Add user to O2 Wireless Box IV?

[dahawthorne]

A double question, in fact.

Having finally managed to break into the router with the Administrator userid, I see options to "switch user" but no option to add another. Am I just being stupid? The interface is garbage, totally unintuitive - to offer the "switch" option with no obvious "add new" option is really poor, since there's nothing to switch to. (And yes, I *have* RTFM).

And second, how do I bar someone from my home network? My previous router had a check box for "allow this user on LAN". Last week as the ultimate sanction I deleted my kid from the O2 router, but he claims to have been able to get back in again without me resetting him. If I remove someone, I want them to stay removed until I decide to let them back in.

I'm seriously under-impressed by this router's security. Or perhaps (being stupid) I'm under-impressed by its interface which is hiding what I want.

Thanks for any advice...

[Saturday]

Sorry - can't help you with either question as I don't use an O2 router as, like you, I find the Thomson interface and limited functionality exasperating. My guess though is that if you can switch users then you must be able to add them though I'm curious to know why you'd want or need to. With regard to being able to bar someone on the LAN that's not something that many routers are able to do very well. Typically they allow restrictions by IP address but that's very easy for a user to circumvent.

Hopefully someone will come along with more practical help for you. Or maybe you could use your previous router if you still have it?

[dahawthorne]

Thanks, Saturday. My previous router was a BE one and I had to return it when I changed to O2. A bit pointless, really, since O2 own BE (and my broadband provider still appears as Bethere), but I was hoping that a more modern router might be better. It works, but no increase in speed, and lost functionality.
I do have a 5-year-old Netgear, but I don't remember if it had better security, and I'm not at the moment bothered enough to take the time to start the setup again. Life's too short, you know?
And I wanted to add another user simply to make life more difficult for hackers. I have a pretty good WPA key, but why give them the Administrator name as a starting point?
Thanks again...

P.S. I just noticed on your sig that your router is similar to my old one - I have a Netgear DG834G v2. Maybe you can tell me if the interface on yours does what I want? Easily add/delete users and temporarily disable a single connected machine?

[Saturday]

Not sure if the interface/functionality is the same for those two models.

On the GT you can set a schedule against specific types of traffic for LAN IP addresses i.e. only allow access at specific times but it doesn't work all that reliably and relies on the person being scheduled to not know how, or not be able to change their LAN IP address.