The Internet Is Slow

The internet at Ashgrove Housing was slow, according to the ticket. It was raised from the third-floor meeting room at 11:05 on a Tuesday. Someone was trying to show a video to fourteen people who were all also on the Wi-Fi. The internet was fine. The access point serving that corner of the third floor was carrying thirty-one devices and a microwave. The presenter's laptop had attached itself loyally to an access point two floors down. The video was hosted somewhere that was, at that moment, slow for the whole country. The technician who took the ticket could have fixed any of those. The ticket did not say which.

This series is about finding out which. It covers the four-way isolation of a slow complaint: user, device, network or expectation. It covers the three questions that sort most tickets in a minute. It covers Wi-Fi complaints and what they usually are, which is coverage, congestion or the device itself. Then comes whether it is one site, one service or everything, and the honest message when the slow thing is not yours. It covers measuring slow, meaning the numbers to collect before anyone touches anything. It covers the home network variable, where the desk's reach ends and its honesty begins. And it covers reducing slow-internet tickets with a coverage map, a wired option and a self-check anyone can run. Slow is a feeling. The ticket needs a fact.

Articles in This Series

• User, Device, Network or Expectation: Isolating the Slow Complaint
  The four-way isolation frame, and the three questions that sort most tickets in a minute. Covers what slow means to the person, the ticket that is really about one site, and the isolation card.
• Wi-Fi Complaints: Coverage, Congestion and the Device
  The dead corner, the full meeting room, the laptop clinging to the wrong access point, the old driver, the microwave, the walk-test, what to tell whom, and the checklist.
• Is It One Site, One Service or Everything?
  The service that is slow for everyone, status pages in plain words, the provider's problem and the desk's honest message, the site a filter is inspecting, and the one-site reply.
• Measuring Slow: The Numbers to Collect Before Anyone Touches Anything
  A speed check from the device and a known-good device, wired and wireless, the time of day, the repeatable test, evidence the network owner will accept, and the evidence sheet.
• The Home Network Variable: Slow-Internet Tickets From Home
  What the desk can diagnose at home, the household bandwidth, the distance from the router, the VPN factor, the honest boundary, and the home-network self-check.
• Reducing 'The Internet Is Slow' Tickets Before They Arrive
  The coverage map, the meeting-room capacity question, the wired option, the self-check article everyone can see, expectation setting for big-file people, and the article outline.

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This series is part of the QuerySolv helpdesk topic library. It covers the foundations, processes, communication, knowledge, tooling, metrics, classic ticket domains, people and strategy behind a support desk that works. The library pairs well with the software we build: QuerySolv. It is a self-hosted help desk that runs as one Windows service on your own network. It is licensed once per installation, not per agent per month.