An internet outage refers to an internet blackout and occurs due to many underlying reasons. Sometimes, the government for security reasons shuts the internet. Other possible causes include cyberattacks, human errors, disruption of submarine cables, and operational failure.
Nevertheless, internet outages can create serious problems for businesses. A company that runs its entire business online can face some serious repercussions. These outages are quite common everywhere. No matter how much you are paying for the internet or how good the service is, outages are bound to happen. This might leave you stranded without web access and facing into an endless void.
All internet providers suffer from outages at some point. However, an ideal internet provider is the one that fixes it real quick. For example, TWC internet has special support for outages. You can check the status of the outage and the issue gets resolved instantly.
What Causes Internet Outages?
There can be multiple reasons behind a network outage. In this article, we will cover the most common ones.
Network Congestion
The internet is like a global village. It is accessible to a vast majority of people in the world. There are limited barriers to outreach. Since more and more consumers are plugging in every hour, internet service providers have to make special arrangements to cope with the excessive load. However, when many people use the same connection at a particular time, it creates network congestion. This congestion can cause internet outage and intermittent connectivity throughout.
Congested networks create a temporary blackout if a vast majority of people try to access the network at the same time. The internet gets slow because of excessive attempts at web access. This problem is quite predictable and happens in public places often.
Power Outages
Sometimes, you do not have to blame your internet service provider for an outage. A power outage is an obvious reason. An unstable power supply or power outages may affect your equipment or cables. This can even cause permanent damage and you might still have issues with the connectivity after the power is back.
Secondly, there might be an instance where your area does not have the power outage. The internet connection usually relies on a repeater. This device is installed on telephone poles miles away. If there is a problem in those areas, you are more than likely to be affected.
Weather Disasters
Poor weather conditions can also affect your internet speed. The network links might fail because of storms, floods, high winds, and hurricanes. These events might cause permanent disruption in your received bandwidth. As a result, you can face slower internet speeds than normal, intermittent service, and lost connection due to equipment damage.
The changing weather conditions also damage the wires. They get broken or frayed due to extreme cold or heat.
Speed Fluctuations
You may get slower internet speeds due to speed fluctuations from your service provider. These fluctuations can cause network interruptions, which occur due to many reasons. For instance, your lines may not be optimized to cater to congestion. Situations like these can get on your nerves and make you eventually start hating your provider.
Congested networks create a big problem for consumers. They result in consecutive disruptions and frequent reconnections. When you sign-up for a particular service, you pay for a certain download or upload speed. Now, the internet service provider has to give you that speed. But, in reality, the download speeds are never constant. For example, if you sign-up for a plan that has a 100 Mbps download, you will not get 100 Mbps as promised, in most cases. It will keep on fluctuating but has to be on a nominal level to ensure smooth streaming.
Nevertheless, these disruptions are quite frequent during peak usage times. If you experience a large outage affecting your whole area, you can reach out to your service provider’s outage team.
Equipment Issues
Your internet service provider is not to be blamed every time there is an outage. A failure in one of your networking devices may create a complete network failure.
How to Handle a Power Outage?
Before calling your internet service provider, ensure that everything is working properly at your end. This will save you some time. Here is how you can handle a power outage:
- Make sure that you have cleared your bill. We all have a busy schedule and it is easy to forget things.
- Restart your modem/router. Turn it off and wait for 30 seconds. Turn it back on again. Check if the internet is working or not.
- You can also use online tools to figure out the problem at your end.
Many websites report outages and downtime for all the major internet service providers. Check those websites for any outage.
Final Verdict!
If nothing works for you, call your internet service provider and get help ASAP.
