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Intermittant Livebox


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Can anyone help with a mysterious, and very frustrating problem?

I have an account with FT in Dept 17, near Saintes. On arrival in August I could easily use the supplied disc to connect the wired desktop machine to the internet - although the laptop wouldn't connect on Wifi whatever I did.

Weeks later the Laptop mysteriously connected over the wi-fi network of its own accord, ran for a few days (sometimes intermittantly) and then refused to connect ('No networks within range). Nothing I could do would change its mind.

A few weeks later - the laptop logged in again automatically and ran for a few days... then told me 'No networks within range'.

Suspecting the built-in Wi-fi card, I borrowed an external Wi-fi adpter and logged in without any fuss. The next day I bought my own external USB dongle - and logged in straight away.

It ran for a day, and then... 'No networks within range'! Tried the built-in card, the borrowed device and the USB dongle, same response from all of them - 'No network within range'.

Suspicion returns to the Orange Livebox - its Wi-Fi diode continues to light but (despite several restarts, checking its settings and using the supplied software and the 'association' button) my laptop still says 'No network within range'

Soon Laptop and Livebox may go through the window, anyone else had this kind of problem?

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Thanks Tim - I was coming to that conclusion!

I have an old BT router back in the UK, would that work over here, and if so is it difficult to switch over? I'm reasonably computer lierate but not well up on networking and broadband.. We also have the 'Illimitee' phone option over the connection. Does that complicate things?

The Livebox is rented from FT, would they change it - assuming my limited French was up to asking them!

Any help much appreciated!

Mike

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Hi Lindaandrichard,

I've tried unplugging and re-plugging the Liveboox at the box end  in the past which has cured a few connection problems with the desktop machine (wired connection) but doesn't seem to have had any effect on the Wi-Fi. Do you have any other way of restarting it and returning to factory settings?

Mike

 

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Regarding the BT Router, there is a very good chance it will work in France, you will need to change 2 settings, the VPI and VCI and of course your user name and password will also have to be changed to the Orange username and passord.

Unplugging and replugging the Livebox may cure the problem for some people, if it does, I would suspect that the problem lies with you telephone line and not with the Livebox. It is impossible to generalise on this one as there are too many variable factors. One thing to note is that Liveboxes are no where near as good as modem/touters made by other companies!

One other problem with Liveboxes is the Orange Parental Control software, it can cause silly problems and in my opinion, there are much better (and cheaper) alternatives available.

France Telecom are not the only company who offer VOIP telephony, we use Voipcheap (and have for that last 18 months) and we find it a very good service and it isn't expensive, looking at my call history, this week alone I have made over 80 telephone calls, 50% to France 45% to the UK and 5% to the US, total cost of call? Approx 1€ - in total! We rarely run out of credit or 'freedays'. I don't get a commssion from Voipcheap - I wish I did because I have put over 100 people on to their service in the last 18 months.

Tim

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I have occasional problems with my FT ASDL connection. It tents to go out of sync - usually on a Sunday night but usually resets itself overnight. I think that the IP address is reconfirmed or something. Other times I have deinstalled and reinstalled the software. I can practically do it without reference to instructions I have done it so often. This week, however, we had a power cut overnight Sunday and nothing I did reestablished the link. The diagnostic test confirmed that it was out of sync. Deep breath and phoned the help line 3900 and told them everything I had done. They are very unhelpful and don't even respond to a request to speak more slowly. I think the support person got into some technical stuff and asked if anyone in the house spoke better French at which point I gave up but lo and behold the line was back in sync next day. I am now going for Teleconnect.   Oh, I also came across a French forum about liveboxes and on there the help line was criticised!
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My Teleconnect supplied router has proved 100% stable and reliable to date.

Words fail me in my effort to express just how glad I am that I don't have a Livebox [:D]

Is there anyone out there who HASN'T had trouble with one ?

Edit: and no rubbish useless software to install either [;-)]

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[quote user="daisymay"] I also came across a French forum about liveboxes and on there the help line was criticised![/quote]

I am not at all surprised about that. |No end of problems with our freephone, just never worked for a whole month, in spite of very lengthy and very involved telephone calls with Agents Orange. They had me crawling under desks and plugging and unplugging, pushing pencils into the Livebox bottom, going to My OH's computer in his absence and disactivating his anti-virus, to no avail - after over an hour (fluent French) with the helpline person, not only the phone was no longer working, but I had also lost my internet connection[:@]

Then the helpline person said she was going to hang up and call me back within half an hour, to talk me through re-connecting to Internet. GUESS WHAT. Yes, she never called back. I swore I would never speak to those people again. Eventually had to get someone to sort it out, an independent technician.

Now, several emails, 2 telephone conversations and one helpline phone call later, they finally "re-initialised" the phone line which has been working since yesterday. But I AM NOT IMPRESSED.

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