I sometimes wonder how the average consumer avoids going crazy when confronted with modern home networks.
If you’re lucky and your network is simple—a wireless router and a couple PCs—everything might just work. But if you’re not lucky, or if your network is more complicated, then good luck. Weird, unpredictable problems arise when networks are involved, and things can get especially ugly when you add consumer-grade networking hardware and buggy firmware into the mix.
My home/office network is not average. Right now it comprises at least four desktop PCs, a couple of laptops, one Mac, two servers, two smartphones, an Xbox 360, a Drobo FS, a VOIP adapter, and two orphaned but still functional Media Center extenders. I have wired Gigabit Ethernet adapters wherever I can, with one wireless access point handling devices that can’t conveniently connect to an Ethernet port.
That might seem a little extreme, but I’ll bet a lot of my readers can describe home networks that are almost as complex. And in an age of proliferating mobile devices, digital living rooms, and connected appliances, the challenges are only going to get worse.
Earlier this month, I had a chance to experience some of those inscrutable network problems firsthand. I switched our slow but reliable Qwest DSL service for a much faster Comcast cable connection. I bought a Motorola Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem, got the self-install kit from Comcast, and set aside a weekend for the transition.
Roughly three weeks later, everything seems to be running right, finally. It all took longer than expected and hasn’t been without incident. Some of the bumps were a bit smoother than they might have been otherwise, thanks to lessons I learned during previous network wrestling matches.
Here’s how my experience went, along with five self-defense tips that every home network administrator needs to learn before the wrestling match begins.
1. Stuff happens. And it isn’t necessarily your fault.
I don’t believe I’ve ever done anything network-related that worked properly on the first try. There’s always something that goes wrong, with equipment or configuration or on the network itself.
That attitude saved me a little time two weeks ago, when the new cable modem stopped working right after lunch. I checked the network thoroughly to ensure that the problem wasn’t local. Eventually, I figured out that Comcast was giving the cable modem an IP address, immediately revoking it, and repeating the cycle a few minutes later.
So I called Comcast support, which wasn’t as easy as it sounds. I have VOIP service. When there’s no Internet access, the landlines don’t work and I have to use a mobile phone to reach a support tech. AT&T service is terrible in my office, so I got disconnected five times during the course of the first hour.
I finally grabbed a flashlight, a magnifying glass, a Sharpie, and a clean sheet of paper and wrote down all the pertinent details from the hardware. Then I relocated to another room where the GSM signal is stronger. By staying in that sweet spot I was able to stay connected for an entire call, during which a support rep determined that someone at the local Comcast office had simply canceled the work order and removed all traces of the cable modem’s configuration from their database. Once the information was re-entered, everything started working again.
I wasn’t exactly impressed when Comcast did exactly the same thing again earlier this week. This time I was able to get things resolved in about a half-hour. My account has been escalated up the Comcast customer service ladder, and I’ve been assured that it won’t happen again. We’ll see.
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