Originally Posted by
octane
The livebox is Oranges answer to BT's phone hub and for me they are just an eyesore, unreliable and slow. Im with bt but just ditched the home hub and im using a decent router instead, livebox users can do this as well.
If you have the ability to use another router, I'd use it. Don't let a a third party simply update your router at random with patches, new firmware or new configurations and expect it to work 100% of the time for everybody. They will be adding new services, options and perhaps patches but they have their own agenda.
When Windows Update went 'live' there were numerous problems with patches causing problems. The solution to that was Microsoft's new service where they release patches once per month after extensive testing, but the problems still exist, although not to the same extent. Microsoft can't hope to know what software is running on your machine and what interactions that software it's making with the operating system, hardware or even other applications.
While a Livebox is a more enclosed environment you can't expect Orange to be able to update the firmware of your router and get everything to still work as they have no idea how what's behind the router. However this is still Orange's problem and not yours! If they can't get it to work reliably with everybody then there should be other options open to you: maybe a facility to downgrade to the last working firmware, the option to update or not update etc. etc. Some of this may already be there - not being an Orange customer I couldn't say.
The only solution is to get another router/modem and stop allowing a third party to update it. If you want to update the firmware on your router you can do this yourself and then you are in complete control of it. However I'm a big fan of if it ain't broke, don't fix it! If you don't want a new service that is being supplied by the firmware, you won't upgrade!
Just my two pence worth aimed at Orange and BT and not at you guys!
For the record you can pick up a new modem for about £10.00 to £30.00 and a router for anything between £40.00 and £100.00. Bear in mind that even if you don't use wireless, routers without this facility are now getting thin on the ground. Just turn if off if you don't need it.
As a 3Com Partner I'd recommend 3Com equipment as it's excellent. Never had any problems with any 3Com kit I've installed. However I've also used Netgears in the past and they are pretty good. Firmware updates were a little hairy in the early days but they seem to have that sorted now. I've also seen a lot of recommendations for DLink in here.
If you're going to go down this road and unsure, post in here.
Kind regards,
Paul Broadwith
Blue Ivy Ltd, Wick - Certified Microsoft Small Business Specialist
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