O2 Broadband (merged)

steveandel

graham47 wrote: »

Is this true ?
I don't pay line rental to BT and I have my broadband through another ISP than my telephone (yhey don't even provide BB).
Suggest you talk to the ISP you are considering & see if you can migrate to them on a TT landline.

You probably are paying BT but not directly. I imagine the company you are using for your telephone collects the BT line rental on BT's behalf and then passes it onto them. Hence you still have a BT line. A TalkTalk landline is connected to TalkTalk's equipment at the exchange and hence is not a BT landline.

FieryBlondeScot

i switched over to the £7.50 pakage in jan from virgin net. easy set up -easy switchover- easy to contact staff via helpline...

however about 6 times a day the connection drops briefly, but enought to sign me out of msn and so quite irritating. it always picks up again though

i rang o2 tday and spent half an hour on the phone at the end of which he asked me to untangle all my cables and disconnect things and move the pc into the living room right beside the phone socket ( not feasible) and take out the extension cable. i decided not to go through all this tonight and told him to check the noise on the line over the next 24 hours like he suggested and we take it from there..... so we will see what they say when they ring back tomorrow night and if its a case of the extension cable is the issue (wasnt an issue with virgin) i will switch back to virgin i think as the pc has nowhere to go in the living room!

**woody123**

FieryBlondeScot wrote: »

i switched over to the £7.50 pakage in jan from virgin net. easy set up -easy switchover- easy to contact staff via helpline...

however about 6 times a day the connection drops briefly, but enought to sign me out of msn and so quite irritating. it always picks up again though

i rang o2 tday and spent half an hour on the phone at the end of which he asked me to untangle all my cables and disconnect things and move the pc into the living room right beside the phone socket ( not feasible) and take out the extension cable. i decided not to go through all this tonight and told him to check the noise on the line over the next 24 hours like he suggested and we take it from there..... so we will see what they say when they ring back tomorrow night and if its a case of the extension cable is the issue (wasnt an issue with virgin) i will switch back to virgin i think as the pc has nowhere to go in the living room!

I too have the same problem of drops in connection with o2.. And i also have the same problem as you where you cannot put your computer within reach of your main socket..and when with tiscali the connection was fine.. i'm going to give o2 a call later and hope they won't go through the move the computer route and just check my line out..

penniesforme

aycle wrote: »

Hi

This is my first time on here but I wanted to share a great deal I just got with O2 broadband.

EXISTING O2 customers may be able to get FREE broadband. I rang up asking about my contract mobile, which I am already on half price line rental for and also what BB deals they offered.

They offered the following:

FREE upto 8mb unlimited
£2.50 upto 16mb unlimited
£5.00 upto 20mb unlimited

Amazingly this is not tied in with keeping my phone either.

I am was on Be There upto 24mb, Be is part of O2 anyway and was amazed to be offered such a good deal. I did mention I was thinking of leaving O2 mobile but as I am in contract for another 6 weeks, that wasn't an option, though I will be back on the phone about that in April.

I now have 4 services for under £30

Landline - BT £10.50 line rental
Calls through 1899 and 18185
Broadband - 16mb unlimited downloads - O2 - £2.50
Mobile - £8.50 inc 300 free texts and 100 evening minutes
TV - freeview

Thanks to MSE I am saving in other areas too but won't bore you with them.

I hope this helps someone.

Regards
AJ

has anyone else manage to egt this? I tried toask for it but the bloke on the phone denied that there is such an offer??

tomthered

FieryBlondeScot wrote: »

i switched over to the £7.50 pakage in jan from virgin net. easy set up -easy switchover- easy to contact staff via helpline...

however about 6 times a day the connection drops briefly, but enought to sign me out of msn and so quite irritating. it always picks up again though

i rang o2 tday and spent half an hour on the phone at the end of which he asked me to untangle all my cables and disconnect things and move the pc into the living room right beside the phone socket ( not feasible) and take out the extension cable. i decided not to go through all this tonight and told him to check the noise on the line over the next 24 hours like he suggested and we take it from there..... so we will see what they say when they ring back tomorrow night and if its a case of the extension cable is the issue (wasnt an issue with virgin) i will switch back to virgin i think as the pc has nowhere to go in the living room!

you may need to ask them to increase your SNR (noise margin). On Virgin you are on a fibre optic nework so noise interference is not involved. However, on a BT network you get noise from different sources, which are higher at night than during the day.

The network you are using is very sensitive to noise and if your SNR is set too low it will drop out. Increasing the margin overcomes this but you will get a drop in synch speed. You can get advice on these matters at hxxp://www.beforum.co.uk/forum/default.aspx there is an O2 forum on there.

amaninspired

mk-donald wrote: »

The o2 router isn't a cheap/unbranded one. The original "o2 wireless box" is a Thomson/Alcatel SpeedTouch ST780WL with tailored firmware - c£70 worth (with good VoIP circuitry). Their website now refers to an "o2 wireless box Mark II" which is probably the similar ST580... model though WITHOUT VoIP (no-one has reported getting one yet).

The o2 broadband website help has details of the key settings for using your own ADSL2+ router. As mentioned there is no ID/password as it relies on the physical/LLU connection to authorise that phoneline for ADSL2+ service.

Having just received my O2 package today and got up and running, there are a few things that strike me.

First, I have no need of wireless. It doesn't, however, seem to be possible to disable wireless functionality on the O2 wireless box. I have set a password, but I'd rather not have a wireless connection running at all.

Second, I would be perfectly happy to use the old Thomson Speedtouch 330 that I was previously using with my Orange connection. Provided, of course that reasonable speeds can be attained. Does anyone know if this is possible? Two main reasons for asking: 1. Avoids wireless connections; and 2. Means that I'm not plugging another appliance into the wall as the 330 is powered through its USB connection.

Thanks for any help that is provided.

magyar

amaninspired wrote: »

First, I have no need of wireless. It doesn't, however, seem to be possible to disable wireless functionality on the O2 wireless box. I have set a password, but I'd rather not have a wireless connection running at all.

From your browser, browse to

http://o2wirelessbox.lan

then click on "Home Network". In the main body of the page you should see WLAN:O2Wirelessxxxxx. Click on this and then in the top right of the screen you'll see 'Configure'.

Untick the box marked "Interface Enabled" and click apply.

amaninspired wrote: »

Second, I would be perfectly happy to use the old Thomson Speedtouch 330 that I was previously using with my Orange connection. Provided, of course that reasonable speeds can be attained. Does anyone know if this is possible? Two main reasons for asking: 1. Avoids wireless connections; and 2. Means that I'm not plugging another appliance into the wall as the 330 is powered through its USB connection.

Thanks for any help that is provided.

Given that you've solved (1), I'd strongly advise using the new router. Firstly, it will probably give you better speeds and I'm not even sure the Speedtouch would work.

But mainly because a router provides a far more secure connection than a USB modem. The O2 router includes a firewall (only a basic one, but perfectly fine) whereas with the USB modem you need a software firewall.

amaninspired

magyar wrote: »

From your browser, browse to

http://o2wirelessbox.lan

then click on "Home Network". In the main body of the page you should see WLAN:O2Wirelessxxxxx. Click on this and then in the top right of the screen you'll see 'Configure'.

Untick the box marked "Interface Enabled" and click apply.



Given that you've solved (1), I'd strongly advise using the new router. Firstly, it will probably give you better speeds and I'm not even sure the Speedtouch would work.

But mainly because a router provides a far more secure connection than a USB modem. The O2 router includes a firewall (only a basic one, but perfectly fine) whereas with the USB modem you need a software firewall.

Magyar, thanks for replying so quickly. I've switched off the WLAN! Previously, I had been using Norton for both firewall and anti-virus, but I might use McAfee now that O2 will give me it for free and my Norton subscription will expire soon.

I hadn't noticed the configure button in the top right and O2's instructions don't seem to refer to it. It's slightly surprising because they seem pretty fullsome otherwise and their staff were quite helpful in arranging my switch when I ran into difficulties with leaving Orange (not of my own making, I hasten to add!).

I'd still prefer to use the old 330 if possible because it takes up less space on the desk and, as I said before, it doesn't need its own power source. I did briefly try fiddling with some of the settings to get the 330 working, but as you will have guesed, I really don't know what I'm doing with broadband - although I wasn't bad at making dial-up connections work back in the day!

Having said that, if it can't be done, I now have faster internet, for half of what I was paying Orange, so I certainly won't grumble too much!

Thanks again Magyar, much appreciated.

penniesforme

the best deal i can get out of 02 was 5 pounds for 8MB, which is still fine, as i dont have the time and patience to call them back another time to haggle again (called the 5 times in total).

Can anyone let me know if i need to obtain a MAC from Virgin Bb when i leave? i have already handed in my 30 days notice.I called the bb help desk and a getleman told me that i dont need a MAC if i was connected to their service using Cable (not bt line). Is this true?

Searcher2

Sorry if this has been answered before... but there a lot of posts to go through to check. I am fed up with my Pipex (£14.99 a month) and a quick scan around seemed to indicate that the £7.50 per month on 02 seemed a good deal. However, when I tried to apply it said that O2 broadband was not available in my area. I registered to be informed when it was.... but I don't want to hang on for another 12 months so I rang them up and asked if they could give me an estimate of when my exchange would be enabled. They couldn't.... so I was about to give up.

However, checking on http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php it says that O2 / Be has an RFS set date of 31/3/08.

Does this mean that on 31/3/08 I should be able to take up the 02 deal? If so I think I will hang on!