We’ve had fiber optic cable for the Internet, TV, and telephone at our house since the spring of 2020. Having it installed during the first of the 3 lockdowns for Covid was a challenge but we’ve been happy with it ever since. Well, that is until we received an email from our service provider, the largest one in France, that they were going to increase the monthly charge. Back in the US we were used to pitting one provider against the other at least once a year to obtain a better deal when the contract was up for renewal. Those “games” that we were playing on the other side of the Atlantic seem to have different rules over here.

To be fair, the increase we were going to be charged was only 1€ per month so for 56€ we felt that we were still getting a good value with fiber Internet, 140 TV channels, and unlimited fixed-line phone calls. However, it gave us the opportunity to check the competition and since by law if your provider increases the price of your contract you have 60 days to change to another company without having to pay a termination fee, it was worth a look. The best deal that Bill could find at 34€ per month was with SFR:

• Fiber Internet up to 8 Gb/s (our wiring can only support 2 Gb/s)
• 200 TV channels
• Separate 4G mini-box in case the Internet goes down
• WiFi repeater to ensure whole-house coverage
• Unlimited free fixed-line phone calls around the world, including the US
• Bonus: 9 months Amazon Prime (Note: while this is a nice freebie for the music and videos, we often already get 1 or 2-day delivery since the distances in France aren’t as great when compared with the US)

Bill contacted our current provider’s customer service department via Messenger with the information above to see if they would match it. Their response gave us 3 choices:

• Pay the 1€ per month since they were passing along only a portion of their additional charges
• Pay a one-time fee of 100€ to downgrade the speed of our connection
• Switch to the competitor since they would not match the offer

With today’s blog post being called “Change the channel” you can guess which option we chose. Online we selected an appointment 10 days away and during the ensuing days we received numerous emails and phone calls to remind us of the date and that we had to be at home between 8 AM and 12 Noon or there would be a 60€ charge.

On the appointed day the technician called and sent a text that he was running late but would arrive at 12:30 PM; it was actually 3:30 PM. I’d read that since we already had fiber installed “there will be no work required” (inside the house) and that the technician would either shift our interior cable connection from one slot to another on the Prise Terminale Optique box on our wall or do essentially the same thing outside up on the telephone pole at the Point de Mutualisation.

In our case, it was an exterior switch but within an hour we were making phone calls to 90 countries around the world, deciding which of the thousands of Prime movies to watch, while flipping between 200 TV stations, all for a little more than 1€ a day. Not really; we seldom make phone calls, we might see a movie on the weekend, and there are only 5 channels on which we even watch one program. We’re too busy on the Internet researching a future trip or getting that next blog post ready!

For the really curious, here’s a pdf of some tips we learned when switching providers

Compare Fibre Optique offers in France: https://www.ariase.com/box/offres/fibre-optique

Photo notes: The top and bottom photos are from France Televisions and the other 2 are from the SFR website.