Internet technician in St George, for the line that two technicians could not fix.

Sound familiar?

Your St George line has been looked at. Has it been tested?

Of every ten St George callers with a fault, close to four have already had a technician round.

We're independent, not the provider and not NBN. On a St George visit we measure the copper, the joints, the box and the wiring inside, and the answer comes in writing: which part fails.

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, dropping out or crawling: how a St George fault shows itself

The usual suspects

What’s wrong when a St George line plays up

More of the connections we hear about here run over copper than anywhere else we cover. The line is only as good as its joints and whatever is still wired to it inside.

• The old lead-in.

  The cable from the street, decades old, with joints that let the water in.

  Read moreShow less

  Getting a cable in from the street is joint top of the St George list, 34 of 191 enquiries. On fibre to the curb that cable is often the original copper lead-in, and a joint in a pit or under the house that takes in water shows up as speed rising and falling. Up to the boundary it’s NBN’s and goes to your provider in writing; past it, it’s replaced.

• Old sockets on the copper.

  Extension sockets from the landline days, still on the line and splitting the signal.

  Read moreShow less

  Fibre to the curb uses the house’s copper for the last stretch. Every extension left on that copper is a branch that costs speed. They’re disconnected, and the line runs to the one socket the modem uses.

• The NBN box itself.

  A box that never shows its connection light, whatever modem goes in.

  Read moreShow less

  No connection at all is what St George callers describe most, 23 of 67. When the box on the wall never lights its connection light, the modem isn’t the problem. The copper back to the street is tested first, and a box that has failed is the network’s to replace.

• The wiring inside.

  A socket loose behind its plate, or a run that's been crushed or joined badly.

  Read moreShow less

  Of the St George calls that pointed one way, 35 pointed inside the property and 14 to the network. Inside means the sockets, the joints in the walls and the run to wherever the modem sits. Each is tested with the rest disconnected, and what’s faulty gets repaired then and there if the first hour stretches to it.

• Corrosion on the cable network.

  On HFC, rust at the tap in the street or an old isolator on the wall outside.

  Read moreShow less

  HFC is about a quarter of the St George connections we know, 23 of 96. Its weak points are mostly outside: the tap in the street pit, the isolator on the wall and the fittings between them. Wet weather and heat both show them up, as at the Penshurst job below. The house side is tested first; the street side goes to your provider with what we found.

• A pair on the wrong terminals.

  In a unit block, a jumper on the wrong terminals passes for a network fault.

  Read moreShow less

  Units are a fifth of the St George properties we know about, 32 of 154, and 12 enquiries were frame jobs. On a frame downstairs or in a comms cupboard, a jumper connects your pair to your unit. On the wrong terminals the unit is dead while the network tests fine. It’s traced from your socket and fixed at the frame.

• The modem.

  Wrong port, wiped settings, or simply old. One cable test before you buy another.

  Read moreShow less

  Of the St George calls with a fault side recorded, 8 pointed at the equipment: a modem plugged into the wrong port, wiped by a reset and never reconfigured, or simply worn out. A laptop cabled straight into the NBN box shows whether the modem is to blame before anything gets replaced.

• The granny flat.

  A flat out the back with no connection of its own, or wifi that won't cross the yard.

  Read moreShow less

  Granny flats come up in 16 of the 154 St George enquiries with a known property. The flat either gets a cable from the house or a connection of its own, and that depends on what already runs between the buildings and how the address is registered. It’s quoted once we’ve seen both.

How it works

From the pit to your socket: a St George visit in four steps

Every visit finishes with a written answer. Testing goes as far as the network boundary and no further, because the network is NBN’s and we’re independent of it. In St George that boundary is most often the first socket on fibre to the curb, the box on HFC, or the frame in a unit block.

1. 1
   

   Measure where the network stops.

   On fibre to the curb, at the first socket or where the lead-in enters. On HFC, at the NBN box. In a unit, at the frame. What arrives there decides whether the fault is in the property.

2. 2
   

   Strip it back to one socket.

   Extensions lifted off the line, the modem set aside, a laptop cabled straight to the box. The line is measured again and set against the first reading.

3. 3
   

   Chase the difference.

   If the house changes the reading, each socket, joint and run is checked in turn. If it doesn't, the lead-in and its joints are tested back towards the pit, or the frame in a unit block.

4. 4
   

   Repair it, or write it up.

   Your side, repaired on the day where the first hour allows. The network's side, set out in writing for your provider.

   Read moreShow less

   On your side, it's repaired during the visit when the first hour is enough: an extension off the line, a joint remade, a jumper moved, the modem set up. A cable run is quoted first. On the network's side, the findings go to your provider in writing, and the full escalation report includes photos and video. 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

(opens in a new tab)

Penshurst, NSW · HFC · Filmed on site, 8 min

Ten years of drop-outs in rain and heat. The rust was in the street pit.

An HFC connection in Penshurst had dropped out on and off for close to ten years, worst in rain and on hot days, and it was cutting off the customer's video calls. Inside, the cable ran clean to the cupboard. The street pit held a rusted tap and a corroded port, and the finding went to the provider.

Read moreShow less

Penshurst, a house on HFC. The connection had dropped out on and off for close to ten years, worst when it rained and on hot days, and it was cutting off the customer’s business video calls. His own router logged the packet loss.

The provider’s records showed nine drop-outs in thirty days but only one in the last seven, which is under the threshold for sending an NBN technician, and the provider said NBN work earlier that month had cleared it.

Inside, the coaxial cable ran straight from the box on the outside wall to the cupboard, with no splitters. At the outside box, a non-standard connector on the cable was replaced on the spot, and the very old isolator was flagged for replacement: one that has taken surges can behave like a partly blown fuse. In the street pit, the tap was heavily rusted, the heat shrink over the customer’s port had split, and the port itself was corroded. The pit held water and drained badly, which fits drop-outs that come with rain and heat.

The provider agreed to try to log the fault with NBN, and the visit was documented so a report could go to the Ombudsman if the repair didn’t go ahead. The tap and the isolator are NBN’s to replace.