I've noticed something of a recurring theme over the last few years. After each thunder storm, households which subscribe to wireless internet services tend to have problems that on the surface appear to be gremlinic in nature. The provider will normally replace the roof-mounted "antenna" (which is actually an integrated wireless transceiver and antenna array enclosed in a plastic clamshell) and perhaps the PoE injector located inside the dwelling near the point of entry or the customer's computer.
I'm in ur cables, carefully opening a single pair.
In a percentage of these situations the problem is not resolved and the customer is informed that his or her computer is to blame. Often, upon separate inspection by an experienced service technician, the user's computer doesn't exhibit signs of failure with regard to the ethernet port and network functionality may be verified by a battery of tests that check for packet loss during intensive network activity. The user often will now find themselves back at square one, not knowing exactly where their problem lies.
The service provider's misdiagnosis is often compounded if a representative of the ISP uses a laptop to "test" the connection, by plugging it into the customer's wireless transceiver and browsing the internet. A novice may feel that this "rules out" the installed equipment but it doesn't address some common scenarios.
Look, I know they sent me to fix your internet and all,just please don't tell my boss I got my hand caught in this thing.
In at least one situation I have observed service technicians dispatched by the ISP verify a connection with a laptop that subsequently was found to have static assignments for IP address and DNS servers. The customer's complaint was a failure to browse the internet which was related to an inability to acquire an IP address from the ISP. In that situation, the ISP-owned on-premise equipment's built-in DHCP server had failed and was no longer assigning appropriate data to connected clients. Replacement of that equipment resolved the issue.
Another scenario occurs when there is a no link status between the client PC and the wireless transceiver. A failure in the transceiver, intermediate cabling, PoE injector or network card/port on the client PC can cause this condition. A failure of ISP equipment in this scenario, particularly the cabling and PoE injector can manifest itself differently on different systems depending on the ethernet capabilities of that system. In multiple similar situations, a client PC with a 10/100 ethernet capability was observed unable to establish a link to the wireless transceiver but the service technician laptop, equipped with a 10/100/1000 (gigabit) ethernet capability was able to connect and browse with reasonable reliability. This is due to certain characteristics of gigabit ethernet that contribute to it's robustness. Users in this scenario may erroneously believe that their original network port is bad after installing a replacement network interface card (NIC) that is designed for gigabit functionality. The link at this point may work and appear to be stable, however this is a band-aid repair and a more in-depth inspection of premise equipment should be conducted by a qualified technician
A failure of almost any one of these pairs upstream of the PoE adapter, and up to two failures downstream, can be tolerated by a gigabit ethernet controller at the host end.
A customer encountering issues with their residential wireless internet service is advised to be aware of these special situations. There are more scenarios in which a service tech's troubleshooting laptop can function when connected to a faulty internet connection, than when a customer's ethernet port can function on a different network when it has failed.
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