Free, ADSL and landlines

[russell]

I think that Allan's issue is that switching to a "degrouped " provider, like Free, normally means giving up your POTS and relying on their ADSL, including their VOIP phone service.

It is "normally" because that is what most people opt for. After all it is cheaper. However it is a choice the consumer has. I certainly know of one person in the next village who has ADSL provided by Free but has also retained his Orange/FT POTS telephone.

The point I was trying to make (perhaps not very well) is that a number of people have been talking of landlines vs ADSL when ADSL is carried by the same landline as the old telephone system.

Russell.

[Pearsonb]

Got my package from Bouygues and just tried it out. Speedtest is showing 10 with a slightly higher figure for upload, which is unusual isn't it?

I haven't tested it for the best position- I just have it sitting on the sofa next to me. But this is a definite keeper for me.

The box is Huawei LTE CUBE e5180.

Pearson

[Pearsonb]

I took the box to friends outside the village. They usually get under 1 with their Livebox. We got 13 with the 4g box.

[Allan]

Got my package from Bouygues and just tried it out. Speedtest is showing 10 with a slightly higher figure for upload, which is unusual isn't it?

I haven't tested it for the best position- I just have it sitting on the sofa next to me. But this is a definite keeper for me.

The box is Huawei LTE CUBE e5180.

Pearson

Good to hear that it is working for you.

4G generally gives similar speeds in both directions

That router supports a VoIP telephone, are Bouygues offering that, or is it just internet?

[Pearsonb]

I am afraid I don't have a landline phone so I couldn't test it directly. But I have been given an06 number for the box so I tried dialling that from my mobile and it didn't work. No mention of voip in my client area online.

Pearson

[Pearsonb]

I've now had the 4g box for several days. Some good news and some bad news.

The upload speed stays consistently above 10, whereas before it was below 1. As somebody who earns my money on the Internet, this has been great. Dreamweaver is whizzing along. I also find Windows 10 much more responsive.

The download speed has varied wildly, from over 15 to under 1. During the day it is pretty good but drops a bit at lunchtime and a lot after 6. I presume that is because lots of people are accessing the 4g signal with their telephones. I have tried watching live TV on it and some programmes played fine while others didn't work well. But even at its worst, it is as good as my Sosh internet connection.

Pearson

[martyn94]

I've now had the 4g box for several days. Some good news and some bad news.

The upload speed stays consistently above 10, whereas before it was below 1. As somebody who earns my money on the Internet, this has been great. Dreamweaver is whizzing along. I also find Windows 10 much more responsive.

The download speed has varied wildly, from over 15 to under 1. During the day it is pretty good but drops a bit at lunchtime and a lot after 6. I presume that is because lots of people are accessing the 4g signal with their telephones. I have tried watching live TV on it and some programmes played fine while others didn't work well. But even at its worst, it is as good as my Sosh internet connection.

Pearson

I poodled around a bit and found that the version of your modem that they sell in Australia has a little hatch (on the side, towards the bottom) which conceals the socket for an external antenna. If yours has that, it might be worth investigating: an external antenna can improve your signal a lot, as Allan has found. It is not going to cure the "contention" that you have found at particular times of day, but could palliate it.

[Pearsonb]

Very helpful. I have ordered one from Amazon for under 20 euros.

[Allan]

Very helpful. I have ordered one from Amazon for under 20 euros.

I tried the Amazon ones and didn't notice a significant improvement. I ended up buying this http://www.4grouters.co.uk/product/full ... al-radome/

It made an enormous difference.

I have a different model of Huaweii router so it may not be the same but on mine the antenna setting has 3 choices:- Internal, External and Automatic. I found that automatic did not work but setting it explicitly to Exrernal made all the difference

[Allan]

Well, I went to the Bouygues shop today and bought one of these.

The first point is that although their website says that the service is not available where I live, they were quite happy to supply one.

There is a good web site that tells you which masts have active 4G
https://www.antennesmobiles.fr/

I plugged it in and it worked straight away, I tried Speedtest to a Bouygues server and got a download speed of about 3mb I then ran the same test using my existing router and roof antenna to the same server and got 38mb.

I then tried several Speedtests using the 4G box and got widely carrying results, ranging from 8mb to 1mb. I noted that it connected to a variety of test servers and I think this emphasises the point that I made earlier that Speedtest cannot be relied upon as it depends on which server you get connected to. Bouygues 4G seems to hit the mainstream in Paris and there are loads of test servers there. I suggest that if you want to be consistent, always go to the same server.

I then followed Boomshanka's advice and put the Sim from the new router into my existing router with the roof antenna- it didn't work.

The first problem was the Sim is pin protected, it is however set to Bouygues default of 0000, more seriously, although it connected to 4G, it gave no internet access.

I suspect that this is because Bouygues have locked the service to their equipment but I will investigate further.

Unfortunately the external antenna connectors on the Cube E5180 are non-standard so I can't just connect it to my roof antenna. I will however try and source a converter.

I will update this post when I have more news.

[martyn94]

[quote="Allan]

Unfortunately the external antenna connectors on the Cube E5180 are non-standard so I can't just connect it to my roof antenna. I will however try and source a converter.

I will update this post when I have more news.[/quote]

I nearly warned Russell about this, but it seemed too soon to be pessimistic. It's years since I looked at this for myself, but there seems to be a mad variety of different aerial terminations. The good news is that patch cables are available and cheap, once you know what you are connecting to what.

[martyn94]

I've now had the 4g box for several days. Some good news and some bad news.

The upload speed stays consistently above 10, whereas before it was below 1. As somebody who earns my money on the Internet, this has been great. Dreamweaver is whizzing along. I also find Windows 10 much more responsive.

The download speed has varied wildly, from over 15 to under 1. During the day it is pretty good but drops a bit at lunchtime and a lot after 6. I presume that is because lots of people are accessing the 4g signal with their telephones. I have tried watching live TV on it and some programmes played fine while others didn't work well. But even at its worst, it is as good as my Sosh internet connection.

Pearson

Just out of curiosity, did you ever find an aerial which improves your service much? I've no need for it here, but it might be useful at my older place in Normandy.

[Allan]

I managed to buy some adapter leads on Amazon but at the end of the day it doesn't work.

I live within a good reception range of the mast on the water tower in Salses le Château.

I connect to it with my current (expensive) 4G connection via Bouyges.

If I put their 4G router behind the wall furthest from the mast then I get a 4G signal, albeit a weak one.

If I put it on the side nearest the mast then I get a great 4G signal but no internet. Sometimes I get a message saying that I cannot connect because I am away from home which of course is not true.

From the outset, Bouygues's web site said that the service isn't available at my address, although that didn't stop their shop from selling me one.

My conclusion is that the service is not available on all masts and that when I do get an internet connection it is because I am connected to a mast other than the one nearest me.

Tomorrow, I will take the box in the car and see which mast works and them perhaps I'll try a directional antenna.

The moral of the story is, believe them when they say it is not available

[martyn94]

I managed to buy some adapter leads on Amazon but at the end of the day it doesn't work.

I live within a good reception range of the mast on the water tower in Salses le Château.

I connect to it with my current (expensive) 4G connection via Bouyges.

If I put their 4G router behind the wall furthest from the mast then I get a 4G signal, albeit a weak one.

If I put it on the side nearest the mast then I get a great 4G signal but no internet. Sometimes I get a message saying that I cannot connect because I am away from home which of course is not true.

From the outset, Bouygues's web site said that the service isn't available at my address, although that didn't stop their shop from selling me one.

My conclusion is that the service is not available on all masts and that when I do get an internet connection it is because I am connected to a mast other than the one nearest me.

Tomorrow, I will take the box in the car and see which mast works and them perhaps I'll try a directional antenna.

The moral of the story is, believe them when they say it is not available

Thanks. Though it was Pearsonb, who had a service but not a very good one, and was just buying an aerial a few weeks ago, that I meant to interrogate. No internet service, from AOL on dial-up onwards, ever quite lives up to its hype.

[Pearsonb]

I bought the wrong mast 😒 Not had time to sort it out because I've been away.

However, yesterday evening the speed stayed around the 5 mark and I watched UK TV on my ipad with no problems at all. Hope that indicates an improvement in the service and not just a one-off.

Bouygues sent leaflets to the whole village promoting this new service. If they have not been doing that elsewhere, it probably indicates that not all 4g transmitters have this facility.

Pearson

[Allan]

I started this thread asking if it was possible to subscribe to Free for internet services whilst retaining my France Telecom Fixed line.

The reason for this is that my phone line has always been unreliable with broadband and I didn't want to lose telephony if the line went down.

I actually get my internet connection using 4G but pay a lot for it. As a Freebox subscriber I can get unlimited 4G with a mobile phone subscription. So I will save money even if I never take their router out of the box.

Nobody could give me a definitive answer to my question.

Their web site doesn't offer such an option but today I went to the Free shop in Perpignan and asked them.

It seems you can do it but only in the shop. So while I was there I signed up with them.

As a pure coincidence I discovered an offer on Vente-Privee.com that gives me a year's telephony and 4G for 0.99€ a month.

This offer looks so good that I will put on a second post about it.