Our Orange fibre is out of action and has been for 3 weeks since a storm took out the network. We have been sent a 200gb SIM to tide us over until it’s fixed, but I have to be in the house so that the family can link to my phone to get data. Does anyone know if it’s possible to get an Airbox from Orange so that I can get a more convenient arrangement?
They gave us an Airbox when the network was down a few months ago. It’s worth asking.
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Yes, they gave us one too when there was a delay installing fibre but the installer had completely cut the old ADSL cable so we were left with no (fixed line) internet.
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An old phone can be used (though if you have 5G available you might want a less old one).
I think that’s the answer - we can say “yes”, “no”, or “maybe” here on SF but the response you get from Orange is going to be the definitive one. Also only they can pop one in the post for you 
Yes my fibre when down and I happened to be by an Orange storefront the next day and they gave me an airbox and sim card to use with it. They said if we went over data just call and they will give more. It was back the next day so didn’t get much use.
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Thank you all. I think the airbox will be a better solution than sharing SIM cards.
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I got an air box from them when internet was down on my side of my commune when the roads were dug up for water pipe and fibre-laying reasons. I loved it.
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Demand a Flybox 5G 
Our ADSL was down for 8 days from the 14th July. It was a system wide issue they said but affected only a handful of properties in our village. As I had a phone with hotspot support they gave me 300G extra on my phone. We have a new mast outside the village so reception is very good from having been non existent before.
I fear this might be a long wait for repair. Our mast is visible, but we have terrible reception. We now have 400 gb of data on SIM cards, but have such a bad connection we have to hang the phone out of the window to get 5gb.
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You might not be connected to that mast then.
There are a number of apps which can give you the cell tower ID and signal parameters. You can go to www.cellmapper.net to show towers close to you and check whether the mast is the one that you are connected to.
Masts can be very directional, you can be close to a mast and get hardly any signal because the actual radiating antennae are not pointing at you.
We had exactly this issue before a mast was installed specifically for our village. There was a mast 1.5km away on a hill overlooking the village but reception was terrible. No signal indoors and very dodgy even outside. It was there to service a couple of other villages in the opposite direction.
We did that and our closest mast is about 1km away, the one we can see is SFR, so we’ll be dangling out of the window until they fix the problem. We currently have no date for the repair, which is very, very annoying. I would change suppliers but fear this wouldn’t be possible until we are repaired.
Is it possible to purchase a gadget that will boost the Orange mobile signal?
“Signal Boosters” exist but are technically illegal. The best approach if it is for Internet is to use an external directional antenna with a 4/5G box.
Ta, I’ll check it out.