Fix a Broken Internet Connection

While we certainly want our internet connection to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the truth is that outages will sometimes occur.  Sometimes they are the fault of our provider's equipment, but sometimes they are actually due to our own equipment.  If they are our provider's fault, there is little we can do but wait.  However, if the equipment inside our house is malfunctioning, there may be a simple solution to get it working again.

Inside your house, there are usually two boxes.  The first is a modem.  This connects to your service provider's lines and translates the data being transmitted.  If you are old enough to remember dial-up internet (yes, I fall in that category!), the modem would translate all that noise you heard as you attempted to connect into signals that the computer could read.  In fact, if you picked up the phone while you were connected, you would hear more of the same noise, which was actually your web pages coming through the line.

DSL permitted data to be transmitted while using the telephone by transmitting data at multiple frequencies.  A filter would be installed that would send one frequency to the modem and another frequency to the telephone.  Cable also works in a similar manner:  television data is sent to one location while internet data is sent elsewhere.

Regardless of where your internet service comes from, you will have a modem.  However, there is probably a second box located near you modem:  your router.  If you want to connect multiple devices over your internet connection, you will need a router to tell all the incoming traffic where to go.  It would be horrible if you were watching a Netflix movie, and then the movie went to your son's laptop while his research for a term paper was displayed on your television.

Malfunctions can occur in either of these devices.  Sometimes, they are able to correct themselves and you never notice the problem, but other times, you will need to reset both boxes.  The process is simple:  find the power cord, and unplug both of them.  Wait about 30 seconds (devices can hold a charge for a short period after they are unplugged), and then plug your modem in first.  (The modem will have a cable running from the wall into the back of the box.)

Once your modem is running again and the lights have stopped flashing, plug your router back in.  Once again, wait for lights to stop flashing.  Then, check your internet.  If it still does not work, your service provider may be experiencing an outage.  In this case, it is best to call them to confirm the outage.  If they do not see a service outage, they may take you through some troubleshooting steps, including the reset I just described.

It would also be a good idea to perform a reset every so often while your internet is still out.  Most of the time, my computer has worked fine once service has been restored, but I remember one time when we had to do a reset before our service worked again.  Since it takes less than a minute, it might be worth it to recheck every hour or two.