Some Orange Livebox questions

All,

I'm thinking of moving to Orange as I work for them (not in the
broadband dept) and I can get a fairly keen price on it. I also found
out my neighbour has it and get's 6.5Mb where I currently get just over
2. The free calls to landlines and Orange mobiles appeals to me, as most
of my immediate family and friends are on Orange for mobiles.

I would like to know answers to the following detailed questions and
would be grateful for any current users experiences.

1. To use the free VoIP calls must I use the livebox, or can I use my
own ATA (which I already have)? Are the SIP settings extractable from
the livebox? If not, does the livebox have to be connected directly to
the WAN, or will the VoIP work as long as it's on the LAN and can see
the internet?

2. I already have a router, I would want to use the livebox purely as
the modem, and allow my draytek router to do all the other stuff like
DHCP, wireless etc. I will plug the LAN from the livebox into a LAN port
on the draytek, and turn off DHCP in the livebox. Any problems with
this?

3. The drayek acts as a VPN server. As this will no longer be at the
"boundary" of my home network, is it a case of forwarding some ports
through the livebox to the draytek? Or placing the draytek in the
livebox DMZ? I'm OK ish with networking but never really with 2 routers
(even though one router will just be a modem).

4. The draytek can support DynDNS, since orange do not offer a static IP
I would need to use this to be able to VPN in. Any dyndns user comments
would be welcomed.

5. Are there any things that the livebox cannot do which might be
expected of a "normal" router, e.g. port-forwarding?

6. Is there anything the livebox can do, which I might not find in a
"normal" router?

7. I don't think we offer usenet access, so is news/individual,net still
regarded as one of the best for non-binary groups?

I think that's all for now, thanks for any help.
--
Regards
Jon

On Tue, 29 May 2007 21:30:15 +0100, Jon <(E-Mail Removed)>
mused:

>All,
>
>I'm thinking of moving to Orange as I work for them (not in the
>broadband dept) and I can get a fairly keen price on it. I also found
>out my neighbour has it and get's 6.5Mb where I currently get just over
>2. The free calls to landlines and Orange mobiles appeals to me, as most
>of my immediate family and friends are on Orange for mobiles.
>
>I would like to know answers to the following detailed questions and
>would be grateful for any current users experiences.
>
>1. To use the free VoIP calls must I use the livebox, or can I use my
>own ATA (which I already have)? Are the SIP settings extractable from
>the livebox? If not, does the livebox have to be connected directly to
>the WAN, or will the VoIP work as long as it's on the LAN and can see
>the internet?
>
The settings are on the Livebox and currently no-one has managed to
extract them AFAIAA (be handy if they had though as I've currently got
2 liveboxes that could be binned if I could get the details from it).

AFAIAA it also needs to see the internet on the WAN side, not the LAN
side so would need to be connected to the ADSL line.

>2. I already have a router, I would want to use the livebox purely as
>the modem, and allow my draytek router to do all the other stuff like
>DHCP, wireless etc. I will plug the LAN from the livebox into a LAN port
>on the draytek, and turn off DHCP in the livebox. Any problems with
>this?
>
Yes, depending on which router you have. You would need to plug the
LAN port from the Livebox into the WAN port of you router, so it would
need to be a cable router and not an ADSL version.

>3. The drayek acts as a VPN server. As this will no longer be at the
>"boundary" of my home network, is it a case of forwarding some ports
>through the livebox to the draytek? Or placing the draytek in the
>livebox DMZ? I'm OK ish with networking but never really with 2 routers
>(even though one router will just be a modem).
>
Never tried it but the Livebox does have a DMZ. How well it work
sthough is anybody's guess.

>4. The draytek can support DynDNS, since orange do not offer a static IP
>I would need to use this to be able to VPN in. Any dyndns user comments
>would be welcomed.
>
I'd avoid DDNS services if at all possible for VPN's.

>5. Are there any things that the livebox cannot do which might be
>expected of a "normal" router, e.g. port-forwarding?
>
Most things it can't do.

>6. Is there anything the livebox can do, which I might not find in a
>"normal" router?
>
Frequently stop working and give poor VoIP services?

>7. I don't think we offer usenet access, so is news/individual,net still
>regarded as one of the best for non-binary groups?
>
Yep.

To sum up, use another ISP. I'm currently with Orange and it's quite
frankly crap. I'd happily pay for another service that gave me what I
wanted.
--
Regards,
Stuart.

(E-Mail Removed) declared for all the world to hear...
> To sum up, use another ISP.

If I do move it will be to Orange, as I can get it very cheaply. My
brother has had it for about 9 months with no issues.

> I'm currently with Orange and it's quite
> frankly crap. I'd happily pay for another service that gave me what I
> wanted.

Sorry to hear that, but thanks for your input.
--
Regards
Jon

On Wed, 30 May 2007 07:16:45 +0100, Jon <(E-Mail Removed)>
mused:

>(E-Mail Removed) declared for all the world to hear...
>> To sum up, use another ISP.
>
>If I do move it will be to Orange, as I can get it very cheaply. My
>brother has had it for about 9 months with no issues.
>
I get it for free, and I'd still prefer to pay for it.

>> I'm currently with Orange and it's quite
>> frankly crap. I'd happily pay for another service that gave me what I
>> wanted.
>
>Sorry to hear that, but thanks for your input.

Pleasure.
--
Regards,
Stuart.

On 29 May 2007, Jon <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>1. To use the free VoIP calls must I use the livebox, or can I use my
>own ATA (which I already have)? Are the SIP settings extractable from
>the livebox? If not, does the livebox have to be connected directly to
>the WAN, or will the VoIP work as long as it's on the LAN and can see
>the internet?

If you do find out whether you (a) can get the SIP info to use your own
kit and (b) use your own ATA without problem, could you post back with
the answers, please ?


>2. I already have a router, I would want to use the livebox purely as
>the modem, and allow my draytek router to do all the other stuff like
>DHCP, wireless etc. I will plug the LAN from the livebox into a LAN port
>on the draytek, and turn off DHCP in the livebox. Any problems with
>this?

Sometimes you might find difficulty setting the unit with DHCP enabled
to give a different IP as gateway for clients to see... Your chosen
method of connection will use the Livebox as the router, as you will be
linking LAN port to LAN port (you'd need to link a WAN port on Draytek
{eg a unit for a cable modem} to be using the Draytek to do routing).


>7. I don't think we offer usenet access, so is news/individual,net still
>regarded as one of the best for non-binary groups?

if you only want text groups... however news.motzarella.org is free and OK
(for my own usage, at least)... else depends on your typical use of binary
groups - sometimes www.news.astraweb.com has deals allowing 90 GB for $25,
with no time limit for when you can use the allowance (with exchange rate
as it is this may be worht buying), and other firms give monthly limits
for sums as low as $2.50 (5 GB) and up. $6/month can get a fixed limit
of 2 GB a day (see www.newsgroup-binaries.com | www.usenet-access.com
for those last two services, from Centaur Networks, seems to be using
newsfeeds.com from one of the links to provide HTTP access)