new to broadband - advice please.

I'm from the UK but am going to France for a few months where an ADSL
subscription has been purchased from France Telecom complete with the boxed
hardware waiting for me to unpack and set up and apparently no one
english-speaking there to help.
My french is poor so having never used anything other than modem I wonder could
someone give me some clues as to what to expect and possible problems to
troubleshoot? Once I am there I will have no access to the internet so won't be
able to post questions (until I get it working when of course it won't be
necessary).

The hardware is USB (perhaps this is mostly the case nowadays?)

I'm using XP pro, I've gathered that drivers will have to be loaded from the
software CD (I hope the CD is multilingual - I don't even know the french for
'drivers'!). Is there likely to be application software also? - I would like to
avoid anything that isn't absolutely essential, though I imagine there will be a
'wizard' of some kind to set up the various passwords and usernames. Would such
a 'wizard' normally be part of the installation software or part of winXP?

I've been told there are 3 passwords already assigned on the purchase form.
Being used only to my pathetic modem I know only of two - connection and email.
What would the third be?

Does anyone have experience of foreign language installation CDs? Are they
normally multilingual?

Grateful for any help

Cheers

On Fri, 28 May 2004 12:54:01 +0100, Jim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I'm from the UK but am going to France for a few months where an ADSL
>subscription has been purchased from France Telecom complete with the boxed
>hardware waiting for me to unpack and set up and apparently no one
>english-speaking there to help.

one wonders how you're going to get on in France generally, however...

http://www.agence.francetelecom.com/..._extense.shtml
is the setup info for one ISP. My pigeon french is enough to follow
that esp with the pictures

babelfish.altavista.com translates the text without the images which
will explain what you're looking at. If you can find what hardware and
ISP you have then you should be able to walk through it from here

Phil

On Fri, 28 May 2004 13:28:20 +0100, Phil Thompson <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>On Fri, 28 May 2004 12:54:01 +0100, Jim <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>I'm from the UK but am going to France for a few months where an ADSL
>>subscription has been purchased from France Telecom complete with the boxed
>>hardware waiting for me to unpack and set up and apparently no one
>>english-speaking there to help.
>
>one wonders how you're going to get on in France generally,

Does one?..je parle francais assez bien parce que j'y habite depuis deux
ans...but I like to steer clear of unnecessary challenge

> however...
>
>http://www.agence.francetelecom.com/..._extense.shtml
>is the setup info for one ISP. My pigeon french is enough to follow
>that esp with the pictures
>
>babelfish.altavista.com translates the text without the images which
>will explain what you're looking at. If you can find what hardware and
>ISP you have then you should be able to walk through it from here
>
>Phil


cheers, I'll check it out

"Jim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'm from the UK but am going to France for a few months where an ADSL
> subscription has been purchased from France Telecom complete with the
boxed
> hardware waiting for me to unpack and set up and apparently no one
> english-speaking there to help.

I have a good friend who lives in Paris (originally from Scotland) who has
recently had ADSL enabled at his home. He started with a USB modem
connection but soon got fed up and recently went over to a wireless router
modem. He uses an XP Home laptop...

Both setups were very easy by all accounts, and with your level of French
(yes I worked and lived there too for three years) you should have no
problems at all. Essentially it's the same as installing ADSL in the UK. I
should imagine that yes, you'll have to install from a CD, then set it up to
establish the connection.

If you feel you could do with dropping a line to my friend, drop me a line
first (remove my spam trap) and I'll pass you along.

James

On Fri, 28 May 2004 17:48:45 +0100, "James Hurrell" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>"Jim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> I'm from the UK but am going to France for a few months where an ADSL
>> subscription has been purchased from France Telecom complete with the
>boxed
>> hardware waiting for me to unpack and set up and apparently no one
>> english-speaking there to help.
>
>I have a good friend who lives in Paris (originally from Scotland) who has
>recently had ADSL enabled at his home. He started with a USB modem
>connection but soon got fed up and recently went over to a wireless router
>modem. He uses an XP Home laptop...
>
>Both setups were very easy by all accounts, and with your level of French
>(yes I worked and lived there too for three years) you should have no
>problems at all. Essentially it's the same as installing ADSL in the UK. I
>should imagine that yes, you'll have to install from a CD, then set it up to
>establish the connection.
>
>If you feel you could do with dropping a line to my friend, drop me a line
>first (remove my spam trap) and I'll pass you along.
>
>James
>
thanks James - I think I might have got enough to go on for now but I'll take a
rain-check on your offer of help anyway, if I may, and perhaps get back to you
if i'm stuck.