I am pondering the purchase of a net book for my ten year old niece and her mum for Christmas. They stay in darkest central France, right under the A. My sister is a bit of a hippy and not up to speed on what she needs to get by way of a broadband connection and wifi router. Actually neither do I.

Any advice as to what she would need and approximate monthly costs?

My parents have this in their place: http://adsl.sfr.fr/neufbox/television/

Runs to 30-35 euros a month for them and includes TV.

sfr is essentially vodafone,
otherwise there is orange (partnership with french telecom), darty box etc as well as others. Worth checking with france telecom etc to check actual internet cover at their address. Not always great, some even have a satellite connection etc.

As above, SFR and Orange are the two main players. Get her to get in touch with each of them and get a quote for a package that suits her. Both will do various packages including local / international calls, internet TV, discounted deals if you also have your mobile with them, etc.

We’re on Orange and they’ve been pretty decent, no major hassles. Pathetic speeds, but we’re right at the end of the line (up a mountain in the Alps!).

Any deal with Orange will include their router, which is pretty easy to set up. With Orange, you can plug a telephone handset into the router and make calls over the net (very cheap!).