This post will show you enterprise tips on how to handle internet outages.
Global internet outages continue to rise in 2021, with 300 happening in the last week of January. The U.S. alone accounted for 48% of the global total during this period, with 145 disruptions, which marked the fourth consecutive week of increased outages in the domestic market.
Irrespective of the nature of business that you are in, you are most likely dependent on the Internet for the continuation of your operations or/ and services. With IoT taking center stage in Industry 4.0, it’s not an overstatement to say most businesses will be rented completely useless without access to Internet services.
Therefore, it’s always advisable for enterprises to plan for a highly available WAN and identify prominent causes of network downtime to prepare for those eventualities should they arrive. While there are many variables in an Internet outage that may lie beyond your control, there are several others that you can control to prevent complete service disruption or work around the outage. 24/7 IT support offers comprehensive round the clock network monitoring and emergency support in case of Internet outages.
What Does Outage Mean In Internet Parlance?
It means the dreaded greyed out Wi-Fi symbol. An Internet outage denotes complete or partial failure of internet services. Widespread Internet Outages can be a result of censorship, cyberattacks, disasters, or delivery disruption by malicious actors, such as, cutting down fiber-optic cables.
Submarine communications cable disruptions can also cause significant slowdowns in Internet services. A network outage signifies a problem with the internet connection between your computer and the server.
Find Out How To Fix Internet Outages
Check if there’s a network outage
Network disruptions can happen without any problems at your end. It could be the result of a problem with the network itself. To confirm, you can check the network status on your Internet service providers page. If there is no detail available there, you could also check their social accounts.
Most service providers are proactive enough to alert you about planned outages (in advance) resulting from maintenance or other such factors. If you cannot afford a disruption in network services, consider investing in a backup service provider or even in mobile data backups. Some providers even offer plans with mobile backup built right into their modems.
Call tech support
If none of the above solutions work, it may be time to get in touch with technical support. The first step would be to reach out to the technical support of your Internet service provider and see what solutions they have to offer.
Typically, technical support teams will walk you through various steps on call to resolve your problem. If the problem persists, the support team will likely schedule an on-site visit by a network engineer. IT Outsourcing Services can help you stay ahead of productivity losses caused by Internet outages.
Check your tech
When you experience a disruption in network services, please check if others in your area are also experiencing the same issue. If you are the only one facing the problem, then it could be down to a technical failure at your end.
Consider doing a thorough sweep of all your devices capable of connecting to the Internet and check if it’s an isolated problem. This can be done by trying to access the network from different devices and checking if the problem repeats itself. If the problem is limited to a specific device, consider rebooting it, restarting your modem and router and see if the problem solves itself. Restarting often clears caches and removes errors that may cause the problem in the first place.
What Are The Most Common Causes Of Internet Outages?
Here are the top 5 causes of internet outages:
1. Network Congestion
This is the most prevalent reason behind Internet outages. Network congestion is a result of overloaded networks where there are too many connections trying to access a network at the same time, in the same area.
Fortunately, this is a preventable cause and can be resolved by switching to a more reliable Internet service provider, or at least one capable of dealing with the kind of volume that your network can expect. This kind of Internet outage is a fairly common occurrence in colleges, public libraries, and wireless networks.
2. A failed link to your service provider
This kind of disruption often occurs in the wake of a natural disaster or other natural causes. Basically, this happens when the connection between your device and the server is interrupted resulting in a failed connection. Anything from a storm, a downed wire or an animal interfering with the wires can cause this kind of a disruption.
3. Natural Disasters
Natural disasters are often one of the most common causes of Internet outages. While there is little that you can do to contain or control such an event, modern WAN infrastructure is designed to be resilient and can withstand a lot. However, disasters of epic proportions, such as, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Katrina, Snowmageddon, etc. are quite capable of blowing through the most resilient of infrastructures.
4. Device Failure
You should always take care to properly ground all your electronic devices and protect them from surges. Failure to do so can result in the circuits being burnt out resulting in complete device failure. Lockups and overloads can also cause equipment failure. However, this issue can be easily resolved with properly updated and well configured hardware.
5. Operation error
Operation errors can stem from incorrect IP addresses, improper wiring, an incorrectly configured firewall, and more. Failure to install the Internet connection properly also results in Internet outage caused by operation errors.
How Do You Prevent Internet Outages?
Not all network downtime is preventable. There are simply too many factors that could influence network availability. However, you can always plan to have backups in place including recruiting the services of a secondary Internet service provider, mobile data backup, and more.
However, the most important part is to have a backup plan in place. Internet outages can severely impact the productivity flow of a routine day when you are caught unawares. The most foolproof way of ensuring continued network services it’s to recruit the help of a Managed IT Services provider who can help with both network monitoring and responding properly in network emergencies.
Note: This is a post by Nora Erspamer.
About Nora:
Nora Erspamer is the Director of Digital Marketing at New Charter Technologies, a group of companies specialized in managed IT support services. She is an experienced marketer and sales strategist with a demonstrated history of working in various technology industries. Skilled in strategic campaign development, lead generation, and marketing automation software. Her blog can be found at https://newchartertech.com/blog/.
