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Surfing à la française

After years of lagging behind its neighbours, France has finally caught the internet bug, spawning a rash of different internet service providers (ISPs), subscription offers and download speeds. Kevin Walsh guides you through French cyberspace to help you choose the package best suited to your needs.

Oh to be in Pau: residents of the Pyrenean town will soon have the ride of their lives with the introduction of ‘Pau Broadband Country.’ Due for completion in 2004, this super-broadband project will bring video on demand, interactive TV, e-learning and a host of other services at breathtaking speeds – up to 100 times that of the fastest available connection today.

For the rest of us, choosing an internet connection in France is a more mundane affair: you have to weigh up the relative benefits of speed, cost and user-friendliness. With a bewildering array of products on the market and the uncertainty of dealing in French, it can seem an uphill struggle.

But it needn’t be. So here is the simple guide to how to launch yourself into cyberspace on the other side of the Channel, and how to make your euro stretch as far as possible.

The most basic question is, of course, how much time you intend to spend in France, followed closely by how much time you will spend on the Net when you’re there and how much data you upload and download. Your choices then broadly mirror those in the UK: dial-up, ISDN or broadband (also referred to as ADSL).

If you visit and connect infrequently, the best option is clearly a dial-up pay-as-you-go arrangement. You simply pay the cost of a local call each time you log on. Most internet service providers (ISPs) offer this facility. You can even set it up from the UK by going to any of the ISPs’ web sites. You will then be armed with a username, password and dial-up number before you get to France. You will also need a French adapter for your phone jack, but these are readily available in most French supermarkets and hardware stores.

Incidentally, when you choose a French ISP, do not assume that a familiar brand name has any relationship with, or similarity to, its British counterpart. Tiscali, for example, has spread throughout Europe in the last couple of years, acquiring and rebranding ISPs to create a pan-European network. But each country has its own rules and pricing structure. So if you spot a familiar name, proceed with caution: your £5.99 off-peak deal in the UK will be completely unknown in France.

If you make frequent trips to France, the pay-as-you-go option may prove costly, especially if your idea of relaxing in France involves spending hours at a stretch online, communicating with your office. You might, depending on your usage, find that a contract is better value.

And that’s where things get really interesting.

In 2000, unlimited dial-up access was introduced, but quickly withdrawn after unprecedented demand. It’s slowly being reintroduced, but in the meantime, ISPs have put together packages, or forfaits, of a fixed number of hours per month. These range from 5 to 120. The trouble is that if you don’t use the hours, they’re not carried over to the following month. If you exceed them, however, you end up paying a surcharge for every extra minute you spend online.

To add to the confusion, ISPs have introduced special offers that undercut their own forfaits. Tiscali is a good example: at the time of writing, it is offering a 30-hour package for €22.50, but also recently started advertising unlimited usage for €24.95. It makes little commercial or marketing sense to have these contradictory offers, but it does prove that it pays to shop around, not only among competing ISPs, but with the same ISP.

Make sure as well that you know what you’re committing yourself to. Even for a dial-up connection, some ISPs will insist on a minimum contract of 12 or even 24 months. Others - AOL, for example - require no commitment at all, and allow you to cancel your subscription at any time, with no penalty to pay. For ISDN and broadband, you are usually required to commit for 12 months, but again there are exceptions.

If you regularly need to download large amounts of data, you should look at ISDN or broadband (either ADSL or cable, though the latter is available only in major cities).

Of the two, ISDN is more widely available. Indeed, France Telecom has a legal commitment to provide it in any location, though you may find you have a struggle on your hands in really remote areas. The technology involves using either one (64k) or two (128k) telephone lines in conjunction with special hardware, which is fitted by a France Telecom engineer. Bear in mind that you still pay a per-minute charge each time you connect. This can be as little as 2c a minute, but you should look out for hidden costs – some ISPs will impose a connection charge of up to 11c for the first minute, followed by the lower rate.

Heavy bandwidth users dismiss ISDN as yesterday’s technology, and head straight for the dizzying speeds offered by ADSL, or broadband (haut débit) technology. It’s an always-on, flat-fee connection that doesn’t tie up your phone line when you’re surfing. On the downside, it’s more expensive and less widely available than ISDN. Major metropolitan centres and large towns are already ASDL-enabled, and it’s slowly being rolled out in smaller towns. The key here is how far you are from the local exchange. At the moment, only 75% of telephone lines are within ADSL range. To see if your area is ADSL-ready, check out the Netissimo site.

If ADSL is available, again you have several choices, based on speed. And speed equals cost. Some ISPs offer ‘restricted’ (bridé) connections of 128k or 256k at very attractive prices. A standard broadband connection operates at a speed of 512k. If you want to live dangerously, fasten your seatbelt and head straight for the lightning-fast 1024k package.

ADSL is a DIY option – you simply get an ADSL modem and off you go. Again, shopping around is the key: some ISPs throw in a free modem, others don’t. Some charge a connection fee, others waive it. So make sure you weigh up the relative merits of each deal: speed of connection, modem cost, activation charge and length of contract. ADSL-France, an unofficial organisation, provides the latest details in its regular newsletter. Free Telecom has a useful comparison on its website of what’s included in its, and others ISPs’, ADSL offers.

Whatever technology you opt for, finding the right connection at the right price can be a challenge, but there are some invaluable guides to finding the best offer: first, check out the ISP comparison web sites to stay in touch with the latest developments. Supermarkets are an unlikely source of information – you’ll usually find CDs from all ISPs with their latest offers in the computer section. If your French is limited, you’ll also find invaluable advice in English on the Living France web site, in the La Mairie discussion forum.

After a long period of stagnation, the internet in France is on the move again, and prices are dropping fast. With a little research you’ll soon find the offer that’s best suited to you, balancing speed against cost-effectiveness. Before you know it, you’ll be an internaute hurtling through cyberspace.

Failing that, you could always set a course for Pau.

© Kevin Walsh 2003