Home internet setups are generally very similar. Sometimes there are unusual setups but most follow a simple formula.

We will try to outline it here and hopefully, you will see parallels with yours.

Summary

Your home network is there to support home devices. These are typically a range of home desktop and laptop computers, some smartphones, some tablets and even a few devices such as cameras, smart-speakers or even a few IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

First, the home devices will start by connecting to some form of networking box (often a wireless router, a switch, a hub or some such device).

They will then use an access service to connect to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) network.

The ISP will look at where your device wants to connect (this may be Netflix, google, youtube, facebook or any number of websites and applications). Based on the network location of the application or website, your ISP will send your traffic to another network provider who will, in turn, pass it to another. This continues until the traffic reaches the destination application. All of these networks after your ISP is what we will refer to as ‘The Internet’.

Let’s break down the important bits now:

Wireless vs Wired

The connection from your devices to the home router could be wireless or via a wired (ethernet) connection. Usually, you will have a bit of both but it is quite possible that everything is wireless. Smartphones and tablets don’t offer wired connections (well you can buy special adapters but people tend to stick with wireless).

The Modem/Router

Usually the modem, which turns the signals on the access service into somehting that your home devices can use, is combined with the wireless and wired hub or router in a single box. Sometimes this is split into two boxes – a modem and a seperate hub/router. Often this decision is made by your ISP and you have little choice over it. Sometimes you will augment the ISP box with extra wireless routers to extend coverage.

Access Types

The access types you may have heard of are ADSL, HFC, Fibre or in certain countries this all gets rolled up under a national broadband initiative like the NBN in Australia, the NGNBN in Singapore, the HSBB in Malaysia or any of the plans in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_broadband_plan

Experienced telecoms professionals could look at the back of your model and tell you what your access type is. If this is not you then you will have to ask your ISP. In reality though it makes little difference. It is more important to know what the ISP’s performance commitments are on the access they have sold you and then for you to decide if that is sufficient and if they are delivering against them.

DNS

The DNS (Domain Name System or Server) is a very important component of your home internet service. It does not exist at your home – rather is it a complex multi-layered series of systems that provide a critical service to your computer and devices.

When you tell your device you want to connect to an application or website you do so by providing a name in the form of google.com or youtube.com.

Your computer passes this name to the DNS which quickly translates it into a numerical address of the system you are looking for.

This number is called an IP address (Internet Protocol address). The DNS gives your computer the numerical address which it then uses to connect with the website or application. It cannot start connecting until the DNS answers. The computer can keep using the address for some time – it does not have to ask the DNS for an address every time it connects. The address comes from the DNS with a timer that tells your computer that it must ask the DNS to ‘resolve’ the name again after that timer expires.

If the DNS answers in less than one-tenth of a second you will not know it has been involved but, if it takes ten seconds to answer you will say ‘hey the internet is slow today’. Of course in this case ‘the internet’ isn’t slow at all, rather your DNS is making it look bad!

Home Network, ISP and Internet

There is no formal definition of where the internet starts and finishes. It is useful to break down the three main parts of the service so you know where any issues may lie.

In your home, anything you provide (rather than your ISP) should be considered the home network. In some cases, there will be nothing, but in some cases, the home network may include some cables and extra wireless routers/hubs. When troubleshooting you should try to eliminate as much of this as possible so you can figure out of the issue is down to the ISP or not.

Anything after the first box your ISP provides you (this could be your integrated modem/router/hub or it may be their separate wireless router/hub) is referred to as the ISP network and this includes the access service back to their core network. All of this is their responsibility and importantly, this usually includes their default DNS.

We consider the internet to start at the point the ISP hands your traffic off to one of their partners for delivery to the application or website. This could be a domestic partner or an international partner. This is where things get complicated – we see it as the ISP’s responsibility to make sure they are using good partners but, at some point, you cannot hold them responsible for the downstream partners that your application or website providers have chosen.

Further confusion can caused by using mobile access while at home – particularly on tablets and phones or when thee devices are used as hotspots.

Mobile backup for access failures

Some ISP will provide a ‘free’ cellular connection to which your home broadband service will connect in the event that the ISP access service fails. It should automatically connect when the failure occurs and then automatically return to normal operation when the wired access service is restored.

Usually, this backup service will be slower than your wired connection. Maybe with 5G coming this difference in speeds may change – exciting hey!!

Home Phone

Newer broadband services will include a home phone line that is delivered over the internet connection rather than down a separate wire or channel of the access service. There are lots of pros and cons about this approach which we will not discuss here but it is important to remember that poor quality voice calls can actually be the result of poor performance of your home internet service.

This short animation may help position what we do and how a home network and internet are tested with proxyNM: