Well, well, well, just as one Orange Livebox problem is resolved - without the help of Orange themselves, mind - what a surprise, another one comes along to replace it…
Having recently recovered from the dreaded “PPP server is down” problem with my broadband internet access (using the wonderful Speedtouch 330 USB modem + latest drivers solution), I discovered this morning that we had been hit with the equally awful “no VOIP dialtone” on our Orange second home phone line. Although this is seemingly not as dire as losing broadband access, our lodger has been using the service to call New Zealand for free which is, naturally, quite a significant saving on… er… not free…
Having just switched (back) over to a dedicated Linux PC (dual boot begone!) I was re-he-he-healy not looking forward to calling Orange technical (un)support to find a solution so I decided to do a thorough internet scan for fixes. My first port of call for such problems was, as always, the orangeproblems.co.uk and broadbandbuyer.co.uk forums. Unfortunately, despite finding many people who have been suffering with the same problems for months, I found no one proffering a solution.
Fortunately, I found a very obvious one. I managed to solve the problem at my first attempt without recourse to Orange Technical Support at all and I’d like to pass on a very simple tip to anyone else who is having the same problem and who has a cordless DECT phone and has been using the BT phone adaptor provided with the Livebox. You may not need to have a DECT phone, but since I’m not a telephone expert and I only have a DECT wireless phone at present, this is the only phone type for which I can say this fix works. Chances are, there are quite a few of you out there who have this sort of phone and have this exact problem. However as is always the case with these things, your mileage may vary (YMMV) with this solution. On the other hand, if this tip sorts just one person out, I’ll be happy.