Orange Live Box

[awayu]

I'm considering going onto the Orange Unlimited Broadband package, but I'm a little wary of the Live Box that comes with it. The advantage of the thing is that I get the free calls (the International free calls are what really interest me, since I'll be going abroad later this year and it'll be an easy way for my parents to keep in touch). The disadvantages are, well, the information that I just can't seem to find anywhere. These are:

- What's the port forwarding like on the Live Box. I'm currently using a router that I can forward as many ports as I want on. I play games, and some of them need hundreds of ports open at a time. I'm hoping that the Live Box can do this as well. Nowhere have I read whether you can even log into the thing to mess with settings, so I'm a little skeptical.

- How good is the wireless network on this thing? I noticed there's only 2 wired ports on the damn thing, and there's 3 PC's in the house. I'll have to put one on wireless, but if it keeps dropping then that's going to be a problem.

The port forwarding is the most important issue for me really. A final thing that crossed my mind was whether it'd actually be possible to use my current router. All the Orange site talks about is sending out this Live Box and how you need to use it, but is there anyway to set the connection up on my current router? If so then I can keep on using it until I go abroad, then connect up the Live Box once I go.

Not sure if anyone can help, but figured if I should try anywhere it should be here. Thanks.

 

[NiCkNaMe]

Yep, it's just ADSL so you can continue using your current router

Not got anything to add about the ISP...

 

[ChuKKi Ninja]

AAARRRGGGHHHH NOT A LIVEBOX!!!! lol

I do livebox tech support and for orange and all I can say is the livebox is a nightmare.

Afriad I cannot offer any info about the port forwarding abilities of the livebox as "we do not support it" I know it can do it but I've never really sat down to test it properly.

There may only be 2 ethernet ports on it but you should be able to hook up a cheap hub/switch to one of them and that'll give ya more sockets, but again this is something else we are not able to support so we were never told if the livebox would do it or not!! I hated when it was released, they taught us nothing about it (mainly becuase orange themselves gave us virtually no training material) and have had to learn a lot of info myself.

The talk service is the next nightmare about the livebox, if it works and is activated properly then you're one of the lucky ones, if it ever goes wrong and you call us to report it, we have NO access to any of the talk servers that manage it and every issue has to get escalated off to somewhere else to be dealt with, and there is no timescale on a response from them, beacuse of this I've seen people have no talk service for months and the only reason they signed up for a livebox was because of the talk service.

To be honest if you have your own router then stick to using that! you'll thank me in the end

ChuKKi

 

[MAllen]

So what is the difference between an Orange Live Box and a BT Home Hub? They sound just like each other - cheap and nasty, dodgy phones, bad wireless and minimal Ethernet sockets.

Oh - and the first BT Home Hub I had to work with for a customer did not like the old 100-base Hub that we tried to attach to it. It wasn't a switch - just a dumb 100-base hub. Absolutly refused to play ball with the BT box... even when using the crossover cable.

I really don't understand why BT/Orange supply cheap and nasty router boxes which hardly work. Surely this just ends up costing them far more in support calls and lost/frustrated customers? Madness....

 

[james.miller]

trying to get port forwarding to work is a bloody nightmare. i gave up on the gf's box in the end. It just didnt seem to do what i wanted it to. ie forward some simple ports. It's nothing like using my linksys router which really is a piece of cake.

 

[ChuKKi Ninja]

So what is the difference between an Orange Live Box and a BT Home Hub?

As far as I'm aware they're both identical internally. Its just the outta casing that is different.

ChuKKi

 

[MAllen]

As far as I'm aware they're both identical internally. Its just the outta casing that is different.

ChuKKi

Any idea if the ones used in France are the same?

Is French ADSL the same as UK? (I have a customer on BT Broadband here and Orange broadband over there....)