Friday's French music break - Plácido Domingo, "Niun mi tema"

Friday's French music break this week is something anyone who is interested in opera will be able to see live next week.

It's the aria, " Niun mi tema" (That none fear me")  sung (here) by  Plácido Domingo, from the final act of Giuseppe Verdi's "Otello".

Plácido Domingo (screenshot from "Otello", 1996 Metropolitan opera production)

It provides just a taste of an opera that many self-proclaimed experts have described as "having singing roles that the performers should not even be attempting to sing."

Just as it does every year, France 2 will be transmitting the entire production live from Théâtre Antique D'Orange as part of the festival des Chorégies: Tuesday August 5 from 21h50.

In the title role, of course, will be Roberto Alagna who, in recent years, seems to have made a habit of headlining the festival.

The 51-year-old tenor will be tackling the part for the first time and, while he'll undoubtedly thrill the home audience (TV viewers and those at the performance), "purists" might well judge the role to be beyond his capacities.

Whatever. Summer opera outdoors and at night - a treat indeed, even if the performers don't or can't deliver the goods (although once again, nitpickers might not agree).

Just as long as the heavens don't open.

Yours truly will be there on Saturday, hoping that the production will be more enjoyable than the disappointing "La Wally" was in Geneva.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Incomplete faction: French mobile operator Orange to launch a new service "guaranteeing bugs"

After France's largest mobile 'phone operator and Internet provider, Orange, treated its 28 million users - and then some - to a total 12-hour blackout from Friday afternoon until the early hours of Saturday morning, the company says it has hit upon a new marketing strategy.

It has promised to increase its current list of easy-to-navigate and simple-to-understand subscriptions with a new limited-availability only offer.

(screenshot from Orange commercial)

Called "Way-you-go" it will apparently guarantee a minimum service to mobile 'phone users at a maximum price, ensuring that subscribers have absolutely no service for at least 12 hours every month at a time which the company promises will be "totally at random" and "most inconvenient".

"It's the future of telecommunications," says a release on the company's website, issued at the same time as an apology for the bug that hit the France Telecom subsidiary and thereby guaranteeing that nobody would be able to read it.

"Friday's crash was such a success and touched so many people that we've decided to make a regular thing of it."

In addition the company says it plans to launch a new "Up yours" subscription for customers taking advantage of its combined mobile 'phone and Internet offer to "ensure that we are able to continue to provide the kind of service our customers have come to expect."

"We'll also be transferring our helplines to non French-speaking countries just to make certain that anyone having problems will have as much difficulty as possible finding someone who can provide them with an immediate solution."

Full details are expected to be released by the end of the month.

Pure genius and surely proof, as Orange said in a recent advertising campaign, that it is only satisfied, "when able to offer a service the customer appreciates."

rnet provider, Orange, announces a new bug-laden service for customers.

EDF's seasonal electricity bill greeting overcharge

Electricity doesn't come cheap, even in a country where most of it is produced by nuclear power stations.

But in a couple of cases this past week two customers of the French utility company, Electricité de France (EDF) had rather a nasty Christmas surprise.

Perhaps the energy giant was peeved by the French telecommunications company, France Télécom - Orange (FT), hogging the national headlines for presenting some of its mobile 'phone customers with astronomical bills, and although the Yuletide "gifts" it sent its two users pale in comparison to the €159,000 FT charged one of its clients, EDF almost managed to put a dampener on festive spirits.

The first case involved a retired woman in the south-western town of Orthez, who just days before Christmas Eve received a letter from her bank informing her that a payment for her electricity bill of a whopping €10,000 (and 23 centimes to be exact) had been rejected because of "insufficient funds".

An understandable shock to the woman (who wished to remain anonymous) especially as she said that her "annual consumption amounted to around €650" and made all the more unpalatable by the fact that she pays her bills by direct debit.

"Luckily I was sitting down when I received the call (from the bank)," she said.

"I started shaking and was completely disoriented," she continued.

"It's the sort of thing you see on television happening to others and all I can say is that people check their bills," she said.

Sound advice without doubt, and even though EDF has admitted there was a "rare error" in its calculations guess what?

In the very same week another customer - again in the south-west of France, but in a different town, also made the headlines when he received a bill for... wait for it...just over €69,000.

It was an annual bill but one that nonetheless surprised Matthieu Moulierac, a pâtissier in the town of Saint-Émilion, who said he was used to paying far less.

"On average the annual bill is between two thousand and two thousand five hundred euros," he told French news, seemingly unworried at being massively overcharged as EDF had also enclosed a letter apologising for the mistake and informing him that he would shortly be receiving an amended bill for the right amount.

As far as Moulierac was concerned, the story should have ended there, except when he took a look at this bank statement, lo and behold the amount had already been deducted from his account.

He too pays his EDF bills by direct debit and the bank had apparently already authorised the payment.

A quick 'phone call rectified the error initially made by EDF and then compounded by the bank.

But although Moulierac's Christmas and New Year were not soured by the prospect of having to battle to correct a mistake that was in no way of his making, those words of wisdom from the woman at the centre of the first tale ring rather true - and not just at this time of the year.

Happy Holidays.

France Telecom's new monthly phone bill record: €159,000

If you've been following the story of astronomical mobile 'phone bills here in France, you'll know that in the past week two cases have made the headlines: One for over €45,000 and another for €39,500.

Well, if you thought you had heard the end of it or that those amounts were as steep as it gets, think again.

Now comes news of a bill that makes the others all but pale into insignificance - as if that were possible - one for over €159,000.

It's a case that dates back to May this year but has only just been made public and is hardly great public relations for Orange, the mobile 'phone network operator and Internet service provider of this country's main telecommunications company, France Telecom.

It involves Jean Spadaro, an accident and emergency doctor from Fontainebleau, a town 70 kilometres south east of the French capital, who back in November 2008 chose a subscription based on €30 a month which would allow him an Internet connection using a 3G key.

But as the months went by he noticed that both his use of the 'phone and naturally the size of his bills were increasing, so he decided to change his subscription.

"By April this year I saw that my monthly bills were as much as €860 so I opted instead for the business 'unlimited access' option at €50 a month," he said.

"But when I received the bill at the end of May, I couldn't believe my eyes: €159,212 for one month's worth of connection."

Just as in the other two cases that have filled column inches and airwaves in France this week, Spadaro had fallen victim to that "unlimited access" clause for users who had signed the Orange business contract, which in fact is anything but "unlimited" in that it only refers to the time spent using the 'phone and not the maximum one gigabyte volume allowed each month.

Spadaro insists that nobody had ever explained to him that "unlimited access" didn't exactly mean what it implied when he signed the 10-page contract complete with obligatory small print.

So what has France Telecom got to say about this and the other cases that have hit the headlines over the past week?

The man charged with that thankless task was the company's director of business markets, Jean-Paul Cottet.

Speaking on France 2 television's lunchtime news programme on Wednesday, Cottet once again explained the real meaning of "unlimited access" admitting that there was probably still work to be done in clarifying to business customers exactly what each option available offered, and the limits contained within each contract.

But while acknowledging that in Spadaro's case there had been an error in issuing the bill that hadn't taken into account the request to change the terms of the customer's contract, the problem of exorbitant bills wasn't a widespread one.

"There have been problems with only one per cent of the 4,000 users who've opted for the business formula with the 3G key," he said.

"Around 30 contested bills are currently under review and we'll deal with each customer on a case-by-case basis."

A new case of mobile phone bill madness in France

Just another news-making day in France for Orange, the mobile 'phone network operator and Internet service provider of this country's main telecommunications company, France Telecom.

And that of course can only mean an astronomical bill for someone, somewhere.

Or at least, so it would seem, based on recent evidence.

Following hot on the heels of the story of Eric Gernez, who received a demand for payment courtesy of Orange, of over €45,000 for one month's worth of Internet charges comes the case of Christophe Aupy-Fagues.

http://www.france-today.com/2009/11/one-frenchmans-monster-45000-internet.html

When the company director in the town of Saint-Herblain in western France opened the most recent bill for his firm's mobile 'phone just last Friday he too, just as Gernez before him, received a nasty surprise.

The sum charged was a whopping €39,500 a figure, which Aupy-Fagues said, represented almost 10 per cent of his company's annual turnover.

Just to make matters worse Aupy-Fagues pays his 'phone bill by standing order so the money would have already left the company account had he not immediately contacted the bank and blocked the transfer.

All right, so it wasn't quite as much as the monstrous bill Gernez had been sent, but the period for which Aupy-Fagues had been charged was shorter - just 15 days - which meant that he had run up daily costs of...well you do the maths.

So what's going on here?

Well, the "offender", if you will, had been his business partner who had been on a trip to Spain and taken the 'phone with him.

But as far as Aupy-Fagues was concerned the real culprits were the 3G 'phone, Orange itself and the "unlimited access" contract he had signed with the company.

It was - and is - only valid for use in France, a vital detail of which, Aupy-Fagues maintains, he had never been informed, and the astronomical charges accumulated were a result of that infamous "roaming".

"If we had known that unlimited access was confined to France, my business partner would never have taken the 'phone with him," said Aupy-Fagues, who also blames Orange-France Telecom for not providing its customers with sufficient information or alerting them when charges appear to spiral out of control.

"Nobody got in touch with us or sent us a warning that the charges we had accrued were of such enormous proportions," he said.

Aupy-Fagues is still waiting for an explanation from Orange and hopes there has been some sort of mistake, but in the meantime he intends to try to find other "victims of the 3G key" in France

What's the betting he and Gernez are not the only ones?

One Frenchman's monster €45,000 Internet bill

Those of a certain generation and background will doubtlessly have been raised with the idiom ringing in their ears, "If you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves."

Ah yes the lesson of thrift and sensible budgeting, universal surely in its application.

Sadly though for some the temptation to spend, spend, spend is just too great and the availability of credit makes it easy to build up debts that may prove impossible to repay.

This wasn't the case though for Eric Gernez who took over the running of a bar in Petite-Forêt near the northern French town of Valenciennes in February this year.

He took a while to decide which Internet operator he would use and eventually plumped for Orange, the mobile 'phone network operator and Internet service provider of this country's main telecommunications company, France Telecom.

Gernez signed a contract which, as far as he understood, allowed him unlimited Internet connection and 'phone calls 24/7 for a monthly tariff of €95.

Except when he received his bill last month for the period August 3-31 he had a nasty surprise.

Instead of the €95 he had been expecting to pay, he was greeted by the sum of almost €46,000 or to be exact €45.923 and 61 centimes.

"At first I had to laugh when I saw the bill," he said.

"But I'm not laughing any longer because I've been asked to pay up and have been sent me a reminder," he added.

"I've even received a proposal to repay the amount over a 40-year period."

Gernez says that not only was he not informed that he had a monthly volume limit, but the bill also included international calls which he "had never made".

"This obviously isn't an attempt to rip off a customer," said Laurent Vitoux, the regional director for France Telecom - Orange.

"For the moment we've frozen his account until we have found a solution," he added.

"The contract he signed is adapted to a certain type of user and this was perhaps not the case for Mr Gernez."

Given the circumstances perhaps something of an understatement and a warning to all of us that "unlimited access" doesn't always means what it implies.

The future still isn't Orange - but here's hoping

In August last year I went through the rigmarole of trying to replace a defunct mobile telephone, after just six months of use.

And what do you know, I've just been through the same experience all over again, and the customer service offered to me by my provider Orange, served as a reminder that the company might be trying but they still haven't managed to live up to the advertising that the future is....Orange.

Let me take you back to Summer 2008 for a moment.

Back then I spent a holiday away from the beck and call of my mobile because it gave up the ghost.

It was bliss - only temporary mind you - but it reminded me of those halcyon days when I had a valid excuse for not being obtainable.

I couldn't make or receive calls or messages, which I'll freely admit a real pleasure.

But all good things must come to an end, and I knew I wouldn't be able to remain happily "out of touch" for too much longer. So I resorted to the good old-fashioned landline to put in that call to "get it sorted."

Here in France there are basically three main mobile operators, SFR, Bouygues and the biggest of the lot Orange - the all-powerful, customer-loving arm of the former state-owned but now private telecommunications company France Telecom.

I, along with millions of others, have the "pleasure" of being a subscriber to the last one.

In Ye Olden Days, the chances were that you when you wanted to get something done (about a 'phone) you would hang on the end of someone else's line for hours on end, waiting to talk to someone, and the company might or might not send a man round to "fix it".

At the very least there was a fair chance of talking to a real live human being (eventually) and even perhaps being able to put a face to the company.

Nowadays of course there's the multi-buttoned digital 'phone hotline which initially offers you tinny muzak followed by that belovéd computerised voice telling you to do something resembling the following:

"Press one for customer services, two for technical issues, three for billing, four for queries regarding the internet, five for mobile 'phones and six for other inquiries.

"If you would like to speak to one of our agents, please press nine."

Whatever happened to seven and eight you might well ask. Presumably they're still in the planning phase.

I put in that call to Orange customer services, listened to the lovely muzak, pressed what I thought were all the right buttons and eventually got through to a human voice to explain my predicament.

After asking me innumerable questions and checking through my records, I was informed that in fact my problem (or that of the 'phone) was a technical one and I would have to talk to someone from that department.

"Please hold the line and I'll transfer you," followed by some more muzak.

Moments later up popped another person, to whom I related my story, same questions but different record. Apparently they had no trace of my having changed my 'phone the previous year and as far as they were concerned I still had my old Motorola.

Before proceeding with my problem I would "have to contact customer services for them to update my details."

Ah yes privatisation and modern technology had certainly been compounded by French bureaucracy and simple human error - a lethal cocktail at the best of times.

So another call, more number pressing and of course a different person back at customer services to whom I could tell my story for the third time.

There then followed an interlude - no muzak this time around, just that eery silence that was the prelude to the creeping realisation that even in this modern era it was still possible to be "cut off" in one's prime.

The fourth attempt to an inevitably new voice actually yielded some results. Yes their records said I currently had a Nokia and they would ensure that the technical department was informed. Moreover if I had a problem with the 'phone they (customer services) could send me a replacement and would I like them to do that?

Well yes, that might be the solution I thought, and hastily agreed.

"But in the meantime you might want to check your SIM card in another 'phone (as if I had access to multiple mobiles) just to test whether that's where the problem lies. In which case you would need to contact the technical services to have them issue another one - SIM card that is."

Ah that little devil, the delightfully tripping-off-the-tongue named Subscriber Identity Module aka SIM card was perhaps at the root of my problems.

I thanked voice #4 for her assistance, hung up and called on the generosity of a friend to allow me to try my SIM card in his 'phone. It didn't work, which meant that the problem lay not with my soon-to-be-replaced, in-perfect-working-order 'phone but with my SIM card.

Call number five, a by now automatic explanation which I pretty much had off pat and within minutes a new SIM card ordered which "Would be with me by the end of the week sir."

"So as I don't need the new 'phone, how can I cancel its delivery?" I asked.

"That's no problem sir, we'll do it for you," was the cheerful and helpful response.

Perhaps I should have known better, as this was after all from the same department that had absolutely no record of my having changed my 'phone in the first place.

But still having faith in the spoken word leading to the deed, and that everything would be resolved by others, I waited for my new SIM card.

Next day "You have a new message" pops up on my computer and there's an email telling me that my new 'phone and SIM card are ready for collection at the nearest tobacconist (don't ask) on presentation of proof of identity and in exchange for my old 'phone.

Well that was then, and this is now. Roll the clock forward six months to April 2009, and I'm on a business-pleasure trip for a longish weekend across the Pond when what do you know?

My phone's screen flickers its last breath and disappears entirely.

I could still make calls if I knew the numbers (which because I have that sort of memory I do) but I couldn't access my address book, incoming calls were just not to be recognised (I always have the phone on vibrate and silent, so that wasn't working either) and messages - forget 'em.

Déjà vu in capital letters.

Arriving back in France I hotfooted it down to the nearest Orange shop - once bitten twice shy in terms of using the helpline.

I explained and demonstrated my problem - although how exactly you can show that something isn't there still perplexes me - and guess what!

They told me to ring the customer helpline (free from the shop) and describe what was wrong.

Now that's service for you!

Anyway, that's of course exactly what I did, managing to change my subscription and order a new 'phone, which arrived at that very same tobacconist a few days later, and I'm now the proud owner of an Apple iphone.

Even though I don't really have much of a clue as to how it works or how all the special bells and whistles it seems to have function, all I'm hoping is that it'll last longer than six months.

And should that turn out not to be the case for whatever reason, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my next encounter with my provider will prove that the future is just a little more Orange than it currently appears to be.

Excuse me one moment, I have a "call waiting".