Thinking about switching to O2 broadband

boso

After suffering with BT broadband for a year and a bit, I have decided that enough is enough, and I'm looking for an ISP that does not traffic shape.

Top of my list is O2 at the moment, however, I don't live in their coverage area, so I'll be using their Home Access product.

Looking at reviews online, it looks like they have some congestion issues as well.

Does anyone have any knowledge of O2 broadband? How would you rate the connection speed at peak periods?

Also, will I be able to use my own Router with it? I'm not sure I'd want to use the box O2 ship out.

Thanks in advance for your help !!

Taffybiker

I have been with O2 broadband for the best part of a year now. My last ISP offered "up to 8 meg" but in reality I was getting only 5 on a good day. The difference with O2 was immediate. I now get at least 7.5.
I used their supplied router and switched off the wireless feature so it became just a modem, then connected my own wireless router to it. To those who are wondering why, my own router has features not supported by the O2 unit, such as allowing access of specific wireless clients by MAC address and also automatically limiting the days/times that access is provided.
I have had no problem with O2's connection or speed. I am in their coverage area though - I am not sure if this makes a difference.

kippen_noedel

Taffybiker wrote: »

allowing access of specific wireless clients by MAC address and also automatically limiting the days/times that access is provided.

don;t rely on mac filtering for security, it's quite easy for people with the right software to capture packets and then spoof your mac id.

use it as an extra layer including wpa2.

Taffybiker

Yes of course. I was actually referring to the ability of the router to for example, allow child 1 access to the network at a different time to child 2.

Security is as you say, WPA2 with MAC address filtering and hardware firewall.
The network computers have the various software security too.
I know if some hi tech wiseguy really wanted to access it he probably could. Nothing is totally secure.

spud17

Top of my list is O2 at the moment, however, I don't live in their coverage area, so I'll be using their Home Access product.

I understand the Home Access product is not a patch on the LLU product.

kippen_noedel

Taffybiker wrote: »

Yes of course. I was actually referring to the ability of the router to for example, allow child 1 access to the network at a different time to child 2.

Security is as you say, WPA2 with MAC address filtering and hardware firewall.
The network computers have the various software security too.
I know if some hi tech wiseguy really wanted to access it he probably could. Nothing is totally secure.

It is technically possible but very unlikely. With WPA2 it would have to be a sustained and targeted attack that takes many many hours of sniffing packets.

I regularly use penetrations tests for clients, WEP I can bypass in around 1 minute, WPA1 in about 2-3hours. WPA2 I have never bypassed in the time I could afford to try for clients. I have a couple of times bypassed it on my own network but it took over a week of constant connection each time.