Frequent internet dropouts kill productivity. We explore the most common causes of unstable connections in Melbourne offices and practical steps to resolve them.
Intermittent internet dropouts are one of the most frustrating IT problems in a business environment — and one of the hardest to diagnose, because the fault is often gone by the time anyone investigates. Melbourne businesses on NBN connections experience this more than they should.
This guide covers the most common causes and, more importantly, how to fix them.
Start With a Clear Description of the Problem
“The internet keeps dropping” covers a wide range of distinct problems with different causes. Before troubleshooting, get a precise description:
- Does the entire office lose connectivity, or just some users?
- Do wired connections drop, wireless connections, or both?
- Does connectivity drop completely or just become slow?
- How long do outages last — seconds, minutes, or longer?
- What time of day do they typically occur?
- Has anything changed recently — new equipment, new staff, changed NBN plan?
The answers to these questions narrow the diagnosis from hundreds of possibilities to a handful.
Cause 1: NBN Line or Node Issues
The NBN connection itself — particularly on FTTN (Fibre to the Node) and HFC (Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial) connections — can be the source of instability. These connection types use legacy copper and coaxial infrastructure for the final leg, which is subject to:
- Sync drops: The modem/router loses its connection to the NBN node and has to re-establish it, causing an outage of 30 seconds to several minutes
- Line attenuation: On long copper runs (FTTN), signal degrades and causes instability — particularly in wet weather when moisture affects the copper cabling
- RSP congestion: Some residential and lower-tier business NBN plans experience congestion during peak periods (5pm-9pm), which manifests as slowing rather than complete drops
How to identify: Check your modem/router’s logs and statistics (access via the router’s IP address in a browser). Look for sync events (line dropouts), error counts, and signal metrics. An NBN line with frequent resyncs or high error rates needs investigation by your RSP (internet service provider).
What to do: Report the line fault to your RSP with evidence from your router logs. Request a line test. For persistent FTTN issues, request an nbn co field technician inspection of the copper run from your premises to the node.
Cause 2: Router or Firewall Hardware Issues
Consumer-grade routers — and even some business routers approaching end-of-life — develop hardware faults that manifest as intermittent dropouts. Symptoms include:
- Dropouts that do not correspond to NBN events (no sync loss)
- Router needing regular reboots to restore connectivity
- Performance degrading over time
How to identify: If rebooting the router temporarily restores connectivity but the issue recurs, the router is the likely cause. Check the router’s age — consumer routers have a practical lifespan of 3-5 years; business-grade firewalls, 5-7 years.
What to do: Replace aging consumer-grade equipment with business-grade alternatives (Fortinet, Cisco Meraki, Ubiquiti UniFi). Business-grade equipment is more reliable, provides proper management and monitoring, and supports features (VPN, content filtering, QoS) that consumer routers do not.
Cause 3: Network Congestion and Bandwidth Saturation
If connectivity degrades rather than drops completely, the cause is often bandwidth saturation — more traffic than the connection can handle simultaneously.
Common culprits in Melbourne offices:
- Backup jobs running during business hours: Cloud backup uploading gigabytes of data consumes upstream bandwidth and degrades Microsoft Teams call quality
- Windows Update: Large Windows updates downloading simultaneously across all PCs
- Video streaming: Staff streaming video during the day
- Insufficient plan speed: A 50/20 Mbps plan shared by 20+ staff heavily using Teams is undersized
How to identify: Run a speed test during a degradation period. If download and upload speeds are significantly below your plan’s rated speed, bandwidth saturation is likely. Check your router’s traffic graphs if available.
What to do: Schedule bandwidth-intensive tasks (backups, Windows Update) outside business hours. Implement QoS (Quality of Service) on your router to prioritise business-critical traffic (Teams, VoIP) over bulk traffic. Upgrade your plan if baseline usage exceeds available bandwidth.
Cause 4: Wi-Fi Issues Misidentified as Internet Issues
Staff reporting “the internet is dropping” often have a Wi-Fi connectivity issue, not an internet connectivity issue. The distinction matters — a Wi-Fi problem is solved differently than an NBN problem.
How to identify: Plug a laptop directly into the router via ethernet and test whether the same drops occur. If wired connection is stable but wireless drops, the problem is in the wireless infrastructure.
Common Wi-Fi causes:
- Interference from neighbouring networks: In dense office environments, competing Wi-Fi networks on the same channel cause interference
- Coverage gaps: Areas of the office with poor signal that devices connect to intermittently
- Access point overload: Consumer access points cannot handle 20+ concurrent devices reliably
- Outdated access point firmware: Security updates and performance improvements require firmware updates
What to do: Replace consumer Wi-Fi with business-grade access points (Cisco Meraki, Ubiquiti UniFi, Aruba Instant On), configure automatic channel selection to avoid interference, and ensure coverage with appropriate access point density. Business access points are designed for multi-device, high-density environments.
Cause 5: DNS Resolution Issues
DNS (Domain Name System) converts domain names into IP addresses. If your DNS servers are slow or intermittently unavailable, connections to websites and cloud services appear to drop or be slow, even though your internet connection is stable.
How to identify:
Open Command Prompt and run nslookup google.com. If the lookup times out or takes more than a few hundred milliseconds, DNS is a likely culprit.
What to do: Configure your router to use reliable, fast DNS servers. Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1, or Google’s 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, are reliable alternatives to default ISP DNS servers.
Proactive Monitoring
Reactive troubleshooting is always slower and more disruptive than proactive detection. A quality managed IT provider monitors your internet connection continuously — tracking uptime, latency, and speed — and is alerted to issues before staff report them.
CX IT Services monitors internet and network infrastructure for Melbourne businesses and can diagnose and resolve connectivity issues faster than starting from scratch every time a dropout is reported. Contact us to discuss your connectivity situation.
