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Review by mplewton 
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 9 years, 277 visits, last login: 80 days ago
 Santa Maria,Santa Barbara,CA
 $50 per month
 about 2 days
 "Easy to sign up if you have a foreign bank account"
 "Hard to cancel"
 "Works good"
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The below information is from Dordogne, France
I have been using Wanadoo every year since 1999, dial up. Every year signed up with them then canceled in 3 or 4 months when my vacation was over.
To cancel was the most difficult part.
Last year 2006 is signed up for their DSL. Took only 1 or 2 days to get connected.
512 kbs down 128 up. PPPoE . Higher speeds are offered but I didn't need it.
Installation was easy, USB modem and filters were only 1 euro with their special offer.. I now have an open ended account which I convert to "Accès Libre" after I leave France.
I didn't like their software that I had to install on my laptop.
They and their software works something like AOL.
I did not use their e-mail service in 2006 since I had a Hotmail account.
In 2006 they changed their name to Orange. www.orange.fr
They will not take American Credit cards for their service, why, I don't know???
Followup comments:  mplewton
join:2000-11-17
Santa Maria, CA
| Orange.fr - was Wanadoo.fr (France) In 2007 I returned to France with my laptop the connection speed to Orange went up to 1.5kbs and the price went down to 24 Euros. This time I didn't cancel my account but converted it to "Acces Libre". Connection and reliability were very good, always at full speed.
In 2008 (I just returned from France) connection was very good at the advertised speed. Still 24 Euros per month.
(now about $38 a month at the current exchange rate)
Still hard to disconnect or change plans. | |
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Review by communibus
UPDATED: 2.8 years ago
member for 6.5 years, 182 visits, last login: 44 days ago
England
$27 per month (12 month contract)
about 100 days
"Fast at passing the buck"
"Even faster at passing the buck"
"Support now seems to come from a third world country hence you cant understand them!!"
| Pre Sales Information:
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After ordering in 2004 I was told it would be ten working days to be connected, it wasnt! Numerous phone calls to Sales and Support resulted in assurances that the broadband was connected. They sent another modem. Still wouldnt connect, I asked them To Get BT to do a line test, they said they couldnt because they were not authorised to request BT to carry it out.
I contacted BT to carry out a line test and they increased the gain. Still no connection, Rang Wanadoo who were "puzzled" and sent out another modem. In the meantime I found that our caller ID service wouldnt work nor would the service which bars Ex Directory numbers. I rang Wanadoo who quite happily informed me that "Yes that does happen with our broadband, you just have to put up with it." I said I was putting up with nothing I was paying BT the telephone company for these services and I wanted them.
Eventually I contacted BT who were sympathetic but said they could not do anything and suggested I contact BT Broadband because they said they could not do it because it was a different department.
I then got fed up and Rang BT Complaints and explained the problem. The girl promised to ring back in an hour and this she did. Seemingly Wanadoo Support dont have any contact with their department who liase with BT and ~BT Broadband didnt liase with BT. But She promised to ring back in three days while she investigated, True to her promise she did and told me that a BT engineer was coming the following day to check the system over. After waiting in all morning I telephoned BT only to be told That Wanadoo had cancelled the Engineers visit on the basis that the line was now fixed. I told them that it wasnt and they arranged for an engineer to call that day which they did. They found that their was an exchange problem and promptly had it fixed. Lo and behold the system connected!
Later that day I discovered caller Id was still not working nor was the withheld number feature. I rang BT and an engineer called the following day with a Westell Modem which BT themselves used, he told me to try it and call him the following day which I did all the services having been restored. He told me to keep the Westell modem because the ones that Wanadoo supplied were junk.
To be fair to Wanadoo they credited all my money back to me and restarted the account and included an amount that I had claimed for the number of phonecalls.
They are now trying to tempt me with the new wireless broadband Plus I can keep my old broadband on a new twelve months contract but I'm sticking with what I have. Because if I renew the contract they will probably limit the amount that I can download
Wanadoo has since been taken over by Orange and as with Wanadoo the support still comes from outside The UK causing difficulties in understanding problems. When the support was UK based it was good because the staff seemed to actually think about a problem and give helpful and innovative answer rather than set piece answers from a screen.
For at least 6 months the amount of spam has increased considerably. I also have a problem with hijacking of my user name resulting in returned emails not originating from me, I have contacted support several times and all they can suggest is sending copies to the abuse email address, I have done this a number of times but they are often only acknowledged and thats it!
Once I kept emailing support until an answer was forthcoming, basically I was told that Orange admitted they had a problem which wouldnt be resolved in the short term!!
Worse still I get email returned by their own postmaster allegedly posted by me and suggesting that I contact "Postmaster at" blank..........Een worse the emails appear to be doctored so that when I paste them to Spamcop it rejects them because part of the information is missing!
For several months now the upload/download speeds have reduced to half speed yet several hours later they have recovered!
Hmmmm
Communibus
Enough said
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Review by Ronin1
Posted: 4 years ago
member for 4 years, 4 visits, last login: 3.9 years ago
UK
$31 per month (12 month contract)
about 190 days
"None"
"Everything"
"Don't sign up!!"
| Pre Sales Information:
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I posted this in the Newbie Uk Broadband section because...well I'm a newbie, so here goes, hopefully someone will benefit from my experiences.
O.K I'll try n keep this constructive as It regards some work I'm doing for a friend and not my own connection.
Wanadoo/AKA freeserve have brought out a new "Wireless And Talk" kit that includes a Wanadoo "Livebox" aka Router/BB modem receiver coupled with a USB adapter. Essentially its a Telco Return service - I.e you send page requests over the phone line and get your data transmitted to the Wireless Router via a Radio tower. The idea for the outskirts country user is that you can receive Broadband within, roughly a 35m radius, as I understand it; nevertheless as always with wanadoo/Freeserve there are problems, so read on before you sign up with em.
Firstly I was on Freeserve/Wanadoo broadband using an Alcatel Speedtouch modem and I can tell you that the modem SUCKS. I had an engineer from BT(British Telecom) out to the house to check the "gain" on the line, at Freeserve's advice. At the time he told me two things, firstly that I was just outside the acceptable range for DSL and secondly that my modem was an expensive paperweight. So even after switching ISPs I still had problems with my modem disconnecting for hours at a time and later discovered that USB isn't meant to transfer large amounts of data for long periods of time - ergo don't buy a usb modem....enter my friends USB adapter...
You'd think with all the previous problems wanadoo, aka freeserve would have learned from the experience, but the absolutely haven't. We now have what they refer to as a Wanadoo Livebox and USB adapter from Inventel and surprise, surprise - if you have another computer your going to need another usb adapter at £45 a pop....
Another point worth mentioning is the dreaded tech support, who after telling me that "You seem to know what your doing" popped out to consult a colleage and then abruptly hung up the phone.....so after another 45 minutes of sickening, brainwashing music I let rip on another unsuspecting tech support girl and clearly I discovered that hitting wanadoo over the head with a hammer is the only way to get any help at all...
So I've now got my friends livebox hooked up to his desktop via an ethernet cable and his laptop hooked up via the usb adapter - 1 more desktop top to go and hopefully I can use the wireless inside the laptop instead of that pesky usb to finish the deal off - but wait, tech support is directing me to a webpage about third party support and I'm telling her that I've already tried that and it didn't work - "I'm sorry" she says and I groan, shaking my head...maybe I can get this to work on my own because they definitely aren't going to help anymore....
Come Friday I'll be attempting to get the laptop up with its internal mini pci wireless and use the usb adapter for the third computer, but even if I do get this working - is the 2GB a month capping going to serve my friends needs?.....absolutely not, but then he signed up for a year and unfortunately hes stuck with it.
....Wanadoo...."Wireless Magic"
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Wanadoo
