Internet technician in the Sutherland Shire, when nobody will own the fault.

Sound familiar?

Already had someone out in the Shire, and it’s still not right?

Of the Shire callers ringing about a fault, four in ten have had someone out already, and it still isn't right.

We're an internet technician based here, working for you, not the provider or NBN. One visit tests the cable from the street, the NBN box, the wiring inside, the modem and the wifi, and you get in writing which part is broken.

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?

No internet, drop-outs, a dead phone line: what a Shire fault looks like from inside

The usual suspects

What’s behind most Shire faults, from fibre to the old copper

Fibre to the premises, fibre to the curb and the cable network make up most of what we hear about here. Each fails differently, so the fix for one does nothing for another.

• The NBN box in the wrong spot.

  On fibre, the box went in the garage, and the wifi has to get from there to the back bedroom.

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  On fibre to the premises the copper is gone and the trouble moves inside: a box in the garage, the modem beside it, and wifi expected to reach the far end of the house. Fibre to the premises is a third of the Shire connections in our records, and about half since 2024. Moving the box came up in 47 Shire enquiries. It’s moved to where the house needs it, or the house is cabled back to it.

• Old phone sockets on the copper.

  On fibre to the curb, every old phone socket still wired in is a branch that weakens the line.

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  Fibre to the curb and fibre to the node use the old phone line for the last stretch. In an older Shire house the sockets from the landline days are often still wired to it, and each one is a branch that weakens the signal: a bridge tap. It’s what we expected at a Gymea Bay house where the modem had to be turned off and on to work. The old sockets are disconnected, and the copper goes straight to the one socket the modem plugs into.

• The cable in from the street.

  Cut, crushed, full of water, or an old aerial cable that cracks when it moves in the weather.

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  A shovel, a crushed conduit, water that got in over the years, or an old single-pair aerial cable with a hairline crack that opens up in wind and rain, as at the Loftus job below. Up to the boundary the finding goes to your provider. Past it, on the property, the cable is replaced.

• The pair at the frame.

  In a unit or a factory complex, your service patched to the wrong pair looks just like a dead line.

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  In a unit block or a factory complex, the street cable lands on a frame and a jumper links your pair to your unit. Patched to the wrong pair, it looks exactly like a dead service, which is what we expected at a Menai unit after a month with no internet. It’s traced from your socket to the frame and re-jumpered there.

• The isolator on HFC.

  On the cable network, a tired isolator or a leftover pay TV splitter on the outside wall.

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  On the cable network, the NBN cable meets the house at an isolator on the outside wall, sometimes with a splitter still there from pay TV. Surges and corrosion both get at it, and wet weather shows it up. HFC is about one in five of the Shire connections we know about. It’s taken out of the circuit to prove it, then replaced.

• The phone wiring after the NBN.

  The landline now comes out of the modem, and the hall phone only works if someone wired it back.

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  The phone service now comes from the modem, so the old sockets around the house go quiet unless they’re wired back to it, and a crackle on the line points at a joint or the copper. Phone lines are the most common reason Shire callers ring us. The sockets you use are rewired to the modem, and a line fault is tested back to the boundary.

• The modem.

  The wrong port, a reset that wiped its settings, or just worn out. Test it before you buy another.

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  Plugged into the wrong port, reset and never set up again, or tired after a few years. Of the Shire calls with a fault side recorded, 44 pointed at the equipment. Plugging a laptop into the NBN box by cable settles whether it’s the modem before anything is bought.

• The business’s own cabling.

  In a Shire shop or office, a patch panel or switch in the comms cupboard can take everyone offline.

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  One Shire enquiry in five is from a business, and a shop or an office often has its own patch panel and switch in a cupboard. A fault there takes every desk down while the NBN line is fine. It’s found at the panel, re-terminated or replaced, and every run is checked from one end to the other.

How it works

One visit, four steps: a Shire fault call from the street to the desk

You finish the visit with the answer in writing. We test up to the network boundary and not past it, because the cable beyond is NBN’s and we aren’t NBN. Where that boundary sits depends on which of the Shire’s connection types you have.

1. 1
   

   Find the boundary, and test there.

   On fibre to the premises and HFC it's the NBN box, on fibre to the curb or the node the first socket or where the lead-in comes in, and in a unit or a factory complex the NBN side of the frame. One reading there says whether the fault is on the property or not.

2. 2
   

   Take the house out of the circuit.

   Every socket but one disconnected, the old ones off the line, the modem bypassed with a laptop straight into the box. If the fault goes, it was in the house. If it stays, it's beyond the boundary.

3. 3
   

   Pin it to one part.

   The cable toned and traced, the joint or the socket found, the pair followed back to the frame, the modem's port and settings checked. Nothing is replaced until a test points at it.

4. 4
   

   Fix it, or put it in writing.

   On the property, fixed while we're there if the first hour allows. Past the boundary, written up for your provider.

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   On the property, it's repaired there and then if the first hour covers it: the socket, the joint, the jumper, the modem set up. A new cable run is quoted and you decide. Past the boundary, you get the findings in writing for your provider, with photos and video in the full escalation report. 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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Loftus, NSW · FTTC · Filmed on site, 3 min

It dropped out in the wind and the rain. The house wiring tested perfect.

A fibre to the curb service in Loftus kept dropping out and slowing down, worst when it was windy or wet. The old phone sockets were already off the line, and the one cable left inside tested perfect. That left the old aerial lead-in to the pole, and our advice to the provider was to test it and replace it.

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Loftus, on fibre to the curb. The internet kept dropping out, slowing down while it did, then coming back on its own, and the customer had noticed it was worst when it was windy or raining.

The lead-in came into the ceiling: an old single-pair aerial cable with solid copper cores, joined straight to the one white cable that runs down to the socket in the office. The two old phone sockets had already been taken off the line when the NBN was connected, and a toner confirmed neither was on the circuit.

That left one cable inside to test. Disconnected and tested for insulation resistance across the pair, it was within specification, and the run traced cleanly from the ceiling to the socket. It could still have been a device, but with the house wiring clean, the weather pattern pointed at the aerial lead-in running across to the pole that carries the distribution point. Old cable of that kind can develop a hairline crack that opens up when it moves in wind and rain. Our advice to the provider: send a technician to test the lead-in and replace it.