Internet performance issues can be quite frustrating because of all the different reasons why your internet might be so slow. Even for tech savvy people dealing with your ISP helpdesk can be problematic when the real problem has not yet been identified and may not be easily identified by telephone helpdesk.

Some of the common causes of slow internet are:

• not the internet itself but a cluttered or infected computer
• a faulty or outdated modem
• distance from the exchange may cause slow connection

The first step to start looking at this problem is to determine your internet speed. The most reliable testing for internet is via mlab who have partnered with google to run consumer speed testing. You will find the internet speed test from mlabs here.

While you are here, how does your small business website meet the new mobile friendly standards? You can check that out at the google mobile test page.

Need online tech help? Visit our online help desk service – Australia wide 7 days a week.

Have you lost your internet connection yet have a solid DSL or ADSL light?

Having a DSL light active, green and solid on your modem can be confusing for you, and the ISP help desk people. We receive many calls where help desk or ISP support staff do not have the advantage of being onsite, and find certain difficulties to explore the possibilities with the customer who may not be very familiar with cables, modem lights, isolation testing. Many people get so exasperated by technology when it doesn’t work that stress levels can take over and helping with troubleshooting tasks gets limited by this stress and no familiarity with the hardware or its interfaces.

Recently we seen a customer with a solid DSL light. Because the DSL was active the ISP argued that the connection was active but the customer had #nointernetconnection. The ISP chimed out on the support call suggesting the problem was at the customers end.

It wasn’t. And it’s a common story. We were able to get the internet connection back by an extended isolation with line sync and port reset. This suggests the problem was with the ISP all long. For home and small business owners to deal with help desk/support people who assert the problem is at their end tends to compound the existing disaster.

Another case of the customer who had 10 IT support people come into his home in the space of a year.

The customer had wifi dead zones in bedrooms and a lounge area in an average size suburban home. He had the local computer shop IT guys come over, he had an iinet technical support team come around, he was persistent but each IT guy had a different reason why this was happening, but no one was able to resolve it. In this case the problem was a group of interrelated issues and once identified we resolved the problem within an hour and without replacing the modem.

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