Your broadband connection has probably become an integral part of your life and downtime is a nightmare. This is not helped when most of the support lines are manned by customer support staff who no little or next to nothing about broadband. There main aim seems to be to get you to go away in the hope your connection is magically fixed before you call back! This starts often starts at the beginning of the call when many providers will tell you “they are very busy and you might like to call back later”. I frequently hear this message very shortly before being connected!

If you lose your broadband connection, if you are able you are best to try a few things before phoning:

• If you have any other computers, tablets, phones check if they can use your usual broadband connection - the problem may be your computer.
• If you use and can receive emails via an email client then the problem is in your computer.
• Unplug your router (assuming you have one - if you still have some dial-up based USB device I suggest you replace it). Wait a few seconds, plug it back in and while it restarts restart your computer.
• If you can do something else for a while unplug the router at the mains and try later. Broadband does have a few outages - it is not as reliable as your TV service. Later plug the router back in and try again.
• Unless you have a socket that has in built ADSL filters try another filter and restart (unplug and plug back in) the router.
• Disconnect all equipment physically attached to the telephone line and restart (unplug and plug back in) the router.
• Try a network cable connection - these are more reliable

If you have a “superfast” fibre connection then there are two devices to restart and when engineer installed no user accessible DSL filters.

If you are having problems I can assist with getting you reconnected - hopefully you will be with one of the very few providers who do provide a decent support service.

Most people now have a minimal network setup where some facilities are shared - typically just the broadband. However it is usually possible to share other resources:

• Printers & scanners
• Data storage
• Web cameras