troubleshooting

If you are having issues with your Internet, The instructions here may allow you to resolve your issue yourself.  If they don’t resolve your issue, they can help you gather information to help our technicians resolve your issue when you give us a call (780)778-3778.

PROBLEM: THE internet isn’t working at all

Step 1: Power cycle your equipment, and verify cabling.

Try power cycling your equipment, and verify all your cabling is correct. DO NOT PRESS THE RESET BUTTON ON YOUR ROUTER. Resetting will erase some configuration from the router, and it will have to be reprogrammed.

Follow these detailed instructions:

1. Follow these instructions to determine your connection type
2. Power cycle your network equipment, and verify your cabling
   • Detailed instructions for Subscriber Module customers
   • Detailed instructions for Modem Customers

Step 2: Test with a Wired device (i.e. not wireless) if possible

If the device you are using is connected to your WIFI (i.e. Wireless) then you may be having a WIFI problem (between the router and your device), and not a problem with the Internet connection to your router. Testing with a wired device, connected to your router with a network cable, will help isolate the problem.

Follow this if you have a device you can connect to your router with a network cable:

• Connect the device to the router (any of ports 1,2,3,or 4),  with a network cable, and see if you can browse the Internet or not.
• If the wired device can access the internet without the issue reoccurring, then your issue is likely a Wifi issue (See Below “Problem: My WIFI isn’t working properly”)
• If both the wired and wireless devices show the same symptoms, your issue may be with the connection to your house, or the router itself.
  • If you have no Internet at all, please call our technical support at 780-849-2429
  • Otherwise, please check the “Problem: My Internet is Slow and/or Unresponsive” section below.

Follow this if you don’t have a device you can connect with a Network Cable:

• Disconnect the power from all printers, and turn off as many other wireless devices as you can.
• Test the Internet while as close to the router as possible for the best signal possible.
• If your issue goes away, then your issue is likely a Wifi issue (See Below for Troubleshooting Wifi issues)
• If you are still experiencing the same issue, your issue may be with the connection to your house, or the router itself.
  • If you have no Internet at all, please call our technical support.
  • Otherwise, please check our section below on Troubleshooting Slow and/or Unresponsive Internet.

PROBLEM: My wifi isn’t working properly

Wifi issues can have a multitude of causes, from Interference from neighbours and other devices within the home, to poor signal strength due to the layout of your home and router location.

Here are more options for detailed Wifi troubleshooting:

• You may have weak Wifi signal.  Check the Wifi Signal levels, (Signal bars) on your device.
  • Try relocating your router to a more central location
  • Newer routers have better signal coverage than older ones, you may need to upgrade your router
  • For larger homes, you may want to consider a second access point to provide better signal coverage.
• Check how many Wifi Networks you see in the available networks list. If you see more than 1 or 2, you may be experiencing interference.
  • If one of the networks you see is your printer, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND you turn off Wifi Direct printing. Wifi Direct Printing is a common source of wireless interference, and is not needed in the vast majority of cases. Consult your printer documentation online for details.
  • You can try downloading a wireless survey application. We recommend Netspot Free Edition for PC or WIFIAnalyzer (Open Source) for Android to check for Interfering channels or poor signal.
• If you have a dual band router, try connecting to the other network  broadcast by your router. Interference will only affect one of the network bands, and is significantly less likely to affect 5Ghz Wifi. (The tradeoff being that 5Ghz Wifi has less range.)

PROBLEM: My internet is Slow and/or Unresponsive

Our technical support team may ask you some questions, and to do some specific tests, when troubleshooting your Internet problems. Performing these tests beforehand, when you are experiencing the issue, can make fixing your problem much quicker and easier.

Here are questions we may ask, and troubleshooting steps you can do before calling:

• Verify that the slow Internet issue exists for multiple devices, to confirm the problem is not with your particular device.
  • If the issue is isolated to a particular computer, we recommend contacting Brett-Tek for PC support.
• Is someone else watching Netflix, downloading a game, or transferring a large file? If so, wait until they stop and test again.
• If your computer is slow and you just turned it on, it may be downloading updates. This can cause the Internet to appear slow for all devices at your location.
  • We recommend leaving your computer(s) on overnight at least once a week to download updates overnight while you are not using the Internet.
  • This will prevent any performance impact on your Internet connection when you try using it during the day.
•  There are two different ways the Internet can be “slow”. When you click on a link, please pay attention to how the page loads. Knowing which way the connection is slow can help us determine the root cause. It will either
  • Take a long time before anything happens, then everything finishes all at once.
  • Start loading the page right away, but it takes a long time to finish.
• Did anyone clean under a desk, or move something?
• Did a big storm come through?