Dead, dropping out, slow, or the cable's hanging out of the wall. Independent NBN repair, fault by fault.

Sound familiar?

No internet since yesterday. It works and it doesn’t. The wire’s hanging out of the wall.

No internet since yesterday. A box swapped last week that's gone again. The wire hanging out of the wall where the dog got to it.

Whichever it is, an NBN repair starts the same way: the line tested to the boundary, your side repaired there and then, and anything past it put in writing.

1. Dead: read the lights on the NBN box first. Power only and nothing else means the box is not seeing the network, which is not a cabling fault inside the house. On fibre, a red optical light points at the fibre lead or the lead-in. Start with what the lights on the NBN box mean.
2. Dead: plug a laptop straight into the box with a cable. Works on the cable and not through the modem: it is the modem. Nothing on the cable either: the line or the box, or a box still locked to the old router until your provider clears it, or a provider login (PPPoE) the laptop has not got. So that alone is not an NBN fault, and it is where the testing starts.
3. Dead: ask the neighbours. If they are down too, it is the street. Ring your provider, not us; nothing in your house will fix it.
4. Dropping out: log it for a day before anyone comes. Run PingPlotter, or a repeating ping, on a laptop plugged into the box with a cable, or into the modem if the box will not give a laptop a connection, and keep the log. It shows whether the line, the box or the router is losing the connection, and when. Testing your NBN properly explains how.
5. Slow: run the speed test on a cable, not on wifi. Slow on the cable means the line, the socket or the box, and this page. Fast on the cable and slow on wifi means the signal, which is the WiFi Technician page.
6. Damaged: photograph it, and don’t touch a cut fibre. Take the photos before anyone moves anything. If a contractor did it, their insurer wants the photos too, and so does the report.
7. No phone: check the handset is in the modem’s phone port. On the NBN the home phone runs through the modem, so a dead phone with the internet up is the modem’s phone port or your provider’s voice service, not the line.

Recognise it?

Which NBN fault is it? In the words people use on the phone

The usual suspects

What’s usually wrong, by fault, and what gets repaired

The same handful of causes, sorted by the fault they produce and by what the repair turns out to be.

• The lead-in, when it is dead.

  Water, a rodent or a shovel. NBN's up to the boundary, ours from there in.

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  Water in the conduit, a rodent, a shovel, internal-grade cable buried where gel-filled cable should have been. From the street to the boundary it is NBN’s and goes through your provider; from the boundary in, it is replaced.

• Old phone sockets, when it drops out or runs slow.

  On copper, old sockets still on the line split the signal. The most common thing we find.

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  On fibre to the curb and fibre to the node, the sockets left over from the old phone line, still connected to the copper and splitting the signal. The most common thing we find on copper. They come off the line, and the line runs direct to the one socket you use.

• A wet or heat-affected joint.

  A corroded joint that's worse in rain, or one that opens up on a hot afternoon.

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  A corroded joint in the lead-in or at the street tap, worse when it rains; a marginal joint on copper that opens up on hot afternoons. On your side it is re-terminated; on NBN’s, the readings go in the report.

• The isolator or the tap on HFC.

  A surge, a storm or a corroded tap. The isolator is bypassed to prove it, then swapped.

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  A surge, a storm, corrosion at the tap, a wrong-value splitter left from pay TV. The isolator is bypassed to prove it, then swapped.

• The socket, the wall plate or the patch lead.

  A cheap socket, a ripped-off plate, a crushed cable or a bad patch lead. Replaced.

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  A cheap socket, a brittle copper termination, a wall plate ripped off, a cable flattened under carpet, a bad lead between the socket and the modem. Replaced. See NBN wall socket repair and replacement.

• The pair at the MDF, in a unit.

  In a unit, your pair on the wrong apartment, or pulled out during someone else's job.

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  Jumpered to the wrong apartment, pulled out during work on a neighbour’s line, or open between the frame and your socket. Traced and re-jumpered: see MDF jumpering.

• The modem, the router or its phone port.

  A router cooking in a cupboard, the lead in the wrong port, or a phone port never set up.

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  A router cooking in a cupboard, one whose wired speed has collapsed while wifi looks normal, the cable in the wrong port, a phone port never set up after an equipment change. Proven with a laptop on a cable, then replaced or set up again.

• Not a cable at all.

  The wrong address on file, a plan cap, a crowded band. You're told in writing, and nobody sells you a cable run.

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  NBN’s records with your service on the wrong address, the provider’s voice service switched off, a plan cap, a crowded 2.4 GHz band. We say so and put it in writing, and nobody quotes you a cable run that would fix nothing.

How it works

What we actually do, and what the repair is

One visit, four steps, and the repair or the report at the end of it. The network boundary is where the repair stops and the report starts: we test to it and repair the cabling on your side of it, and what lies beyond it is NBN’s, proven in writing rather than touched.

1. 1
   

   Test at the boundary.

   The lead-in point, the MDF pair, or the NBN box, depending on your technology. That one measurement settles whether the fault is inside the property or not.

2. 2
   

   Isolate.

   Disconnect everything but one socket, or bypass the isolator, or plug direct into the box. Compare.

3. 3
   

   Find it.

   The cabling toned and tested, bridge taps removed, the pair traced, the socket replaced.

4. 4
   

   Repair it, or report it.

   Your cabling, repaired there and then. Past the boundary, a written report for your provider.

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   Dead: a lead-in replaced on your side, or the pair re-jumpered at the frame. Dropping out: the old sockets off the line, the joint re-terminated. Slow: the socket replaced, the line run direct. Damaged: the cable or the lead replaced from the boundary in. No phone: the sockets wired back to the modem. Beyond the boundary, you get the written report for your provider, with video in the full escalation report; we cannot make them 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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FTTC · Filmed on site, 8 min

A month with no service since it was connected. The fault was at the lead-in.

Two contractors had been out without finding it. At the lead-in, the new NBN pair was wired straight onto a second lead-in pair, in from the street and back out again, never reaching the socket. A tone found the right pair. When the box still wouldn't sync, the fault was past the boundary, and the report went to the provider.

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Fibre to the curb, a month with no service since it was connected, and two contractors already out without the fault being found. Everything was at the lead-in downstairs.

Beside an old phone system and old phone sockets still connected to the line, the new NBN lead-in pair had been wired straight onto a second lead-in pair: in from the street and back out to the street, never reaching the socket. The pair feeding the NBN box was an old temporary pair, and a tone found the pair that actually ran to the socket.

Re-terminated onto that pair, the box still would not sync after twenty minutes. That put the fault past the boundary, and the written report went to the provider.