Connections, Continued

Connections, Continued

Where we were:

• On March 3, we ordered a b-box for an Internet / phone / TV package (13€/mo)
• By March 16, we should have the box and live internet
• By March 9, we should both have new cell phones (2€/mo for 2 hrs of time)

My cell SIM came on March 7, and we immediately tried it - no go :-( It turns out mine is the *only* smartphone that only has USA frequencies. So, we popped down to the local grocery store and bought one (89€) - it's basically equivalent to my old one (except the frequency, of course). Back at the apartment, in goes the chip, and my phone is live!*

That was a lucky thing. Because! Rick's replacement came a bit later; even though he could keep his number, it took about a day to switch over - leaving us with only my phone...

On March 8, b-box notified us that the box was ready! We hoofed it down to the store and picked it up. Rick spent that evening trying to get it going - no luck... We decided to wait, just in case that's part of the drill. Well, the next day was (no kidding) the day that Rick's phone switched - he had used that as his internet account and contact number. So, now that we were (almost) done waiting, he called the helpline. They indicated that we should wait 24 hrs. (hmm - from when?)

Finally, on Friday afternoon, we decided we'd waited long enough. Rick got through to a very helpful tech support person (I know! I can hear your jaw dropping from here). She said
1) a technician would be here Saturday morning at 10:00
2) it would be free, since it would be considered as part of the installation
3) any days that we hadn't been able to use would not count - our "month" essentially would restart after the internet worked

Sure enough, this morning (the 11th!) the technician showed up - he tested the phone line; it was miswired; he fixed it, started the box, and boom! I logged in!

We spent a couple of hours setting up our devices, and then went off to enjoy our new town!

~~~
* My old phone isn't exactly a brick - it can still use GPS to navigate, and Wi-Fi for email. We are trying the Magic Jack App to see if it's worth keeping our USA land line (990-xxxx).
We cancelled the cell phone number (336-xxxx) - it is completely gone.
Our cell phones are limited: we can call any number in France, but only land lines outside of France; our texts only go to French lines.
Our emails are still active, as are our Skype accounts. If you want them, we can send you our French phone numbers that way.

NOTE: if all else fails, you can leave me a comment on this blog - comments are moderated, so if you provide your contact info, I will not publish the comment, but will see your info :-)