Power Cycle’s Magic

I could still remember those days when I used to work as a technical support representative. There was this guy from the Internet Service Provider who was looking for a case technician to assist him and the furious customer. Normally, we do not talk directly to the customer (especially if they have an ISP or a reseller) but from time to time I go the extra mile and bend the rules. Now this guy conferenced the call and I got the chance to talk to the customer. The customer did not sound too furious when we were talking but I’ll give him (the ISP guy) the benefit of the doubt.

I asked the customer if he tried to powercycle. He then asked, “Can you walk me through that process?” I answered yes of course (otherwise I might as well get fired). At the back of my mind I was thinking, “What the heck is this tech support guy doing? Why did he not powercycle?”

What I asked him to do was to trace the cable from the modem going to the wall jack. I had him unplug it and turn off the modem. After a minute I asked him to re-plug the cable and turn it back on. And it was like magic when the equipment went up – he was able to go online. I can see this because I can send packets to his modem.

So, I would strongly suggest to power cycle everytime you are having Internet connection problems. It saves a lot of time waiting in queue for the support group and sadly, it may take more time if you get someone who doesn’t know how to power cycle.