Orange livebox!

Hi all, I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this question! I have just signed up for the orange unlimited 8Mg broadband offer. I have been with them since freeserve days and have always been very happy with my connection. My question is this, as I have a zoom pci internal adsl modem which has up until now been delivering my unlimited 2Mg connection what additional benefits (if any) will there be to me using the livebox for my new 8Mg connection? My main reason for changing is the speed increase and secondly the reduction in price from

you get free calls to landlines, orange mobiles and 100 international countries if you plug a phone into it?

If you have a broadband problem (even one not related to the router) you may have real difficulty getting support from Orange if you are not using the Livebox.

If you choose not to use it, don't forget the Livebox is rented (part of your monthly payment is a nominal rental fee) and you must return it if you ever leave Orange. So look after it.

Ian

I wondered whether the livebox would give a more stable connection? Cant see why it should really can you?

I have used my own router/modem for sevsral years(netgear) without problems,and hence very reluctant to use Livebox which remains unopened!!.However,I now have a problem with speed going down to below 0.5 meg between 6-9 pm. Orange support would not help because I am using livbox.Judging from the comments here I am loathed to use it.

why the reluctance to use the livebox? if you use a wired connection (even if only temporarily for the sake of testing with orange's equipment) it doesn't install any software or change any configurations to your PC. it will however make the tech support people be able to check certain things more easily (i.e they're familiar with the interface / terminolgy of the configuration pages etc). call centre agents don't earn the same as the average person who has a degree in computer networking or whatever, if they did, you'd be expected to pay through the nose for their advice. Their job is to go through a set rule of diagnostics, report any problems & they get sent off somewhere else (BT or LLU) to be sorted out (hopefully). A livebox takes minutes to set up, not trying it because you think your netgear is a superior product is just hardware snobbery. if the livebox is worse you'll report slower speeds & BT / LLU are more likely to do something about it.
(i have just upgraded to IPStream Max, and after a week or so of dipping down to 400k-ish at peak times i'm now steady at about 3.8Mbps which is ok for me, even though i'm synced at 8Mb the attenuation & SNR are ok for that speed. i know it's the BRAS profile doing that but i'd rather keep the stability than have a faster but unstable connection)

not trying the livebox will only mean it'll take longer to sort out the problem, i'd recommend using it til you get the problem sorted, then revert back to your netgear if that's what you prefer. in my experience though, there isn't much of a difference in D/L speeds between the livebox & any other router, but some other routers / modems will sync when a livebox won't. since synchronization isn't a problem for you just give it a go.

co-operation is much more likely to get a result than an 'i know more about ADSL than you do' approach. scare the poor part-timer student to death with jargon and no wonder they want you off the phone ASAP claiming they can't offer you technical support on an unsupported router.

most isp's will be the same, especially the larger ones who need to employ many more staff & the majority of calls can be dealt with by changing the username / password or telling you where to put your filters.

I'm touching a large piece of wood whilst I type this but...... The Livebox has actually been more reliable over the 6 months I've had it than the two previous ADSL Modem/wireless routers I had.
A Corega m/c used to lose the wireless connection very easily and had to be rebooted and occasionally restored to factory defaults Finally the wireless side packed up all together (when it was out of warranty of course!!)
. A Buffalo m/c couldn't handle large file transfers on my LAN without falling over.Only really usable for the Internet.