Au Revoir Satellite, Bonjour DSL
A tip for any budding entrepreneurs who decide to “hole up” in their holiday house in the South of France for a year and knock out a prototype on which to create a startup.
If France telecom ever tell you you can’t get DSL and you feel the need to spend crazy money on a slow satellite system run by company with terrible customer service, fear not. Get your local mayor to write to France telecom and demand DSL for his “new economy residents”.
That’s exactly what happened to us. Within a week of France telecom receiving the letter from our village mayor (Le Marie) we are up and running with DSL. Amazing. I bet when I move back to NYC next year I won’t be able to ask Bloomberg to help me sort things out!
No more packet latency. No more network filtering. No more $1,000 a month for Internet access. I can even pull down the 1.2 meter dish next to the pool.
Hooray!
NB: We are in the midst of having the whole house wired with CAT6 cables. Wireless doesn’t tend to work well in 300 year old farmhouses with 4 feet thick stone walls. If you are wiring your house choose CAT6 as it supports gigabit Ethernet. Great for that Maxtor 1Tb SAN I have 
February 21, 2007 at 1:30 am
European countries seem to be much more advanced in terms of broadband than U.S. Not only speed/pricewise but as you said it, customer service too. What speed are you getting and how much do you pay for the DSL?
Nationwide DSL
February 21, 2007 at 8:11 am
Actually I think the US is far more advanced. I had a Verizon FIOS into the house in Boston which was superb. France is well catered for as long as you are in a metropolitan area.
February 24, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Yeah, right.
My parents live in a small town in north Italy, with NO DSL. My mother is in the city council. The mayor wrote the local telecom incumbent (a little less than a monopoly) 2 years ago.
Still nothing, but a vague promise for the second half of 2007.
When you say “Europe is better”, remember to add “except Italy”.
March 5, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Hmm,
I’m not a million miles from Madrid and have enjoyed 5/2 Fiber for quite a while. It comes as a package with the phone and costs around 40 Euros a month, unlimited d/l.
Fixed ip is 8 Euros a month extra. (I’m saving up :-p)