Simplifying Life Through Technology

Internet Outage: What To Do

• SoundVision LLC

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On this episode of “SoundVision Tech Talks,” Mark, Mike, and Andrew sit down to discuss Internet Outages.

Ever wonder whether to call your integrator or your internet service provider (ISP) when your connection suddenly drops? In this episode, we break down the simplest way to understand what’s happening, who’s responsible, and how to get back online faster, without guessing or rebooting the wrong box.

Mike joins us by phone this week from Cozumel as we dive into the difference between internet—everything your ISP controls outside your home—and intranet, the network inside your home that powers your Wi-Fi, smart devices, streaming, and automation.

We explain how we diagnose issues remotely, why losing visibility into your system almost always points to an ISP outage, and the real-world reasons those outages happen: storms, construction, power failures, landscapers cutting lines, ISP modem failures, and more.

You’ll also learn the reset sequence we recommend to homeowners the outside-in reboot order that fixes roughly 70% of service issues. We walk through why the modem needs to reboot first and how a miscommunication between ISP equipment and your router can make your whole system appear offline even when everything inside the home is perfectly healthy.

It all comes down to a simple rule of thumb for homeowners:
 • If individual devices are slow, glitchy, or acting oddly, that’s an in-home network issue, call us.
 • If everything goes offline and we can’t reach your system remotely, it’s time to call your ISP. 

By the end of the episode, we hope you’ll know exactly how to read the symptoms, run the right reset sequence, and pinpoint whether the fix is in your house or out on the street. No more guesswork, just a clear path to getting your connection back up and running as quickly as possible.

To learn more about SoundVision:

https://www.svavnc.com/

Check out our Instagram to see our recent projects:

https://www.instagram.com/soundvisionllc/

To listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:

https://open.spotify.com/show/7fIkJuLZ7lZ8xbafz62muQ

Contact Us Today:  (704) 696-2792 Ext. 1 | Info@svavnc.com | soundvisionlkn.com

SPEAKER_00:

Our first call on the board.

SPEAKER_04:

Hello, this is Mike.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey Mike.

SPEAKER_00:

Mike, oh down, Mike, Mike, go down. Mike, oh down, Mike, Mike go down. Mike oh down. Mike Mike go down. Mike oh down. He's Mike go down.

SPEAKER_05:

With the Phil Collins drum with, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yes. I actually watched uh the Phil Collins um uh well there's there's a thing on Dromeo. Is it Drummeo? There's a uh a thing on Amazon Prime. If you go to Amazon Prime and search Phil Collins, it's a drummer, it's there's a a drummer thing. Like it's all about drummers. And it's actually his son doing it, but they uh oh so there's a lot of drumming technique and you know drummers a million different bands that they kind of interview, and they're you know, I mean they're all talking about Phil Collins and stuff, and and they are interviewing him, he's there, but uh yeah, he yeah, it's uh if you're into music, you'll like it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, the um I haven't seen that, but I'll look for that. The um a lot of times with those documentaries, they're they're interviewing peers and contemporaries and and uh you know people in the biz. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's cool though, you they actually have guys that you would not think like um uh they're they're like rap, you know, pe maybe not rap, but they're uh they're definitely soul type, not pop, not rock. Uh you know, uh there's uh a lot of alternative, a lot of like grunge, like those guys are talking about him and how great he was and that sort of thing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Um for the purposes of this, should I I'm at my desk, but uh you need to be in the bathroom. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Actually, we need a very echoey chamber. Yeah, we need an echoe chamber, so you need to be in the bathroom, you need to be uh the door needs to be shut, windows shut, heater on, and you need to be fully naked. Oh my god. Don't ask why that helps.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And then when you if you'll just do me a favor, when you get like that, just cough.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_05:

The kitchen is fine, Mike. Okay. I just um my desk is at the front of the house and it overlooks the street, and there might be a truck noise driving. Oh, yeah. No, no, that's okay. I should move move to the back of the house.

SPEAKER_01:

This is a real podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, give some authenticity.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Things happen in here that don't stay in here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Remember your uh your spooky little arm yesterday, the podcast mic arm?

SPEAKER_01:

Yesterday we're we're recording, and like you can hear that, I'm sure. That's that's me hitting the arm, or that's me hitting the table, right? But yesterday I just moved the arm. I didn't literally touch it, I just literally moved the arm and it did like a Halloween, like Yeah, it was like a ghost. Never does that. Spooky spooky ookie. All right, mica down. So listen, yesterday, uh, you got bumped. You were Jimmy Kendall's third guest, and and you uh took offense to it. In fact, I heard that you you threw out an F-bomb. And and here's what you didn't know. While you were doing that, while you were selfishly uh uh uh thinking only of your schedule, your timetable, how important you are, while you were doing that, we were recording a podcast about Sound Vision culture, and Michelle asked me who is the biggest rock star in the company, and I said simultaneous to you saying F this, I said Mike O Down. You sure did. That is on record. You will hear it.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, feel bad.

SPEAKER_05:

I do, I do, I yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_00:

I am uh that's ridiculous, and it doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_05:

I said that yesterday, actually, with Eric. Oh my gosh. All right, it was um yeah, yesterday is a bit challenging, so I was I know it was it was a Monday. It was it's it was certainly a Monday, and um I was I was keeping my eye on the clock and waiting for somebody to call me and when that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01:

It was yeah, I I we apologize about that. I'm I'm obviously being funny.

SPEAKER_05:

I know. No, you're okay. I'm all good.

SPEAKER_01:

I just um I said just tell them to wait in the green room.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, we've we've had an inordinate amount of calls come in. And so basically, three balls in the air I had yesterday were Jesse Knight, JGR, and Tamika at Bridgeford. It's like what?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh, it's the all-star crew.

SPEAKER_05:

It literally is Paul McGevin. It's like they all fit with old I know. Let's call now. So, yeah, and um and then my guys, uh my guys, um the the service team of Alan and Ethan were digging up under a sidewalk to get a water where we needed it safe and to um and it was a it's a total go back. We're gonna we're gonna have to take care of that one ourselves, but yeah, we we ran a line and it failed, and the guy called us out on it, and we're like, well, we probably should have run it under the sidewalk, not through a crack.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I've done that a handful of times, and that is brutal.

SPEAKER_05:

And and and Alan, of course, it it it could only get better because there was a sprinkler pipe on each side of the sidewalk. And you know, it's a pathway, it's like it may be 30 inches wide. But they dug down sprinkler pipe. Dug down the air site, sprinkler pipe, run in parallel to the path.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, so they're well it was a rough day for everybody.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, uh I I hope everything is is uh at least um in a stable state, especially with those three customers, because they are very much in mind.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, Jesse's good, uh, and and they're at um, well, Alan is at JGR this morning. We had to bump a uh a client out a couple hours because they had an input fail. And they, of course, they're having an event today.

SPEAKER_01:

Of course. Of course. All right, so before we get into this, because we do have limited time because we have a sales meeting coming up. Yeah, uh Andrew was looking up your phone number and I rattled off 313-6067, which doesn't sound all that impressive until you realize that I don't even know. I think I know my number and Kristen's number. I don't think I can name another number that doesn't deal with Kristen or I.

SPEAKER_02:

Any anybody else's? I can't say that anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

No, so I what I don't remember about it is why I remember that number. I know it was somebody else's. Was it Kyle Ray's?

SPEAKER_05:

Who's no no no no no? No, no, no. So that number was original to um custom home integrations.

SPEAKER_01:

I told Andrew it was one of the original ones, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

And it was it was assigned to me um when you gave me um a Nextel Blackberry.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Those are two different Nextel and Blackberry are different. There was Nextel and there was Blackberry.

SPEAKER_04:

We had we had uh we had Blackberries. It was a Sprint Blackberry.

SPEAKER_01:

I oh I a hundred percent remember the Blackberry. I remember both very, very well.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh and I do remember getting Blackberries.

SPEAKER_05:

I think it had a the button on it. But I could be low.

SPEAKER_01:

You know what? Maybe Sprint did buy. I think Sprint bought both. Andrew, do you know what a Nextel is?

SPEAKER_02:

I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Andrew doesn't know what a Nextel is. Do you know what a Blackberry is? Of course, yes. Okay. Have you seen the movie, by the way? The the movie about Blackberry. Uh what's it called? It's great.

SPEAKER_05:

No, I don't think I have I have not. Oh my gosh. Listen. Actually, I'm gonna try and at some point watch the Tetris movie, but okay.

SPEAKER_01:

I've seen both of them. The Tetris movie is very, very, very, very good. It is well worth watching. Uh the BlackBerry movie is better. It's funny. It is so funny. It's real, and and I didn't know the entire story. You know, Blackberry basically completely blew it. They had the they were the dominant server. And and uh when Apple, when the original iPhone came out, and they literally said we're not gonna get rid of the keyboard on the phone. And that was like the the beginning of the end. They had every carrier, they had everything, uh and they also uh didn't want to outsource their product because it uh the of uh quality control. You you gotta watch the movie. It is fantastic, so good. Okay, got it. Uh and then but Nextel, so how when were you born, Andrew? 97. 97. 97. Okay, so Nextel was very popular in 97. Uh so Nextel was a phone company, and Sprint origin Sprint did buy them. You're you're right, Mike. But originally it was the company was called Nextel. And it was a it they were flip phones, but when you closed the phone, well, I guess you could do it with it open too. But they also had a walkie-talkie in them built into them. What? It would go. And what was cool, and so you had two numbers. You had your phone number, which I think you're right, Mike. I think 3136067 was at one time a Nextel number.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh yeah, it was. I I kept the account.

SPEAKER_01:

So that worked like a regular phone, you know, flip phone, regular phone. But then you also had a five-digit Nextel number, like 46789. Something like that. Yeah. And that was your Nextel number. Now there was in construction, that is the only way you communicated. You could not be in construction without a Nextel. Like, and what was cool is that it was like instant. So think of like uh verbal texts. So you would, you know, you would instead of calling you in a voicemail, like I would just button right on the side, and I would pull up your contact and I'd click it, and it would go to you immediately. And that is the way everybody in construction uh talked.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so you press the button and you talk, and does it just go right output to the other person's phone? Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and as a matter of fact, I know Mike, you remember what was our code word.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05:

I oh, I don't remember that.

SPEAKER_01:

So so what you found out fairly quickly is it was wide open. There was no there was no way to silence it. You couldn't like put it on you press the button and it's on. Yeah, you press the button and you would talk.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And so the the the etiquette was I would press the button and it would run, you know, your phone would go and you would see kind of call RD. You'd see who it is, and then you would then initiate the call back. You would talk to me, and then I would talk. Like I wouldn't just click and start talking. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So you have to like accept it almost.

SPEAKER_01:

You don't have to. That was just you could click and start talking. Okay, but the etiquette was I would click and then you would basically say yes, I can talk. So I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I basically you're waving in an announcement. Hey, hey, I need to talk to you. And then you pick up the phone and look at it and go, Oh, it's Mark, okay.

SPEAKER_01:

But this became back. Yeah, that's right. And this was so ubiquitous, like very rarely did people actually call on the phone, much like a text. Okay. Yeah. The problem was it was open. So, like, you know, and you're not there, like you're you're a hundred miles away or a thousand miles away, or whatever, or five miles away.

SPEAKER_05:

It was nationwide, it was nationwide coast to coast, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So, like, I don't know who you're standing with. So I'd start talking about you know the Joneses, and you're standing with the Joneses, right? And that that happened. Uh-huh. So we came up with a code word, and you don't remember what it is, Mike?

SPEAKER_05:

I do not. I do not. I'm I'm I'm thinking I don't remember it.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is embarrassing for Mike because Mike was the project manager for this job, which we for this guy. It was Ryan.

SPEAKER_02:

Ryan. Because oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We had Ryan Holmes. Oh, and Mike was the project manager for the production side of our first company.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, they were.

SPEAKER_01:

And and essentially that was Ryan Holmes. I mean, we had a few others, but but basically it was 99% Ryan Holmes.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So we decided that you would say anything about Ryan, it could be the Ryan Home, the Ryan's. Are you with Ryan? Like any version that you wanted to say where Ryan was in the sentence. That's that was basically like, hey, can we talk in private or are you in private, or is someone around you that doesn't need to hear this or whatever? That was our code.

SPEAKER_00:

And so we used that for a couple of years.

SPEAKER_02:

Now that's interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's right. It was like it was like talking on a yeah, um, on a speakerphone.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Because it just it just blasted out of your speaker.

SPEAKER_01:

And I don't know. Like it was really cool construction. It was far and away its biggest, biggest thing. No, nothing was even close. The other thing that people liked a lot was like for families for like little kids. Because you could get the phone and just have the next hell number, but not a phone number.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, for like the kids to have that, that right.

SPEAKER_01:

So they would take that and you know, people that didn't want to have their their kids have a phone, they just gave them the next hell. So now they could still communicate with their friends if they all had next hells. Like you just needed the that five-digit number. But that was a good way to you could you do group on that? You could, couldn't you? Like, like multi-person. Mike?

SPEAKER_05:

I think so.

SPEAKER_01:

I think like if you had two kids, yeah, I think you could do that. I don't I don't remember, but I I think you could do that. So that was that was it. But then Sprint bought it. Yeah, and I you know, I don't exactly know why it just it was like gone. Just disappeared.

SPEAKER_05:

I think it was again the iPhone. I think the iPhone made it so easy to text. Because if you had a flip phone, remember you had you had a page and you had to use A, B, B. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it was texting that probably killed it.

SPEAKER_05:

Texting. Texting SMS took over, I think. Yeah, yeah, that's right. With a with a with a you know a touchpad, you know, screen, full, you know, QWERTY keypad on keyboard on your screen. You could just and texting, I think, just took off.

SPEAKER_01:

I I think that's right. I I actually struggle, I know we need to start doing this, but I actually struggle with um remembering exactly when texting I I can't actually pinpoint exactly when texting started. I mean it is it is it around 2007, six, I think so.

SPEAKER_02:

Is that about right? Yeah, I think so. That's around when I got like a flip phone. Um, and yeah, you did the whole one, two, three, one, two, three.

SPEAKER_01:

It was and then originally it wasn't texting, it was like messaging, right? Wasn't it called it was it called messaging originally?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, well, there was eye messaging, but uh or just messaging.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, there was iMessaging. That's right. There was. But I think before that, like you had remember the the first, well, there was flip phones, and then there was the phone that you would turn like in the landscape mode, and and the thing would pop up and you'd have the whole keyboard there.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, that was like a like a Nokio or something.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they remember that they had that for a while. Yeah, and then the Blackberry came out. And the Blackberry had like it was fatter, but it had the screen and the whole keyboard. Yeah, the whole keyboard, yeah. And then oh my god, we had I flipped out when the Blackberry came out. Like everyone had one at the time. The Blackberry was popular, the crackberry is what they're called. And because that was the first time that people started to get addicted to texting, it's it's hard to imagine anybody not being addicted to texting right now in today's world. But the back then, that was like the first time, and not everybody had it. That was the other thing. Yeah, like you know, name one person in your life. I actually know one person in my life that I went to high school with that does not have a phone, has never had a phone. Yes, yes, still to this day, still to well, as of a year ago, as of you, yeah, yeah. You have to email his wife if you want to get in touch with him, uh, or or his wife on or his daughter on Facebook. Uh, but uh you know, back then not everybody had it. So it was kind of like COVID in a way, like it was uh, you know, it like when COVID started, it's it's kind of like, well, okay, yeah, there's some sick people. But not everybody, you know, it didn't touch everybody. It was back then, like you when you texted or or I messaged or messaging or whatever, you're like, well, I mean, that's cool, but I can't text Andrew. He doesn't have a you know, he doesn't have a texting device or whatever. So like, you know, all right, nice, um whatever. Like it's it's kind of a novelty. But then as it sort of that that uh what did they say with COVID when you got uh like so many people it's called uh hurt effect or what's that thing called? They were talking about like when a certain percentage of the population got it, it was um oh, what's it called? I can't remember what the dang term is, but anyways, it was like once there was uh critical mass, you know, sure, then all of a sudden it shifts from not everybody has it to let's just say it's 70% or 80%. Now 80% of people have it, so the other 20% of people have to get it. Right. Because it's so many people because every now you have to communicate that way. As before it was a novelty, it was cool to communicate that way. Now, like what do you mean you don't text? Yeah, what do you mean I can't text you? I'm not gonna call you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so all right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We go off in the maybe it's I go off on these things.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, it's fun to fun to recall these things.

SPEAKER_01:

It is it's very fun to recall these things.

SPEAKER_05:

It's a shared experience, you know. And and us trying, you know, us trying to explain it to Andrew.

SPEAKER_01:

It is amazing that you don't know what Nextel is. Oh, it's not even that long ago.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and it doesn't seem like that long ago to Mark and I. It's just you know four years ago.

SPEAKER_01:

To me, I'm like, what the actually when in our first company, Custom Home Integrations, doing this, that's what we all had. Well, that's where Ryan, the Ryan code went on. That's right. That's right. That's what we all had. That's how we all communicated on the job sites and stuff. And yeah, and I've never dealt with that. All right. Um, one little one last little thing that we can with Nextel. I I was uh I was a sales rep at Ryan. I was working in Harbor Cove right on on uh Williamson Road, and I decided that I was too addicted to my phone. And I said, uh, okay, I'm gonna go a month. I'm gonna turn the phone, it was actually Nextel phone. I said, I'm gonna turn the phone off for a month. I'm gonna see if I can live with a month without the phone. So I literally put the phone in the office desk drawer in the model in on in Harbor Cove and I turned the service off. I called him and I was like, Yeah, I want to turn my service off. And once they stopped laughing, uh and I I did. I went 30 days without the phone. And how was it? You know, I it actually um it was now this is let's call this 2008. No, no, it was before that. It was probably early 2000s. Uh so it was not as you know, like necessary, yeah. Uh, but it was inconvenient uh because of Nextel and stuff. Uh and so I after about a week, it was kind of nice. Like I I really I didn't have any distractions. I didn't have and and at the end of the month when I turned it back on, I wasn't like dying to turn it back on. I I did turn it back on, obviously. But and and for a couple days it was I didn't use it nearly as much, and then you know, then I'm back into it.

SPEAKER_02:

Nowadays, God, like everything you do is on there.

SPEAKER_01:

You like drop it for five minutes and yeah, can I say, and this is me, and I I think it's every well, it's not everybody. I think it's a lot of people. It's definitely me. I can't like leave the room without it. Like if I leave the room and I recognize that I don't have my phone, I walk back and find my phone.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we were just talking about this, and I totally agree. I'm the same way. It's you it's almost like I feel naked. Like, where is it?

SPEAKER_05:

No, it's it's true, because it's it's it's F O M A. It's fear of missing out. It's exactly for me, you know, during the day, it's like uh did somebody call, or is one of the guys looking for me? Is you know, is their client looking for me? And then in the evenings, it's like what's on what's on Facebook, what's on WhatsApp? Exactly. Um what's on Instagram, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

I want the stats of the game I'm watching. I want, you know, uh oh my gosh, it just goes on and on and on. And now, now I'm uh like it's almost chat exclusively. I don't care what I'm doing. I mean, uh taking a picture of the cappuccino machine to tell have it tell me how to do it. Uh, you know, um I I'm I'm even thinking about a song or something like what what is that song? And I just hum the stuff into it and it f it's just crazy the stuff you can do. Crazy. So all right, let's get into this, Michael Dowd. Okay, okay. So Andrew, set it up. What are we tell us what we're gonna do here?

SPEAKER_02:

So today we're gonna be discussing some of the steps that our customers can take um before contacting us for support on their equipment. So things like verifying service status with your provider, restarting network devices, inspect physical connections, things like that. So you're saying equipment.

SPEAKER_01:

Are we talking network only, or are we talking all forms of electronics that we install? It's a good question.

SPEAKER_02:

He pulled the mica down and was silent.

SPEAKER_05:

We're we're we're talking about network at all.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think I think we're talking about network.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, because um when people have trouble with their internet, and internet's a broad term, but they're having trouble being online, staying online, things are buffering. That's that's what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01:

Mike, would you say that the number one uh service item revolves around network Wi-Fi connectivity?

SPEAKER_05:

Yes. Yes, I think the majority of our calls are uh network related.

SPEAKER_01:

Would you say that that that percentage of our service calls that are network related is 80% or better?

SPEAKER_05:

Uh I'd say 70.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

Because we have a like we have a lot of things, other things that you know we service and uh can go wrong. So, you know, we have audio problems and um uh video problems, uh control problems, so yeah. But I'd say it is the majority.

SPEAKER_01:

So okay, so seven out of ten. Seven out of ten. Would you say that those seven out of ten, those network related um issues, service-related items, those seven out of ten, would those be uh how um what's the word I'm looking for? How uh serious not serious, uh how important are those when the customers call in as opposed to uh I don't know, they can't stream something from somewhere.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, since they're all related to the network, a lot of times um it's the first thing they notice. Um because people are online. They're they're trying to work, they're trying to uh go to school, they're trying to stream. And it seems like the network is the first thing that they notice. Before they turn on the TV, they might turn on the TV and you know Netflix has a call or something.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. But that's since everything's coming through the ISP, the internet service provider um into the house and then through the network, I think it's it's because it's basically infrastructure. So you know, it's it's it's like if the power goes out, you're gonna notice that pretty quick.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, sure. I would say that um, you know, we've we've been saying for a number of years now that we're kind of like the fourth vital contractor. So for many years, we were just uh an add-on, we were a nice to have, uh, maybe sure TVs, okay. But you had plumbing, you had heating in air, and you had electrical. And you had to have those three uh in every single home that was built. Well, now internet, Wi-Fi, network is just as important. Would you say that to those three?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. And and we have become the our industry, not not just Soundvision, uh, has become the provider of that um of that trade, of that service. Uh we we provide the hardware and we provide the part inside the home, but we partner with companies that actually provide the gateway to the internet. You just said ISP or internet service provider. Can you tell me some examples of those?

SPEAKER_05:

Um internet service providers are uh the company that uh you contact, uh, because you have uh as a homeowner or a business owner, you probably have a selection, uh one or two companies in your area that can provide that service. So we're talking about Spectrum or ATT or uh TDM in our area, uh Windstream, Google Fiber, those companies, uh Starlink.

SPEAKER_01:

Starlink is one, yeah. There's a and and that's that's what I kind of wanted to get to to start here is that there are a number of internet service providers out there. The end user, the customer has the choice of who they pick in doing that. We we do not provide that service, uh, and and we do not uh recommend a particular one over another because it dep it's really dependent on the area. You mentioned, just as a quick aside, you mentioned TDS, and that is a local in the Mooresville, like Norman area, that's a local cable provider. There are a number of local cable providers in various areas, like Cox is one, and uh, you know, you mentioned Spectrum. Um but that's just somebody that is providing a local cable service uh in in a particular area, and that that that company will also provide internet service. So the ISP is who's who brings the internet into your home. And and this is a very important distinction that I a lot of people I don't think get. There is an internet and there is an intranet. And those words unfortunately are super close to each other, but they mean something totally different. Internet is external. So if you search ESPN for scores, your network goes. out into the cloud and it goes to ESPN and it finds you the Carolina Hurricane score and it brings it back to you. Cool. That's internet. That cannot be working. Your ISP could be down because of a storm, because somebody cut a line, whatever. Intranet is inside your home. So you can still have Wi-Fi. You can still um I'm going to use the word stream. I've got to be careful. Computer to computer inside your home as long as it doesn't need outside communication. You can still do that without having internet. And a lot of people don't necessarily make that distinction. Now it's it's not I mean it's not a critical thing. It's just important to understand that there can be problems on both sides.

SPEAKER_05:

Is that fair to say oh yeah yeah that's exactly correct um your network can be working fine internally your intranet network um but you don't have outside access or or you're not connecting outside of the house. You're not connecting to the internet to the world wide web to the servers to Google to ESPN.

SPEAKER_01:

And and that's the reason I bring that up is that a lot of times customers will call us and they're frustrated because they don't have internet is what they will say. And and we can say well we know that you know from the street from the outside of your home in like that's working but your internet service provider could have a problem and that's so it could be their problem. We use a service called Oversea and Oversea is imagine it's like a tunnel and it allows us to see the network equipment in your home or place of business. So we can see the health of it we can push updates to it. We we do various things depending on the level of service membership you have. But if we cannot see that then we know that there is an internet problem because we have to go through the internet to get to the location. And if if that's not working then we know that it's a it's an I we'll say it's an ISP problem, an internet service provider problem.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh ISP problems can be created by all sorts of things like uh you mentioned weather um uh I sometimes have to consider things or I'll ask the client uh you know is there construction in the area are they building new houses down the street um uh things like that did the um did the landscapers just aerate your yard that's right that one has come up numerous times and unfortunately the landscapers nailed the line coming into the house so now here's another one that happens not as frequently but it does in that we were just doing another podcast a minute ago we're talking about uh updates and ISP providers push updates to the their modems on some sort of periodic basis they typically tend to do it in off hours call it middle of the night and they'll they'll push an update and occasionally that update just like like say if you update your phone and one of the things it does is it restarts your phone whether it does it manually or it tells you to do it you have to restart it. So imagine the modem has to do the exact same thing it's a computer has to do the exact same thing. Oh yeah when it restarts sometimes things go kaflooey and and you have problems. So that's another one that people don't necessarily always think of.

SPEAKER_05:

Or the modem could have rebooted for what any number of reasons power outages updates and its settings have changed.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah like it's its network settings for it its internet address might have changed and the bits router and things in the house downstream um they won't recognize that so uh that might require a uh a restart of the router and and there's a lot we're gonna we're gonna touch on that um we don't want to get too boring here but too too uh drone here but we will touch on that because it's very important but uh understand from a high level the a lot of people hear about inside the house uh everything's got an IP address an internet protocol address it's got its own little unique address and and inside the house if you're if you've se numbers you'll see things like 192.1681.72 and that's your printer and 192.1681.67 that's your you know that's your laptop whatever some people may be familiar with those it's called an octet and it's it's just assigned by the router inside the house it every little device has its own address but there is an address that the modem the internet service provider's device the modem gets and that address is like your mailing address there's one unique one in the world and and that address the the the router says okay yep I see that's my modem but sometimes when you do those updates or it resets it gets a different address from the internet service provider and that can make it go kaflooy and that's why when we talk about resetting when you reset imagine you're just re-establishing a connection that both things can see going both ways right right and and sometimes when when one goes down the other one can't see it again and that's why you have problems. It's that simple really yeah so now Mike there is a sequence this is also important there's a sequence for this reset and this is one of the reasons that we're we're doing this podcast because this happens so often that we want to make sure that our customers know how to do this this reset sequence uh so if you don't listen to anything else and you're you're bored to heck listening to what we're talking about. Just listen to this part because this part's kind of important Mike will you go through the the reset sequence that we recommend so we recommend a sequence that's basically based on from the outside in so you need to identify your outside part first the outside is your ISP your internet service provider's piece of equipment we call it a modem but you want to reboot that first even if it's already done it in the middle of the night you know you may not know but it might have changed but if you reboot that first that's the first thing you want to try.

SPEAKER_05:

See if this um see if the service is regained in the house.

SPEAKER_01:

And then the next step hey Mike let's start over that let's start over that part okay and make sure make sure to tell them to turn off everything.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah you're gonna yeah it's a good point.

SPEAKER_01:

Everything needs to be off and then and then so just just start over and Android edit it.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay so we like to look at these restarts from the outside end basically from the outside of the house to the inside house.

SPEAKER_01:

So if you start by powering everything down in the network and and everything all the network devices so you want to you want to power down the modem the router any switches right net switches yep uh any of those devices need to be like completely powered down pull the pull the plug right out of them yes and then when you begin to power things up start with the modem that's basically the outside device or what's bringing the outside into the house start with the modem that's that came from your internet service provider. Give it a little bit of time to boot up maybe a minute yeah imagine it is a computer so it does need the kind of the if you think if you turn off your iPhone and you turn it on however long it takes you to turn it on before you can actually make a phone call that's the amount of time you want to wait for the modem to power up right and then the next step would be to uh restart the router and you need to give it a minute or two to to boot up and the goal is to get those two pieces of equipment to communicate again. And then lastly uh any uh network switch which would be the uh the next thing in the line coming from the outside into the house now if we've done the installation these will be pointed out to you in your training like where they are uh and and if you don't know what they are they'll they'll be labeled as well so uh that will be uh uh fairly apparent if you don't know if we didn't do your installation or listen to this or you don't know where those things are good idea to find them you certainly can call and we can walk you through it but um good idea to find them for the inevitable time that you're going to have to do a reset because it's not if it's when yes yeah I should I I ended there was no question there so no one no one knew to talk. Um that happens in podcasting. Uh yeah so I I would say that and and with each one uh again like Mike said you want to make sure that you wait until they they power up fully before you go to the next step.

SPEAKER_05:

I'll give you one we always like to give things a little bit of time just like your laptop if you reboot your laptop it takes a minute and just like if Windows pushes an update to my laptop in the middle of the night I come in in the morning and everything's shut off everything's shut down. Yeah you have to give it a little bit of time.

SPEAKER_01:

And I and I would say that this solves 70 to 80 percent literally this solves 70 to 80% of the network problems. I I will give you one quick pro tip. This seems to be only with cable modems it does not seem to be cable being a spectrum or you know TV provider that's providing the modem I have found that sometimes if you do that that sequence just like we talked about and it's still not working if you power down the modem just the modem everything else is still powered up power down the modem fully let it sit 30 seconds or so and then power it back up sometimes that will then restore I don't know I actually don't know why. And it seems like it's only been that way for the last couple of years but um that sometimes that's a little trick to help you to okay so okay that's good to know uh I and I I don't know that we have much more I mean I think really the idea is we're trying to provide services that our customers are calling about that they're having issues with yes that they're struggling with and we're trying to provide various ways of getting this information to them so that they they're always welcome to call but if it's you know weird time or if it's you know if they just want to try something themselves this would be what to try.

SPEAKER_05:

Well there's been a lot of um experiences that I've had in talking to clients where they will describe the problem and I will look at this from our position and maybe I cannot see their devices on over C and I tend to direct them back to the ISP. And there's been a number of cases uh that um where technicians have come across where the modem has a problem. And and and this this happens I mean out of these times that this has happened I'm thinking this is 18 out of 20. So what's that? 80%, 90% that they will call their service provider and the service provider looks up their account and and they can see their device. And they say oh everything's great. We can see your device it's on it's working it's connected but the problem is is that device that modem is not outputting anything. Yep it's it's got a a dead output and remember you know everything's got everything we basically deal with has got an input and an output and uh the input might be great but the output's not good.

SPEAKER_01:

I just had this yeah I literally just had this happen to me uh yeah that where the where the the provider could see the modem they're like oh yeah there's no there's no service outage in your area we can actually see the modem everything's fine so of all the stuff they said they were correct except for the everything's fine part because the output of the modem was not outputting anything to the router uh and so we had no internet but yet the modem lights were all on solid they looked good because they were they they were actually receiving signal and that's a really confusing one that people get frustrated they're like I called them you know whomever and they said it's fine and actually it is fine on the input side so that's a really good one to remember.

SPEAKER_02:

How do you know like how would some customer like be able to recognize that or like they are noticing it's not working everything's on like how would they know that may be the issue?

SPEAKER_01:

Well the the the perfect test for that is to take a computer and just plug it straight into the modem like unplug the router and just plug a computer straight into the modem and then try to do something.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And because now you're hardwired into the modem right and so if you go to ESPN it should pop up. Right. If it does not pop up then you have a problem on the output side. Yeah because it's directly connected. Yeah everything else we've taken everything else out of it so that's one way of doing it.

SPEAKER_05:

Right. And that's uh you can ask the uh the technician the ISP or uh customer service route if uh they can see anything past their modem. Oh maybe any connected equipment you know that's good or hey uh while we're on the line can I just plug in my computer and see if you see it or can we troubleshoot that?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh that's a couple of things um a client can do um unfortunately I found that with some of these ISPs until you get to like a an another level like a level two level three whatever they call them the the the first line of defense does not always have the technical acumen to to do that kind of thing. Right. All they're trained to do is see can I see the modem and that yeah and so that's uh yeah and these modem I was just gonna say they they age you know so three or four five years. I one other thing I will say uh people may not know you can buy your own modem most people are are leasing their modem from their internet service provider ten bucks a month they're buying a you know it's a cable modem from you know whomever cable company but you can go to a place like Best Buy or or Amazon and you can actually buy a cable modem that is now yours you own it uh and and then you just call the cable company of your choice or you know maybe based on where you live and they can you know turn on service it's kind of like buying a cell phone and then going to a cell phone company and having them turn it on. So you know you don't necessarily have to buy uh you don't have to get it from that that provider that was the end of my comment that's true that's true um well all right we don't want to go on too long we just wanted to provide uh that uh that information for our customers so that they they have they're armed with some ammunition if they need tools in the tool belt well I wanted to give a special thank you for Mike for joining us all the way from Cozumel for this episode.

SPEAKER_05:

It's a Mica Down kind of day in Cozumel Mica Down it is a beautiful day.

SPEAKER_01:

Our first over the phone interviewee oh nice very cool yeah and that is you Mike thank you Mike sorry we bumped you yesterday but we are super glad to have you today oh my my pleasure uh congusta me some amigos come on all right we'll talk to you soon all right bye bye

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Mark DiPietro

Host
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Michelle Ferlauto

Host
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Andrew New

Producer