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I have a wireless Ubee router for the homestead (given to me by TWC) that - for the last several weeks - has been awful. I have a Mac laptop and abput every 10 - 15 minutes, the network connection just goes dead. The only solution is to Turn Wi-fi Off and then turn it back on again. Every ~12 mins. All day long.

I am trying to determine the source of the problem:

  • Is it a Mac issue (perhaps a recent OS upgrade blew something out of the water)?; or
  • Is it a modem/router issue (perhaps some machinery went bad, or more likely, a firmware upgrade blew things out of the water)?; or
  • Perhaps an issue with the line going into my house (there was construction to a nearby utility pole within the last month and I can neither confirm nor deny that it coincided with when the wifi started acting up; but it is definitely within the same vicinity/timeframe)

How can I rule these out methodically? I went to one of those internet upload/download speed test sites, and got good results when the wi-fi connection was good...but once the network drops out, its of no further utility to me.

Any ideas how I could diagnose? I'm basically trying to avoid a blame game scenario with TWC and would like to present their tech department with irrefutable proof that its a bad router or bad wire before I even go to make the phone call. And of course, if it is an issue with my Mac, I want to know that too. Although I doubt my Mac is to blame, because I can connect to and use service from other wi-fi routers no problem (which I know speaks to this being a TWC issue but I'd like to get some more concrete 'evidence' ahead of time).

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    try another router, if the issue remains it most likely is a service provider issue.
    – Moab
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 20:35
  • try a wired connection to rule out wireless issues.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 21:10

1 Answer 1

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Check Console.app to see if there are any messages that coincide with or immediately precede your connectivity drop. These messages, if any, might provide a clue as to what is happening.

From a Terminal.app window, set up a ping to your default gateway. This is the first network device with which your computer communicates. The default gateway can be found by running the following command:

route -n get 0.0.0.0 | grep gateway

The output of that command will look something like this:

bash-3.2$ route -n get 0.0.0.0 | grep gateway
    gateway: 192.168.2.1
bash-3.2$

This shows that my gateway is 192.168.2.1. Yours may be similar.

Use the ping command in Terminal.app to test connectivity to the gateway. Type

ping <your gateway ip>

in the terminal window, and let it run. Surf the net as usual, and when your connection drops, check your terminal window for dropped packets, or other errors. If none, then the problem might be beyond your local connection.

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