Internet connection highs and lows

We received an Orange Livebox this week. For a couple of quid more than our existing package we get up to 8Mb broadband speed, unlimited usage and a livebox which offers free national and international calls when you plug a phone into it. Not bad in theory, and a big step up from our current service of a paltry 1Mb with 2Gig limit. There's not much fun to be had from that arrangement, but in theory that was all about to change.

Things didn't get off to a rosy start, however. The software that came with the livebox was terminally hopeless, and used a Flash based interface with some remarkably unresponsive navigation buttons. It only accepted double-clicks, and then only sometimes, plus it had the maddening tendency to miss out entire pages of the step-by-step installation guide. As it happened the CD's software wasn't necessary at all as it was the usual procedure of accessing the router's config page, entering the login and off we go. Getting the wireless working was easy enough too. The Livebox uses to an interesting 'pairing' mode; after pressing a button on the unit the router would allow new connections for 10 mins but thereafter disallow any further access. It's a simple yet ingenious way of keeping unwanted users off your internet connection. Of course those in the know can easily enough set up access restrictions by MAC address with their own router, but judging by the number of unwittingly open hotspots around this sort of basic feature will go down well in many households.

So far so easy. It wasn't long before my internet connection starting going funny though and as the livebox was the newest piece of kit it took the immediate blame. Despite a smooth start my internet connectivity began to drop suddenly from the ethernet connection. Wireless I can understand but ethernet is normally a basic connection with little room for cock-up. Having also been playing with setting up a fixed IP address (something I later realised is set by default by the livebox) I had another possible route of enquiry that might have thrown a user created spanner of errors in to the works. This morning the situation worsened and I found myself with no internet connectivity at all through the ethernet cable, but it was working, just about, through the wi-fi.

Well I looked into every possibility. I ploughed through forums in search of advice and even went so far as to run a program that replaces a possibly corrupt TCP/IP, but to no avail. Most of the advice was made in reference to wireless connections which are understandably a far more untamed breed of beasts. It took more digging before I finally located the nugget I was looking for: the suggestion to alter a setting in my network card for connection at 10Mb rather than the auto connection setting it was ok. Astonishingly it did the trick. As with so many things in the life of a PC there's no good reason why the setting should be either off or the source of the problem in the first place, but magically changing it makes all the different. Perfectly logically in an entirely unpredictable way.

My nice stable Ethernet connection is back and I'm a happy boy. All I need now is for the internet connection to be cranked up from the current 1Mb level and I'll really be away...