Telephone, Fax.

France Telecom has no monopoly on your service any more. That means that you can order your telephone service from anyone you wish. Your most simple choice is a basic France Telecom phone line. You pay a subscription and all call charges to them.

As France Telecom doesn't offer the lowest call rates, you may want to use a secondary operator, either by dialling a code before each call. In this case, you still pay the France Telecom subscription, but you pay the secondary operator for calls routed through them.

Or you can set up your telephone with automatic preselection to route all calls through asecondary operator. Tele2. and OneTel are probably the best???, and then you pay for your service direct through them, with no contact to France Telecom. The downside to this is that if your line goes down, they have to get the repair done by France Telecom, because in effect they are renting the line. It seems a coincidence that the repair under these circumstances always seem to take longer.

Note that special-rate numbers such as those beginning with 08 are always routed through France Telecom and billed by them.

Another excellent alternative is to use your computer and the Skype VOIP (voice over internet provider)

You are settling in France for professional purposes and would like to have a fax? Do you share your primary line or do you buy a separate fax line? The choice is not obvious. Sharing your primary line means people cannot fax you during lengthy phone calls.

If you don't get your new fax number on the ex-directory list (liste rouge) immediately, then you will be spammed with commercial faxes after just a couple of months.

An alternative is to receive your faxes over the internet. There are several providers, and they issue you with your own fax number. Be sure that it's a geographic number, and not an overcharged 08-number that may not be reachable from abroad. www.arobase.org/services/fax.htm is a good source of information and has a list of Fax service providers.

 Cold Callers

Cold callers on your telephone could soon come to an end. The new free Pacitel service means you can go online to list your telephone numbers on which you do not want to receive cold callers. Both your landline and mobile phones can be listed. Five groups representing 80% of the telemarketing firms have agreed to abide by the arrangements that have been put in place by Pacitel. Firms whom you normally deal with i.e. your bank, energy suppliers, mobile phone company will still be able to contact you, to offer you changes in service.
HOW TO SIGN UP

Visit www.pacitel.fr and click on the blue box : Vous souhaitez vous inscrire sur la liste Pacitel?.
Type in your number, without gaps. Make sure it is correct, click on Ajouter un autre numero to add up to five more numbers.
Add your e mail address and a secret question together with the answer.
Slide the bar along on the Securitie section (this is a security measure).
Click the boxes to certify the numbers are your personal ones.
Click Valider.

Mobile / Cell Phones

In France, there are several mobile phone operators (SFR, Orange, Bouygues) with their own networks, and more and more virtual operators, that rent the physical network from them. All three physical operators have a reputation for very bad customer service. Most of France is covered, and the 3 physical operators are working together to provide common cover of the remaining parts.

It is very easy to change from one operator to another, and keep your mobile phone number. Subject to your contractual obligations (période d'engagement), all you have to do is sign up with the new operator and ask them to take over your existing mobile phone number. You must ask at the time of signing up, to keep your existing number. The new operator will cancel your contract with your old operator.

To cancel a mobile phone subscription you have to write a letter and post it 'accuse de reception'
a good source for the formal letter can be found at;  http://www.dossierfamilial.com/lettres-types/