Your internet connection may fail for multiple reasons, internal or external, physical or because of wrong configurations.They all are reflected as slowness when browsing web pages, low download speeds, or total Internet disconnection. Below are the most common problems that can cause these effects on the service.
Carrier Level Issues:
Internet providers may experience failures in their infrastructure that may interfere partially or totally the users' browser experience, the most common problems are:
- Failures in some service distribution equipment (Routers, Switches, Fiber to Copper Transformers, etc).
- Failures in the transmission medium: fiber or copper cuts, radio link interference.
- Communication problems between Carries.
- Misassigned bandwidths.
Local Infrastructure Level Issues:
Equipment such as routers, switches, access points or telephones installed in the locality must be kept updated and in optimal conditions, as well as constantly monitoring to detect any anomaly, the most common problems are:
- Electrical failures in the locality or in the area from where the equipment is being powered.
- Equipment in poor condition or very old.
- Poorly configured or outdated equipment.
- Policies configured in Firewall.
- Overheating due to poor location or insufficient ventilation.
- Wire in poor condition.
- Installed equipment that does not belong to the original installation.
Transmission Medium Level Problems:
In many occasions the incident has to be delimited in order to find the source of the problem, identifying if the incident occurs in equipment connected by Cable or by WiFi helps in most incidents:
Most common cable problems:
- Bad wiring condition or incorrect connections.
- Cables with old or incorrect categories for the necessary service.
- Incorrect settings on switch ports (routing, voice VLANs, port rate negotiation, access ports, or trunks).
Most common wireless problems:
- Bad configurations in APs can cause compatibility problems between APs and user devices.
- Devices are not within the coverage area agreed upon in the design.
- Interference by external devices to the network.
- Device connected to the wrong frequency band or SSID.
- Users with legacy devices.
- Saturation of the radio spectrum. It can be due to the number of APs, or due to user saturation.
User Device Level Problems:
The type of equipment with which the user wants to connect to the network must meet certain conditions in order to work correctly, the most common cases that may arise are:
- Equipment with old, outdated or damaged components.
- Incorrect or outdated drivers.
- Viruses or bad configurations that cause slow or incorrect operation of the equipment.
- Equipment not compatible with certain technologies.
- Equipment that does not operate in optimal conditions (temperature, workload, dirt, etc.)
Application Level Problems:
Many times, the physical infrastructure, the network equipment and the user's equipment are operating correctly, and the problem is limited only to certain applications, programs or services that you want to access, these problems are commonly caused by:
- Applications or programs poorly installed, outdated or from unreliable sources.
- Communication problems with servers: Port blocking, unstable or saturated servers.