O2 are currently my broadband provider via their upto 16MB ADSL2+ service which is syncing at 991kbps up / 13 515kbps down. The supplied router can be somewhat problematic with frequent reboots of the device. Their service in general is not bad and once you take their DNS servers out of the mix things do perform a bit better.

IP addresses are assigned via DHCP but are essentially static. You can of course move up to a higher level package and get a proper static IP address thrown in but I've only had my address change once since July 2008. Customer support is (thankfully) based in the UK and staff are mostly well trained. And as an added bonus you get to call in on an 0800 number which is free from an O2 mobile if you're so inclined.

Whilst I've not tried this yet you can set up the router in bridge / modem only mode.

For some reason O2 don't have their own system status page but since it's on the Be network you can use https://www.bethere.co.uk/networkStatusScreenForForum.do

If you need to access the router as a supervisor use:

• Username : SuperUser
• Passsword : O2Br0ad64nd

ADSL Settings

If you'd like to use an alternative router take note of the following which work fine on my Netgear DG834G:

• VPI : 0
• VCI : 101
• DSL-Mode : Auto (Multi-mode)
• Multiplexing Method : LLC-Based

Don't be alarmed if you see a different IP address when using the O2 router compared to your own 3rd party one. Plugging in the O2 router gives me a 94. address while the Netgear gets a 78.x. These changes are consistent even when changing the routers out.

GPRS settings

In setting up my Orange SPV C500 phone on O2 I had to get GPRS working and the following setting should suffice:

• Access point: mobile.o2.co.uk
• Username: mobileweb
• Password: password
• DNS: 193.113.200.200 and 193.113.200.201