Area outages vs. problems at home
Internet providers are different from websites in one important way: their outages are usually local. A cut fibre cable, a failed node or a storm can take down a few streets or a whole town while the rest of the network works normally. That is why some pages here cover a provider in a single city, such as Cox in Las Vegas or Xfinity in Houston: people search for outages where they live.
The live check on each provider page tests the provider’s own website from a server outside your connection. It answers one question: is the company’s online service up? It cannot see the cable to your home. To find out whether your area is affected, combine the check with the provider’s own outage map or app and the tests below.
Tell a local fault from a wider outage
| What you notice | Likely meaning |
|---|---|
| Neighbours on the same provider are offline too | Area outage, wait for the provider |
| Only your home is offline | Modem, router or line to your home |
| Wi-Fi shows connected but nothing loads | Router or provider’s DNS |
| Some sites work, others don’t | DNS or the specific site |
| Mobile data works, home internet doesn’t | Home line or router |
| Modem lights blinking or off | Signal lost on the line |
Steps to test your own connection
- Look at the modem lights
A missing or blinking internet or online light means the modem has lost the provider’s signal.
- Restart the modem and router
Unplug both for thirty seconds, plug in the modem first and wait for it to settle before the router.
- Connect a device by cable
If a wired laptop works while Wi-Fi does not, the router’s wireless side is the problem.
- Check the provider’s outage page from your phone
Switch Wi-Fi off first so the page loads over mobile data.
- Try a different DNS server
When pages fail to resolve but the connection is up, a public DNS server often fixes it at once.
- Report the outage
Providers fix faults faster when they get reports from an area, and they can confirm whether an engineer is already working on it.
Mobile networks
Mobile providers such as Boost Mobile, Tesco Mobile and others can lose data while calls still work, or the other way round, because the two run on different parts of the network. Toggling airplane mode forces the phone to reconnect to the nearest mast, and that often fixes a stuck data session. If the problem continues across several locations, check the provider’s status page and its support account.
Satellite and fixed wireless
Rural connections fail in their own ways. Satellite service such as Starlink depends on a clear view of the sky, so heavy snow on the dish, a growing tree or a dish knocked out of position by wind causes drops that no outage map will show. Starlink’s app reports obstructions and outages for your own dish, which a website check cannot see. Fixed wireless, the antenna-on-the-roof service sold by providers like Xplore, formerly Xplornet, depends on a tower that needs power of its own, so a power cut miles away can take your internet with it while your house still has electricity. In both cases the provider’s support line or app is the place to report it, and an antenna or dish that moved after a storm needs a technician rather than a restart.
Fixed wireless and satellite plans also share capacity among everyone served by the same tower or satellite beam. Evening slowdowns that disappear late at night are typical, and they are a capacity question for the provider, not an outage.
Providers that rent other networks
Some providers do not own the lines they sell over. TekSavvy in Canada and EarthLink in the US both use larger carriers’ networks to reach many homes. When those lines fail, the reseller’s customers lose service along with the owner’s, but the reseller still takes the report, books the technician and posts the outage. A status page from the network owner can mislead a reseller’s customers; TekSavvy, for one, points out that a vendor’s outage does not necessarily affect its own users.
Single streets and single nodes
Cable networks are split into nodes that each serve a limited number of homes, so a fault often hits one part of a town while the next street is fine. Asking a neighbour on the same provider is still the fastest test there is. Ask whether their modem lights match yours, too: the same blinking light on both sides of the street settles the question.
About the result
The provider checks report the HTTP status, the response time, redirects and the certificate of each provider’s main address. A reachable result says the provider’s website and online account systems are up. It cannot confirm service at your address, so always pair it with the provider’s own outage tools.
Questions about internet & mobile outages
How can I check if my internet provider is down if I have no internet?
Use your phone's mobile data with Wi-Fi switched off. That connection does not go through your home line, so you can still open the provider's status page, its outage map and the check on this site.
Does a reachable provider website mean there is no outage?
No. The provider's website runs in a data centre, far away from the cables and masts in your street. A local outage can cut off a single neighbourhood while the website keeps answering normally. Sign in to the provider's app or outage map to see your area.
Why does my internet work but some websites don't load?
That points to DNS, a single blocked service or a problem at the site itself. Run the check for the site that fails. If it is reachable, change your DNS server or flush the DNS cache on your device.
How long do internet outages usually last?
Short drops caused by maintenance often clear within an hour. Damaged cables, storms or power cuts can take much longer. Providers usually post an estimated repair time on their outage page.
Should I restart my modem during an outage?
A single restart is worth it, because it clears local faults. Restarting again and again during a confirmed area outage does not help and can make reconnection slower once service returns.
Why does my mobile phone have signal but no data?
Calls and data use different parts of the network. Toggle airplane mode, check that mobile data is on and that you have not reached a data cap, then restart the phone. If many people nearby have the same problem, the provider's data service is likely down.