Is your internet down? The internet is pretty simple. If you want to know why or don’t want your internet down, there are only a handful of reasons. In fact, we’ll narrow them down to just three. The only other possibility is that you didn’t pay your bill.

The internet is composed of wires and switches. Wireless and cellular devices use wires to connect to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) and to the Internet. Switches and routers need power. Here are your three reasons why your internet went down.

 

1. There is a problem with your wires (or wireless)

Your internet may be out because you’re not connecting your LAN to the WAN. You can have an issue in your local area network like a bad wire or connector. Typically you’ll see a connector go bad because someone moves the equipment their plugged into too much and the connection goes bad.

If the problem is on the WAN, that means it’s the wires that your ISP or telephone company control then you have to wait for them to make the repair. FYI – Calling in more often won’t get the issue resolved any quicker. A fiber cut is a big deal and will take quite some time for service restoration. Here’s a post we did a while back on building out fiber, if you need high level network redundancy you may want to click here for more info.

2. Broken or malfunctioning equipment

Again, it’s either on your side or the carrier’s side. You have a modem and/or a router and switches. Troubleshoot them and power cycle them as per my article on LinkedIn on what to do in the event of an outage.

Just like with your wires, if the problem isn’t on your side it is going to be in the carrier’s environment. You may be experiencing issues from a down GPON or Active Ethernet Router. IP Routers rarely go down without failover in place on the carrier side. You wouldn’t notice that. If a whole IP POP or data center goes down, this can cause a significant delay in service restoration.

3. The long pole in the tent… Power

This is the piece of the puzzle that is outside of your and your carrier’s hands. Many times it is also out of the power company’s hands and its governed by mother nature. A force majeur will take your internet down. Back-up generators are highly recommended, especially at high visibility, high profile settings and rural areas.

Typically, what we are seeing is a power outage in a certain area from a truck that hit a pole or some construction that cut the lines. Building management may also turn off power for maintenance which will also take your internet down. Many times they don’t alert tenants or the right folks within a company aren’t alerted.  Hopefully none of those are the case and it’s as simple as someone kicked the power cord out of a switch.

 

So that’s basically it, why is your internet out? It’s either your wires, equipment, or power. It’s as simple as that. Prolonged outages are very rare but there are only a few reasons to take your internet down. Always check with your neighbors to see if they’re connected and check blogs that monitor network performance.