Re: USians should pray that this works out
Ok, sorry ... I should have added YMMV.
16 euro/month is what I pay, I do have ADSL/TV/LandLine with them as well as the two set top boxes they claim were designed by Starck, one of which comes with bluray player, not that I use it for anything other than news on TV, the kids for their entertainment.
20euro/month is still cheaper than anything else in France for that, or even in the World I would say. As for the 100 countries, yes, they count Scottland and Wales as different countries, aren't they? It is not like they count the states in the USA as different countries. And, what is the difference between 97 and 100, or lets say 94 and 100, when no other mobile provider allows more than 40 and their roaming charges are horrendous compared to Iliad/Free?
I must admit, network throttling issues existed in the beginning on Free mobile, Orange was not delivering. I was among the first to jump ship to Free mobile and in the beginning, as you say, network throttling, dropped calls, etc however, now I have Iliad's 4G antenna's in range of my BB10 Z30, could not be happier. On ADSL side, I have been with Iliad since 2011 and am looking forward to fiber, it will be in my street in 2016, iirc.
A bit of history:
I started off with Neuf telecom, which tried to convince me not to return a poor excuse for a paperweight (Windows whatever phone back in 2009) in due time, thankfully I did not trust them and sent it back anyway - I never received some stickers I needed to send back with the phone and was promised to receive before the deadline. I sent the letter "en recommandé" without return notification, cause the post office was a 25m walk away and it saved ~a quid/$1 ... They did lie saying they had not received the phone in time, I walked 50m, had the post office print out the delivery document, scanned it and sent it to them via email with a nice \/.
I lived in a place where there was a problem with the phone line (broken cable ... could have been heavy rains, mud in pipe, rats ....), FT took a whopping 6 weeks to fix it (I work from home, so imagine 6 weeks without fast internet), and then, only when I agreed to join the Orange network. Note that Neuf claimed it would take 2 months if they had to contact FT. So, off I go with FT, the most expensive provider, not that I care I do not pay the ADSL bill, company does ;-), but still, I was expecting better service. Phone service is top notch, they have some nice international (different language) child TV programs as well ... but keep trying to sell you BS you do not want as soon as you have a query, sometimes even going as far as saying ... we can ONLY help you if you take a 2 months free offer live Sports - I do sports, hardly ever enjoy watching others do it, though ;-).
So, then I decide to move houses, explain that I need the second internet connection up & running as soon as the old one fails, they say "Impossible, monsieur" ... so I go to free. Never had any issues with them, then again, YMMV, I know ppl who are happy with SFR(they bought Neuf)/Orange/whatever.
Free (Iliad floats my boat), do not really care much about yours, though.
Only, to us Iliad customers, the others are pigeons.
As for the phone ... iPhone 5S 16Gb 433euro (49euro + 24 installments of 16euro) - get yourself a calculator. Admittedly, it is the 16Gb phone, still good bargain.
PS: They also have a 2euro option, 2 hours, 1 euro additional hour, unlimited SMS, no data. Nothing beats that in France either, once you calculate that my kids never spend more than two hours on the phone ... they are still pre-teens.
PPS: I will never do any business with Bouygues, so scrap that option.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
