Internet technician on the Northern Beaches, when the last technician did not fix it.

Sound familiar?

The last visit on the Beaches didn’t fix it. What’s different this time?

Half the Northern Beaches callers with a fault, 14 of 28, had already had a technician out before ringing us.

We're independent of your provider and of NBN. The visit measures the line where it reaches the property and again inside, and each reading goes in writing, so the next call you make is the right one.

1. Plug a laptop straight into the router with a cable. Run a speed test while the problem is happening. Fast on the cable and slow on wifi: it is the wifi, and the WiFi Technician page is the one you want. Slow, or dropping out, on the cable too: keep reading, it is the connection.
2. Look at the lights on the box on the wall. The NBN box, sometimes called the NTD, tells you which part of the connection is alive. Only the power light on is not a wiring problem in the house. What the lights on the NBN box mean explains each one.
3. Reset the box and the router properly, once. Hold the reset on the box until every light flashes, then let it come back. Router off for thirty seconds, then on; if it was ever factory reset, it needs its settings put back before it will connect.
4. Ask next door. If the neighbours are down too, it is the street, not your house, and nothing inside will fix it. Ring your provider and wait for them.
5. If your provider says it is your wiring, ask for that in writing. Then ring us. If our testing shows the fault is not in your house, the full escalation report is what you send them.
6. In a unit, ask your provider for your cable pair details first. They save an hour at the MDF, the frame in the basement where the street cables meet the building’s, and they tell us which pair is yours.
7. If an NBN technician is already booked, let them come first. They test to the boundary at no charge. If they say it is not theirs, that is when to book us.

Recognise it?

Dead, slow or patchy: what a Northern Beaches fault looks like

The usual suspects

Where Northern Beaches faults tend to hide

Fewer calls come from the Beaches than from closer to home, and they tend to be the stubborn ones: half of the fault callers had already had a technician out.

• The lead-in from the street.

  An overhead cable from the pole, perished or broken, or an old one under the house.

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  The cable from the street is the top Beaches reason, 15 of 71 enquiries. It can be an overhead line from a pole, broken and hanging as at Frenchs Forest, or an old lead-in under the house, as in the Dee Why call. Up to the boundary the network owns it; past the boundary it’s replaced.

• Corroded sockets.

  Old wall sockets that have corroded, which some owners put down to the salt air.

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  In Dee Why in 2022 there was no working wall socket left: the old ones had corroded, which the customer put down to the salt air. The plan was to test the old lead-in under the house and fit a new socket to it. A corroded socket on copper costs speed long before it fails outright.

• A joint in the overhead line.

  Where the cable from the pole meets the house, sun and weather work on the joint.

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  Overhead cables join the house wiring at the attachment point under the eaves. Sun perishes the insulation and old crimp connectors crumble, as in the Wheeler Heights video below. A tone from inside that stops at the entry point finds it.

• The fibre lead at the box.

  On fibre to the premises, a lead bent too tightly or pulled half out of the box.

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  Fibre to the premises is the most common Beaches connection we know, 10 of 34, though not a majority. The thin lead into the NBN box doesn’t forgive a tight bend or a knock. A red or flickering light on the box points there, and the lead is the network’s to replace.

• Copper on fibre to the node.

  On fibre to the node, the copper runs all the way from a cabinet up the street.

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  Fibre to the node is 7 of the 34 Beaches connections we know. The copper from the cabinet to the house is long, and every joint and extension on it matters. The house side is tested and tidied first, so whatever is left is plainly the network’s.

• The frame in a unit or office block.

  In a unit or an office building, the jumper at the frame downstairs.

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  Seven Beaches enquiries were frame jobs, the same number as phone lines. A jumper links the network’s pair to the one that runs to your unit or suite, and a missing or misplaced jumper looks like a dead service. It’s located by toning from your socket and corrected on the frame.

• The modem.

  Wrong port, settings lost in a reset, or just old. Proven before it's replaced.

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  Six of the 38 Beaches calls that recorded a side blamed the equipment, a share no other area matches, though the numbers are small. A laptop on a cable to the NBN box proves or clears the modem before anyone buys another.

• Business and building lines.

  Shops, offices and lift phones, each with its own cabling and its own owner.

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  Businesses made 12 of the 55 Beaches enquiries with a known property, second only to houses, and 6 concerned a lift phone. In a commercial building the trouble may be at the frame, a patch panel or the lift’s own line, and access is arranged before the visit.

How it works

Boundary first, then the house: a Northern Beaches visit in four steps

You come away with a written answer. We test as far as the network boundary, not past it, because the network beyond belongs to NBN and we don’t work for NBN. On the Beaches, with every kind of connection in the mix, the first job is working out which one you have, because that decides where the boundary sits.

1. 1
   

   Know the connection, then test the boundary.

   On fibre to the premises or HFC, the NBN box; on fibre to the node or the curb, the first socket or lead-in point; in a block, the frame. One reading there splits house from network.

2. 2
   

   Take the house out of it.

   Every socket but one disconnected, and a laptop cabled to the box in place of the modem. If the reading recovers, the house was the problem.

3. 3
   

   Follow it outside.

   If the house tests clean, the lead-in is next: the joint where an overhead cable meets the house, the cable under the floor, the fittings on the wall.

4. 4
   

   Fix your side, document the rest.

   The property's faults, fixed on the visit if the first hour covers them. The network's, written up for your provider.

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   A joint remade, a socket replaced or the modem set up, on the day when the first hour stretches that far; a new cable is quoted. Anything on the network's side is written up for your provider, with the full escalation report's photos and video if you need them. We can't make anyone fix their side, but if you want us with you all the way, we do everything in our power to get you a result.

A real job from the field

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Wheeler Heights, NSW · FTTC · Filmed on site, 2 min

Dead from day one. The joint at the eaves had perished in the sun.

A fibre to the curb house in Wheeler Heights hadn't worked since the connection, and the household was on a 4G backup, waiting weeks for an appointment. The overhead lead-in's pairs had come apart at the eaves, the insulation perished and the old connectors crumbling. Rejoined, the NBN box synced.

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Wheeler Heights, fibre to the curb. The service hadn’t worked since it was connected. A technician had been and tried the connection device at the wall sockets for about half an hour without result, and the household was running on a 4G backup, told the earliest appointment was the end of the month.

The overhead lead-in was followed up a ladder to where it fixes to the house under the eaves. At that joint the copper pairs had come apart: the sun had perished the cable’s insulation, and the old crimp connectors crumbled at a touch. A tone put on the wiring inside reached the entry point and went no further, which is what a break there looks like.

The working pair was found and rejoined with new connectors. Inside, every light on the NBN connection device came up solid, and a temporary socket proved it before the permanent wall plate went on.