection is unavailable. Free provides such an access free of charge. You only pay the dial-up calling charge via your phone bill. Internet Service ProvidersIn French: FAI: Fournisseur d'Accès Internet Hints: Check cancellation fees. Check connection fees. Check if a modem is sold/rented and the cost. Check the cost of the helpline. Check that they don't stack options you don't want on by default. Test your line on several ISPs for eligibility: ADSL: Cable: Satellite: Sites comparing several ISPs: AdaptersYou can buy adapters for foreign telephones, faxes and modems from Teleadapt or Multitel. A foreign modem may or may not support the French telephone system. If it does not, you need a converter from Teleadapt or similar. If it does, you just need an adaptor plug that you can buy in a shop. MINITELis the French predecessor for the Internet. They rolled it out to the public at least 10 years before the Internet started getting known, and they were the only ones in the world to do so. You can access servers, such as for example the white and yellow pages through your telephone line. But beware that many services are charged at considerable minute rates. In its traditional form, it is a low speed, low-tech, text only system, but it works. If you don't want a special minitel device, you can install software on your PC to make it act as a minitel. All you need is the PC, a modem or ISDN connection, and the software. If you use the new Iminitel software, which is free of charge, you can access all the Minitel services through a single access number, 3622, and through normal modem or ISDN speed. Minitel is on its way out, as the Internet is much more powerful. If you have a good Internet connection, I don't see any need for Minitel anymore, and I would not advise spending a single euro on Minitel equipment or software. ComputersFrench keyboards use AZERTY layout, whereas most other keyboards use the QWERTY layout. This means that a few letters - and many of the other symbols - are placed in different places. However, the French keyboard obviously allows direct or composite typing of French accented letters, whereas for example a UK keyboard makes that impossible without entering the 3- or 4-digit code for the letter. If you work regularly with different keyboards, then you are likely to keep making typing errors. Under Windows, you can plug in a different keyboard and quite easily tell windows what layout it is. Software bought in France is, not surprisingly, in French. Fortunately, Internet shopping has made it easy to order the language version you want from other countries. Ordering from Amazon UK or simply downloading from the manufacturer is an easy way to buy English software. If you prefer using English software, then you wouldn't have much use of a new computer with pre-installed, French software. Without being able to produce statistics, it is my impression that the French electricity supply suffers more power drops than what I was used to in the UK, Germany, Luxembourg and Denmark. Many of these power drops last only a few seconds, but that is enough to shut down a computer the hard way. In windy areas like the Rhône valley, where the Mistral can be quite strong, it seems that power lines are regularly damaged by the wind, not having been designed to withstand strong wind or maybe not having been maintained correctly. Given the high number of power drops lasting only a few seconds, it would seem that the French power grid does not have the built-in protection against these interruptions that exist in other countries' power grids. A UPS battery backup power supply, called onduleur in France, is a good idea to prevent data loss, and many use them in France. It will assure that a power drop lasting only a few minutes will have no impact on your computer, and it will give you time to shut down your computer correctly if the power drop lasts longer. Computer tube screens from countries south of Equator may not display properly in France. Cathode ray screens are manufactured with a built-in compensation for the Earth's magnetic field, which are different on the northern and southern hemispheres. Before bringing such equipment, check with the manufacturer if it will work. LCD screens are not concerned. TelevisionStandards for terrestrial analogue TV and VHS differ from country to country. Detailed technical information here.
But if you receive your TV channels by digital satellite, then these old standards are irrelevant for you, and you will be just fine bringing over your UK TV set, whether it supports SECAM or not. VHS is on its way out, and the SECAM problem is gone with the DVD format. DVDs sold in France will usually have the option for English soundtrack and subtitles. If you bring equipment to France that does not support SECAM and you intend to tune in to French terrestrial channels or watch VHS in SECAM format, then you may consider buying a transcoder from Goyona France or Vortex. It cannot receive TV channels itself, but if you use a French video recorder as a tuner, an appropriate transcoder will make it possible to watch French channels on a PAL or NTSC TV. The colour balance may not be perfect for the cheapest models. Note that a transcoder may not work with the output from cable operators' decoders. All equipment sold in France is multi standard and can be used without problems in countries broadcasting in PAL-B/G. NTSC and PAL-I may also be supported by some models. Films broadcast on the French channels are systematically dubbed in French, leaving little pleasure for English speakers. The exception is the Arte channel, which uses subtitles instead. In the cities and large towns, many properties are connected to cable TV. This may be less interesting for foreigners, because the vast majority of the channels are in French. The only French satellite package is Canal Satellite (which bought TPS in 2006; they will be merged during autumn 2007). Again, this may be of little interest to foreigners, because nearly all the channels are French. Outside France, you can receive some of the French terrestrial TV channels in clear digital and SECAM analogue on the Atlantic Bird 3 satellite at 5.0 degrees west if you are in the zone covered by the satellite (footprint). See Lyngsat for technical details. Many French radio stations are available on the Internet. See listing at Tvradioworld. French satellite radio is available on the Atlantic Bird 3 and Hotbird satellites. BBC 1-4, BBC News 24, CBBC, Cbeebies, ITV 1-4 (and ITV2+1 and ITV3+1), Sky News, CNN, Euronews, Film4 (and Film4+1), Bonanza, True Movies 1-2, Men & Motors, Movies4men 1-2, Zone Reality X, Zone Horror and various other English channels are broadcast in clear from the Astra 2D satellite at 28.2 degrees east, which can easily be received throughout France with as little as a 65 cm satellite dish (+1 means that the same programmes are broadcast one hour later than the base channel, giving more flexibility for the viewers). All the channels mentioned in this paragraph can be tuned in with any digital satellite receiver and without having a card. The present choice of free channels will be quite sufficient for many expats, although Channel 4 and 5 are not available without a SKY card. Before rushing out to buy an expensive SKY package, take the time to check out the free channels on Lyngsat or elsewhere to find out if you really need it. www.itv.com's TV guide will give you an idea of the type of films broadcast on Film4 and a couple of other free channels. For further information about films and to find out if they are worth watching, check out the International Movie Database on www.imdb.com. Look out for spoilers before reading too far in the user comments! These satellite channels now mainly broadcast in 16/9 widescreen format. If you need to buy a new TV set, go for widescreen. The exact frequencies are listed at the satellite listing site Lyngsat. Depending on your receiver, the frequencies may not be pre-coded, in which case you'll have to add them manually. BBC 3 and 4, CBBC and Cbeebies have the particular feature that they turn off the signal when programmes end, so you need to tune them in during daytime for CBBC and Cbeebies and evening for BBC 3 and 4. Why they turn off the signal is a mystery, but if anyone knows the explanation, I will publish it. If you want the full SKY package, you need a SKY card and a Digibox to decode the signals. SKY will only sell the card and the decoder to someone who can provide a UK address. A few shops abroad sell the decoders and the subscriptions. If you want to watch programs from more than one satellite, then you need a motorised satellite dish and a satellite receiver that supports it. With some technical and DIY skill, you can fit it yourself. Many French satellite firms will only fit fixed dishes, either because they are not competent for motorised dishes or to avoid complications with customers who don't know how to use it once fitted. Tube screens from countries south of Equator may not display properly in France. Cathode ray screens are manufactured with a built-in compensation for the Earth's magnetic field, which are different on the northern and southern hemispheres. Before bringing such equipment, check with the manufacturer if it will work. LCD and plasma screens are not concerned. If you have a TV set, you must pay a TV licence, even if you cannot or do not tune in to a single bonjour. See the tax section. Electric Plugs and Voltage, MainsElectric plugs are not harmonised in the EU. Plug adapters for the most commonly occurring foreign plugs (typically the UK and the USA) are available in DIY stores in France and specialist stores abroad, the latter also selling transformers and converters for voltage step-up or step-down. Travellers would be best advised to buy an adapter in their own country to avoid the trouble of searching once in France, unless local plugs are compatible with French plugs. 230 volts AC 50 Hz (cycles) is the standard in the EU. Electric equipment should normally have a safety margin of +/- 10% to allow for variations in the power supply, so equipment rated between approximately 210 volts and 250 volts should work. A bigger problem than the plugs is that 110 volt equipment cannot be used without a transformer. Check not only the voltage rating for your equipment before using it, but also the cycles supported (typically 50 Hz or 60 Hz or both). Some equipment may work with either; other may not. Check the rating for your equipment before plugging it in. Before using 230 volts bulbs in lamps that were meant for 110 volts, make sure they are safety approved for 230 volts. Both bayonet and screw bulbs are sold in France.
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