Top Tips to Troubleshoot your Business Broadband
At Unicom, we aim to make our customers’ lives easier by providing everything you need to run your business, so you can concentrate on running your business. One of our most popular services is our Business Broadband where we offer speeds of up to 76 Mbps 1. We strive to provide a great service, though like any provider, we cannot prevent faults from occurring. We can, however, do our very best to help solve them as quickly as possible. If you experience any issues, as a starting point we’ve put together our Top 10 tips so you can troubleshoot your Business Broadband.
- Turn off your router: Double check your router is turned on. Sometimes restarting may fix the issue. Wait a minute then turn back on. It can take up to 5 minutes for everything to come back online. Do not turn your router on and off repetitively though, once or twice a month is the maximum we would recommend (to allow our Dynamic Line Management to find the best stable speed for your line). If you are having to reset on a daily basis, give us a call. Quick fix: Try turning your client devices (laptops, mobiles, etc) off and on again too.
- Check your cables: If they are disconnected, secure them and reconnect them. Check the lights on the router are on to ensure that the connections are being made.
- Wider area problems: First, go to the Openreach local network checker and put in your business postcode. You will be able to see if there are any issues in your area and when it will be fixed.
- Router position: Make sure your router is positioned in a location where the signal coverage will be the most effective, ideally in a central location. If your router is positioned close to windows it can make the signal weaker as the signal will be sent outside. Other items that could interfere with signal or weaken it are walls (especially thick concrete ones), doors, electrical equipment (i.e. microwaves), putting it inside a cupboard or behind the tv. Handy hint: If you’re at your desk for most of your day, why not plug your computer directly into your router to enjoy maximum speeds?
- Plug in: Try plugging your laptop or desktop directly into the router using a cable. If you can connect to the internet, you may be experiencing a wireless issue and we will need to look into your wireless settings. If not, you may have a router or line issue.
- Check if your landline phone is working: Plug the handset into the same socket your router is plugged into. Check there’s a dial tone and try to make a call. If the line is toneless, there may be a fault on the line which could be the origin of the broadband issues.
- Test the master socket: Your master socket is usually located at the point where the telephone lines enter your property. Test the socket by plugging a device (or even two) directly into the socket.
- Check the microfilter: If you use the same socket for both your Phone Line and Broadband services, your microfilter is the small white box plugged into your phone socket. Ensure that the cables to the microfilter are connected properly. Also, if you’ve had the microfilter for a while, they tend to wear out so it might be time to get a new one.
- Look after your router: Similar to the microfilter, routers can suffer from wear-and-tear leading to connection issues. If you’ve had the router for a long time – it might be time to upgrade your equipment. (We can help you with this).
- Phone us: If you’re still experiencing issues and are unable to connect to the internet, give us a call and walk us through everything you’ve done. Our team will then be able to run some further diagnostic tests.
The Legal Stuff
1The fastest speed available on Unicom’s Absolute Fibre Broadband. Based on 10% of our customers on the network achieving this speed or faster. The actual speed you will receive is subject to line distance from the principal connection point to your premises and line quality. Speeds vary significantly by location. External factors e.g. internet congestion and premises wiring also significantly affect speed.