Broadband Blues

Here in Xaintrie we enjoy a rural existence with beautiful scenery; wooded hills, plunging gorges, trout streams and placid lakes, peaceful meadows with scattered, contented cattle. Not too crowded, lively towns and villages which don't die in the winter when the visitors have all left. Not a bad life really. We even have broadband access to the internet.

Some would say that this is now an essential requisite to life in the 21st century although some would say otherwise. But not many. Without even attempting to analyse why this service is deemed essential, you only have to open your ears to the complaints of friends and neighbours to be convinced that a decent broadband service is not a longed-for luxury but an absolute, fundamental human right. 

Why is this?  What is so 'essential' about speedy access to the internet? Only two or three years ago we were perfectly content with our 'dial-up' connections, happily swapping simple emails with family and friends. Two or three years before that most of us were content to wait for the postal service to do what it has always done for the past century, oblivious of the internet revolution twittering into our lives.

Is the answer something to do with consumerism and desire, to indulge in the latest trends? I think it's much more than this. The message is sinking home that the internet is actually us. We are the world-wide-web. We can actually make our words count and have an effect on those pressures which govern our daily lives.

Look at the Wikipedia phenomenon.  Note also a number of recent media stories concerning how the US presidential hopeful, Barak Obama has grasped this and used it to great effect in his campaign. We all want a share of this power.

So, we now have the internet, but what has this desire for speed (of connection) got to do with it. We can use our 'phone lines and join in the 'www' jamboree. Why should we have to do this at ever increasing speeds? Well, anyone who has spent a frustrating time waiting for a web-page to manifest itself (due to the fact that the designers all presume we have fast broadband access anyway) at dial-up, non-broadband speeds will know the answer.

Here in rural France some of us have broadband, some of us don't and some of us have it only some of the time. Speeds are low, no faster than 2Mb/s at best in this area for ADSL broadband and often at slower speeds of half-a-Mb/s, no better than dial-up. The average for the whole of the UK is around 3.6Mb/s and in Paris and other large cities, speeds of well over 10Mb/s has been attainable for some time now.  Telephone-wire-delivered ADSL broadband can only be effective up to around 4 kilometres from the 'exchange'.  This leaves a lot of people beyond its reach, including a number of people I know in this neck of the woods.

A year or so ago our Département of the Corrèze and its Region of Limousin announced that they were well aware of these connection problems in rural areas, where many new enterprises and commercial initiatives were struggling to launch themselves but hampered by lack of broadband access to the internet.  This page shows the situation and progress towards one of the solutions. The service is a 'Wimax' system which entails installing an antenna on the house and receiving the signals from a transmitter mast up to 10 kilometres away. Note that we need 'Les Opérateurs Particuliers' listed half-way down the web page (those companies offering services to private households). Of the 4 companies listed here only 'Numéo is anywhere near offering a service at this time but they have been offering it for 9 months now and it still doesn't work properly. I suggested to two friends of mine in this area who were beyond ADSL reach to try this option over 6 months ago. One household has actually had the system installed for more than 2 months now and it still does not give them a satisfactory service, often totally unobtainable for days on end.  The other friend has been told she can have the service but Numéo has gone completely silent on when. In fact, I'm sure there are major technical problems with Numéo at present (check out a few forums with their name).  Is there someone out there to prove me wrong?

Enter, stage right, two-way satellite communication for internet access.  This is our latest option, apparently now viable and affordable due to new equipment developed with the private household in mind.  See this web site devoted to 'Tooway'.  I have done some research here but to cut a long, rather complex story short, it's a bit tricky to install, the kit has to be paid for (in the order of 600+ euros) rather than equipment rental included in the monthly subscription and this subscription is at least twice ADSL and Wimax charges.

Should my friend go for this option? She is an erudite, retired journalist-photographer, very much still involved in world affairs and desperate to get broadband access. Her present dial-up with Wanadoo is laughable - slow, slow, slow, connections often closing down inexplicably after a few moments.

Two-way satellite-internet is new technology at the level required by the private household so, even leaving aside the expense, will it work satisfactorily? She's a feisty lady and doesn't stand any nonsense. Like all of us here, she's on a limited pension. Will money spent on this technology be worth it?

She's not going to move house. She needs Internet in place of Internot.

Mapmaker

 

Parlez Vous?

As a Brit, is it possible to live in France without speaking French?  Of course; there is no language test (yet) for immigrants, particularly if they originate from another EU country.  The debate rather takes another direction - should  a Brit speak 'passable' French in order to live here?  A genuine gallic shrug, beautifully illustrated here, probably isn't reproducible  by a Brit but should we at least try to get our mouths moving a little more?

In my opinion, living in a foreign country is more or less 'comfortable' according to the stance of the host nation.  This in itself has a number of levels - the laws of the State at the top and the attitude of your immediate neighbours at the bottom.

Most Brits living here seem to find few problems, even with a  limited command of the language.  Some of us struggle a little with our consciences, knowing we should do better, but find the idea of learning a foreign language (at the time when we prefer to indulge in our favourite pastimes) a pain in the bum and put the whole thing on the back burner.

The 'anglo-saxon attitude' - see the illustration here (gleaned from Google Images when I entered that phrase), probably doesn't exist anymore, at least among those who have genuinely made the permanent move to France.

On the other hand it has been replaced by a ready and grateful acceptance of the tolerance of our host-cousins to put up with our linguistic stumblings.  In fact, I would be happy to say "chapeau" ('hats off') to the French for a smooth ride in this respect.

There's a message here also for us Brits living in France  - an understanding of the French language to any degree will lead to a richer life.  To be able to reply to a jocular remark with an appropriate riposte is an achievement.  To do the reverse gives great satisfaction and means you'll feel truly 'at home'.

Mapmaker

Nickers!

The theme from the last blog continues, simply because the subject keeps cropping up in conversations with friends, relatives and in the media.  This has now brought into sharp focus for me one of the hitherto vague reasons people like us uproot ourselves and emigrate to another country and another culture.  People here are much less likely to nick things, ergo French society has retained more of its respect for other peoples' property.  I'm not talking so much about the habitual criminal fraternities but rather the mentality of people who will 'lift' a portable object and walk off with it simply because it is momentarily unattended.

Since the last blog the self-employed antenna and satellite-dish-installer son-in-law of a friend working in the UK told us how first, his ladders were taken from the top of his van, then valuable tools stolen from inside.  As an aside we learned that the insurance wouldn't pay up because the van was deemed a 'workplace'.  He's an honest man but is sure he'll lie next time and say that the stuff was stolen from home so his household insurance should cover it.  Otherwise, another hit like that and he'd be out of business.

Yesterday my former professional colleague, still working as a Land Surveyor, had his work umbrella (a special piece of kit, used to protect the survey equipment) stolen when it was left unattended for a minute or two, 50 metres from where he was standing.  Our friends with whom we were dining when we heard the ladder story, told us how their English village church roof had its lead taken - an everyday occurrence now.  It will cost £140,000 to replace which had to be raised by voluntary funding, not to mention the extra £40,000 for the security arrangements, insisted upon by the insurance company, to guard the scaffolding as obviously, that too would offer an irresistible prize to the 'nickers'.

The final straw, prompting this outburst was to hear on the TV yesterday of an English doctor, whose car was stolen after stopping to attend a pensioner badly injured after being hit by a bus in Salford.  Read it here.

Apparently, sat-nav units in ambulances are now the latest craze - ripped out by opportunist thieves while the crew attends an accident victim.  Nice one.

Am I being smug?  After all, we live in a rural corner of France, 45km form the nearest city Brive-la-Gaillarde, population 49,000.  Rural France is 85% of her territory but only 27% of the population live there.  Are the French that bad in their cities?  It doesn't seem so from here.

Be that as it may, my 'quality of life' is enhanced by being able to leave my car unlocked in my garden, my fishing gear hanging outside in the porch, ever ready to use as soon as the fish start to rise, my bicycle outside, potted plants around the house, safe from marauding 

opportunist ne'er-do-wells.  Great Britain is, I believe, the third most densely populated island in the world behind Java and Japan.  Is that a reason?

Mapmaker

Bless 'em All

The long and the short and the tall.  They're still here, especially the tall, in other words, the Dutch.  One more week and the visitors will suddenly leave; the campsites will lose most of their clientèle and our town will start to look normal again.

At present however, the supermarkets are still thronged with our summer visitors, the Dutch, perambulating through them like brightly-coloured fishing floats, bobbing around, well proud of the swirling  surface created by the rest of us.

Why is it that the Dutch are so tall?  Our Dutch settler friends say they are largely from the north of Holland, but that doesn't explain why so many choose here for their holidays.  They also seem to make up the majority of those who have chosen the émigré life here in Xaintrie.  There must be a historical context there somewhere.

Speaking of supermarkets - I'm always amazed at how trusting they are here.  The two photographs were taken this morning.  Literally loads of stuff on display outside the main entrance; finely-tuned products for the summer visitors such as, tents, camping chairs, lilos, camp cooking equipment and lots, lots more.  All highly portable and totally un-monitored.  Not a single member of staff, let alone the beady-eye of the dreaded cctv camera.  People are left to choose what they want, then take it inside to purchase it.  Those who subsequently walk off with their choice without paying (and there must be some) are not contemplated by the management.  People are trusted to do the right thing.

Unlike the UK.  The surveillance society there doesn't want to take their monocular off the naughty public for one second.  And for good reason, they say.  Britain is now a nation of nickers.  People will nick anything.  A few weeks ago, listening to the BBC Today program we heard of the latest UK klepto craze due to the world shortage of metals.  Never mind your church roof with its covering of grey-gold (lead) - thieves are now carrying off whole bus-stop shelters.  Lots of good stuff there for the scrap merchant.

I wonder if it has occurred to the spying authorities in Britain that people might behave better if they were trusted to do so.

It seems to work here.

Mapmaker.

One Day in the Life

Yesterday, Sunday, 3rd August 2008 Alexander Solzhenitsyn died.  Curiously enough, I was going to use this title before I heard the news.  My blog was going to be another ramble recounting that particular day in my life, here in deepest France.  Trivia indeed, compared with that of Ivan Denisovich.

My day, more than half a century on from that of the Nobel Prize-winner, seems almost obscenely  privileged by comparison.  It included an unplanned morning spent at one of the local summer 'brocante' markets - a French version of a car-boot sale without the cars; aperos at the Café des Sports in the village, then the inevitable lunch chez Marina as we were not far from her place anyway.

An hour or to to recover then off to an 'American-style' barbecue at 5pm at Jerry's place in celebration of his 80th birthday.  His chocolate birthday cake was similar in shape to an F4 Phantom jet-fighter used in the Korean war; Jerry flew one during that conflict.  Around the time Solzhenitsyn was finishing his book, come to think of it.

A light-entertainment day for us here in our new, warless Europe.  Conversations and events of our day will fade quickly as they are of little consequence.  One image however from last Sunday will remain in my mind's eye - a photograph in a magnificent book Marina had recently taken delivery of, just arrived from Germany.  The book was entitled 'Diaspora' and was a collection of brilliant black-and-white photos of jews and jewish groups in scattered locations around the world.  On flicking through the pages I stopped at one showing four old, gnarled Greeks, forearms bared, their concentration-camp tattooed numbers still perfectly legible.

No further comment necessary.

Mapmaker

When the lights go out...

Yesterday's UK headlines were all about the nuclear energy debate and wranglings.  Will French EDF (80-odd percent owned by the French government) be able to buy/run the British nuclear industry (30-odd percent owned by the British government)?  Apparently not, as at present but this important discussion has already dropped out of the headlines this morning.

Two interesting points to ponder: One, who has been the wiser, the French or the Brits, in the level of reliance on private industry to plan for the (far) future?  I know who I'll put my money on.

Two: Once again another example here of the total lack of long-term planning and vision by successive UK governments in respect of securing a safe future for its people.  I don't feel that frustration here in France.   I see daily examples of an inherent sense of duty by the state, départements, local authorities etc. as, for example, the execution of continuous maintenance regimes on the roads, public buildings and other amenities.

To return to the subject of energy security I now live under a long-established nuclear/hydroelectric regime, envisaged over 30 years ago by the French.  (The World Nuclear Association website here gives the French situation).  My house is powered by electricity and wood.  My bills have increased, of course, but are not subject to these lurches in cost currently being experienced in the UK due to government failure to obtain energy security. 

And here, I'm a citizen, not a subject.  Vive la République!