I have to admit that I am unfamiliar with the Live Box. However i understand it as purely a wireless ADSL router with VOIP built in.
I only have one customer who uses "orange" and he oly uses them because they took over Wanadoo who took over freeserve.
My customer has been using a Belkin 802.11g ADSL wireless router for a number of years. At his prev address all worked well with no issues. He moved house and did not have any issues apart from change of telephone number problems and then all went pear shaped after moving home for a third time. (he's a private tennant!).
To try and avoid issues expereinced on the first move he decided to end a contract and sign up for a new contract. Effectively meaning he would have two services running for a short time. The new contract came with the Live Box. However we reconfigured the Belkin to the new account and left the Livebox boxed up. Over the coming few weeks we realised the customer was having issues with sending his email from the original @freeserve account. Through forum advice this was linked to an uncorfirmed by Orange issue with relaying of @freeserve email. However when we called Orange about this all they would ask is what router are you using? They failed to support the call unless the Livebox was installed. Over the next few weeks to months we struggled through and the customer signed up to an external hosting company for an alternate email service and used web mail until this problem fixed itself.
The main issue though is now the client is having slow connection speed. He has used an external speed checker as on the "computeractive" site and is reporting speeds just over a meg download speed. Once he had monitored this over a month, the client called Orange to complain but was told they could only support if he uses this Livebox. He must use the Livebox to get speeds of upto 8mbs. I find myself having ask what makes this box capable of the suggested speed when other routers cannot achieve it? Anyway the client decided for him to have a legal case he would have to have the Livebox installed so he has paid me to install it whilst at the same time but not because of this issue had a new PC installed.
Whilst it is true that whilst connected to the livebox at the first phone point the box reported 8mbs download, I could not get a wireless connection to the home office in the room above his kitchen where the box was connected. Hence I moved the box to the first extension point. Then I connected the new PC wirelessly to the box and his daughters desktop. however I found this a complete b**l ache as the encryption on the wireless card in this desktop is only WEP and not the preset WPA. Eventualy got this connected though. Two machines down two to go. His two Dell laptops would not connect dispite having the encryption downgraded to WEP on the Livebox. The Laptops are possibly thirty months old and also only have WEP. After two hours of p**sing about with this I gave up. The client has ordered a new Belkin 125mbs ADSL router for a further visit. Have I missed something with this box? Why do techies struggle to install this box when the average joe finds it straight forward?
Surely you don't have to replace all the wireless cards to use this piece of c**p? sorry this is a story like a best seller but its best to give all the facts for a full understanding of the issues. The quipment list is as follows:
Livebox/(replace Belkin 11g ADSL WLAN Router)
2xDesktops with 11g and 54g WLAN cards
2Xlaptops with centrino mobile WLAN cards (probably 11g)
Firstly when you got the desktop connected wirelessly was this by altering the livebox security settings or though just fiddling with the wireless itself and not the livebox?
It's a known issue that some wireless adapters have problems with the dual security system the livebox runs by default. Within it's config the page...
Configuration > Advanced > Wireless
will let you change security modes, best try no security first but after that you can set it to WEP only rather than dual.
Also you can try changing the wireless channel under Security > Wireless connection as Belkins usually default to 11 and the livebox 1 so changing that may help too.
If you've already done this then sorry but it's hard to tell from your post.
No direct experience myself but Dell's have always been a little awkward in terms of wireless, uses it's own wireless manager system doesn't it?
On a side note 11g and 54g are effectively the same thing, they both refer to the 802.11g standard that runs at 54mb, the previous one, "b", ran at 11mb but is pretty rare to see these days. The different names are probably more to do with how they were marketed at the time.
I managed to get the new Dell PC connected using a Philips brand 54g USB wireless adapter. At first I disabled the WLAN security. When that PC was connected I went to the second Dell desktop PC which uses a Dlink 11mbs wireless card and connected that. When both were connected I renabled WPA. The New PC with the Philips WLAN adapter connected ok with WPA however the older Dlink card would not connect with WPA. I therefore went back to Livebox and downgraded to WEP and the two were OK.
The two laptops however would not connect come what may.
Further banging my head against a brick wall and reading these pages it seems that the problem may lie with this requirement to pair the PC to the box within ten minutes. I have never come across this before. I assume that this adds the MAC address to the device so it provides a second line of security. eg WEP key + mac address filtering. Is this correct? If so I now know that I have to revist this and pair the device to the Livebox whilst at the same time entering a valid WEP key.
Can you answer why this box is capable of an 8meg download rate which is what Orange seem to be saying and no other ADSL router can?
My client has also thrown another back at me since seeing him the other day. Once again he is unable to send email. He is using an email address similar to this joe@xyz.com. the host is 1and1 so he is using the servers as follows. for incoming pop.1and1.co.uk and for sending auth.smtp.1and1.co.uk. The server is authenticated with the same settings as the incoming mail. whilst he can receive email he cant send. Yes he is using port 25 but we have also tried port 26. In the past he has also used the smtp.orangehome.co.uk but his email never seemed to get there. not good in business.
What are the settings that will allow a user to send email via a 1and1 hosted buisness email domain?
Ok, the 11mbs card will be a "b" card and cannot do WPA, because of hardware and bandwith limitations. So you were right going for WEP only.
Pairing shouldn't matter as the two devices have connected previously meaning they should be paired together, you can check under Security > Associated devices. There should be two listings there, more if anything else wireless has tried to connect with the right key, sometimes with device name but if not it'll always list the MAC addresses. So if they're listed then you don't need to worry about pairing at all.
What WEP settings are you putting in for the connections?
Does 1and1 support SMTP connections on port 26? The provider must allow them before alternate ports can be used otherwise it'll just be rejected every time. You either need to set an alternate port or use Orange's SMTP server to be able to send email like that.
The livebox isn't anything special when it comes to 8 meg broadband, it's more likely just how it's being phrased when mentioned. As long as the router, almost all do these days, can support 8meg ADSL then there should be no real problem or difference between them. However Orange cannot provide full support for other routers. There's simply too many for them to train on, provide maps of their configuration, advise about firmware updates, etc, etc.
I installed the customers new Belkin ADSL Router the other week easily and all was working well when I left. The following day the customer rang me and said he had yet again no connection. I returned the other day and upgraded the firmware of the Belkin ADSL in line with Belkins recommendations. Again all working. Evening of 16th January the customer rings me ranting that the connection has gone down again and now he has a red light on router which indicates to me that he has no adsl connection.
I am getting bloody annoyed now as this is reflecting on me as an IT engineer. I must be giving the impression that I am a poor engineer though I tell him these problems are similar to many other Orange users. I am not happy about this. I have installed many ADSL connections on PlusNet, BT and PIPEX without issues and one on Talktalk that had been LLU'd and given dropped connections. Spot the similarity!
To recap. he had a Belkin 11mbs Wireless ADSL router he had used for years on freeserve/Wanadoo then Orange with the only issues being really slow connection speeds at a new address. Showing 1.4mbs downstream.
To get a faster speed he complained and was told he had to use the livebox for support. He paid me to put the livebox in but again we could only hit speeds now of 2.3mbs downstream although router showing 8mgs at the livebox. I upgraded one of his wireless adaptors to see if that would make any difference to no avail.
The new Belkin 125mbs router arrived and was installed painlessly and the combination of new router and adaptor gave much faster pages although still only showed an average of 4.5mbs downstream when ADSL tested.
What the hell is the problem? I have recommended that the customer seeks a new supplier but now I see that the customer may have to pay £47 to switch due to LLU charges. I can confirm this customer was unaware he was on an LLU'd exchange and seeing as he has had a problematic service since day one, I think any charges should be waived.
The £47 sounds like a connection fee, BTW charge that if a new connection is made. Moving from LLU to another LLU or IPStream will generate that fee and it's upto the new ISP over if they pass this onto the customer.
Generally Orange won't pay that fee.
As for the speeds, really you'd need to get the router line stats to check what sync speed it's getting first and then compare that to speedtests run over ethernet.
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