The Internet in France

When we first came to France in 2007 the first thing I wanted was internet access. The internet has made our life possible in France, as in, communicating with family and friend. But when we first came here it was not possible to get broadband internet access. When we enquired from the neighbours they said you could only get dial-up internet access.

Now most of you will remember dial-up from the old days, I certainly do, when I lived in Northern Ireland it was also the only internet connection at first. I had forgotten what dial-up Internet connection was like until I had no alternative but to get it again. What a nightmare, I had forgotten how slow it was and also when you were on the dial-up internet nobody could get through to you on the telephone. It made that dododo sound when dialing and then the long piercing sound and you would keep you fingers crossed that it made the connection. Right in the middle of doing something it would lose the connection and you would have to start all over again. My internet server provider was Orange France, they weren't too bad and I think it cost about €10. per month and was limited for 2 hours. Of course I couldn't download or upload anything, so any software up-dates were impossible. I use to get my son, in Northern Ireland, to put the updates onto a cd which I would collect when I was over on holiday. Then about 3 years later I heard about internet connection via satellite.

The two way satellite connectivity meant you could have a permanent 2-way connection via a satellite dish, and because the system didn't use a telephone line, you didn't have to worry about missed calls or being engaged.  So I found a company called Kiwi who supplied this service and they gave me all the information. They had already erected a huge satellite dish on top of a water tower, not far from our village. This dish pointed to the orbiting satellites way out in space. Then they supplied a smaller dish, which they put on our roof. This dish then pointed to the large dish on the water tower and our village had high speed internet access.

Water tower

Of course there had to be a clear view to the south, between the dish on our roof, and the dish on the tower, we were lucky there weren't any big trees in the way. The basic satellite equipment was supplied free of charge, but you had to pay for the installation which was over €200. The monthly cost includes telephone calls. Our monthly bills for this internet connection is around €45 per month. But the benefits are great. Mind you I only have 2mb speed, but now I can shop on Amazon, eBay, Marks, Next and a lot more sites and I can get my Mac updates. Because of this high speed connection I bought myself a new MacBook Pro and I have wifi.  But the biggest benefit is communicating with my family and friends on Facebook and Skype, and of course now I have my blog.

Quote for today:

'A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click'