What is an internet technician?

What an internet technician is

An internet technician installs, maintains and fault-finds internet, phone and data services inside homes and businesses. The work is on the customer’s side of the network: the cabling in the walls and ceiling, the sockets, the modem or router, the WiFi, and the point where all of that meets the provider’s service.

You call one when the internet drops out or runs slow and nobody can tell you why, when a cable or a socket is needed, or when you have been told the fault is in your own wiring and want it tested by someone who does not work for the provider. If that is where you are now, book an internet specialist who works for you.

Qualifications and licensing

In Australia, anyone who works on fixed phone or data cabling that connects to the public network must be a registered cabler. An open registration covers all customer cabling, in homes and in commercial buildings. Registration is issued by registrars accredited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the federal regulator, and a registered cabler must work to the wiring rules and can be asked to show their registration card.

The system has changed names over the years, which is why you will hear older terms. The regulator was Austel until 1997, and cablers held an Austel licence. Austel’s role passed to the Australian Communications Authority and later to the ACMA, and licences became registrations. “Austel licence” is still used in the trade to mean a cabler’s registration.

Many technicians come to this work from another trade. I started as an electrician and obtained my Austel licence and open cabling licence in that time. In 1997, after Telstra was privatised, the company I worked for took on a contract on the CAN 2000 project, upgrading the Telstra network. That is where I learned how the network is built, joint by joint. From there I moved into fault finding as a contractor on Telstra’s install and maintenance work for many years, before starting SECURE A COM and moving to the customer’s side of the boundary. The rest of my career is here.

The day-to-day work

• Fault finding. Dropouts, slow speeds, a service that will not connect. Most of the job.
• Cabling. Data cables to rooms, new sockets, moving the point where the modem sits.
• WiFi. Coverage in the rooms that do not get any, and networks that drop devices.
• Working with providers. When testing shows the fault is not on the customer’s side, putting that in writing so the provider can act on it.

Testers give readings. They do not name the fault. The skill is in choosing what to measure, in what order, and recognising what the pattern means: you test one thing, then another, and each result rules something in or out. A lot can be narrowed down from a careful conversation on the phone before anyone drives anywhere.

Talking to customers

Most people describe a fault by what it does to their day: it drops out during meetings, it is slow at night, it stopped when it rained. Those details are evidence. A good technician asks for them, and then explains what was found in plain words, including when the answer is “this is not yours to fix”.

Watch: Reliable Internet Technician Services in Sydney

Network technicians and internet technicians

There are two separate areas of responsibility on any internet service, and a different person works in each.

• Network technicians work for NBN or its contractors. Their job is NBN’s network: the fibre, the equipment in the street, and the connection up to the network boundary at your property.
• Internet technicians work for the customer. Their job is everything on the customer’s side of that boundary. They do not work inside NBN’s network, and they are not NBN. An independent technician who works on NBN services is sometimes called a private NBN technician.

The network boundary is the dividing line. On fibre to the premises it is where NBN’s cable ends, at the box on your outside wall, and on HFC it is the wall box outside. On fibre to the curb and fibre to the node it is the first socket or the point where the lead-in arrives. In a unit block it is NBN’s side of the building’s main frame.

Who tests what, and where each one stops

When an internet service is faulty, up to four parties may look at it. Each tests their own part and stops at its edge.

Who tests what on a faulty internet service

Who	What they test	Where they stop
Your provider's help desk	The service remotely: whether the line is connected, its speed, its error counts	They cannot see inside your home. A remote test that passes says the line was up at that moment
NBN's technician	NBN's network, up to the boundary	At the boundary. Wiring past it is not theirs to repair
An electrician	Cabling they install, where they hold a cabling registration	Fault finding on a live internet service is usually outside what they are asked to do
An independent internet technician	Everything on your side, and the line as it arrives at the boundary	At the boundary. We test to it and not inside NBN's network

Who looks at which part of the line

Show

Who tests what What an internet technician tests

Your provider, remotelyYour provider NBN’s technicianNBN’s technician An electrician, installingAn electrician Nobody’s jobNobody’s job NBN’s technicianNBN’s technician An internet technician: your whole sideInternet technician The boundary Street and networkNetworkWiring in your homeYour wiringModemModemWiFi and devicesWiFi, devices

Who tests what. Each one tests their own part and stops at its edge. The help desk’s remote test passes, NBN’s technician stops at the boundary, and nobody tests the wiring past it or puts the two halves side by side.

What an internet technician tests. Everything on your side, and the line as it arrives at the boundary: measured where it arrives and again at the socket in use. We test to the boundary and not inside NBN’s network.

The gap between them

The trouble is in the handover. The help desk’s test passes, so the fault is said to be in the home. NBN’s technician confirms the network is fine to the boundary and leaves. Nobody has tested the wiring past the boundary, and nobody has put the two halves side by side. It is how a network fault gets written down as internal wiring.

That gap is where an independent technician works. We measure the line where it arrives and measure it again at the socket in use. If the readings match, the home’s wiring is clear and the fault is on the network side, which is something the provider can be shown. If they differ, the fault is in the home and it can be fixed there and then.

If someone rings out of the blue asking to get into your computer, that’s the fake technician call.

We looked at how often the “it’s your internal wiring” call turns out to be right across our own filmed jobs. The results are in our study of NBN faults and internal wiring.

Internet technicians and electricians

People often ring an electrician first, which makes sense: cables are cables. The two trades overlap on installation. Many electricians hold a cabling registration and run data cable well.

Fault finding is a different job. It means working out why a service that is connected does not behave, which takes line testing, an understanding of how each type of NBN works, and knowing which side of the boundary a symptom points to. We are regularly called to homes where the cabling was installed properly and the fault was something no cable tester shows, such as old phone sockets still connected to the copper line.

When to call an internet technician

• The internet drops out or runs slow, and your provider’s tests say the line is fine.
• You have been told the fault is in your internal wiring.
• A provider’s or NBN’s technician has been and the problem came back.
• You need a cable, a socket or the NBN box somewhere other than where it is.
• The WiFi does not reach the rooms you use.

If the whole street is down, or your provider has already found a fault in the network, that is theirs to fix and a visit from us will not speed it up. We say so on the phone.