Internet connection dropping randomly late night

[Nevander]

Over the past year, I've had my internet connection randomly drop anywhere from 1 AM to 4 AM. Usually it will stay out for hours, there's no telling when it might come back online. I've tried resetting my modem and router to factory defaults multiple times, and set everything back up but the issue persists. Just now it dropped but I was able to bring it back (for now) by power cycling both of them. I have no way of knowing if this problem is on my end, or if my shitty ISP is up to some fuckery and can't be bothered to send out notifications of some kind.

Got any advice on how to troubleshoot something like this? When my internet is working, it works just fine. Normal pings, normal everything. When it goes down, it picks the worst times all the time. It's really starting to aggravate me since I'm a night owl most of the time. I get all my work done and gaming during the night when there's peace and quiet. Can't do that very well if the damn connection keeps dropping.

I am the only one using the connection right now. WiFi is on, the usual. Speedtests and pings are fine.

[Rachael]

I get that a lot, too.

Truth be told, you marked your location as "United States." I hate to tell you this, but don't expect reliable internet anywhere in that country, at all. Not until some successful anti-trust litigation comes through against Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

There are some things you can do that may help, though. Since you said you are on WiFi, you should try downloading a program called "InSSIDer Home". This is an old version but it is also the last version offered as freeware. What's useful about this is it tells you what's on your current WiFi channel and if any other networks are on it or nearby it. Anything within 3 channels of yours - *especially* directly on your channel, will interfere with your connection. Try and get your WiFi access point to use a clear channel, if you can.

That being said, American ISP's like to do random shit late at night that drops your connection. As I said there's really not much you can do about it, other than switch to one of the other 1 (2? if you're lucky?) ISP's in your area.

[Nevander]

Thanks for the reply, that makes me feel better knowing it's not just my connection being problematic. I wish I could get better service where I live, I'd switch ISPs if I could but there aren't any others in my area that offer the same service (unless I want to do satellite internet).

The one I'm on now has somewhat of a history of being unreliable. About 8 or so years ago, the service was so bad we had to get the attention of the attorney general of my state and file a complaint. They stepped up a bit after, and the service improved (mainly the speed and ping). Then we got new hardware and since then no major issues. It's definitely better than it was back then.

And you're probably right, that's what my dad tells me too. It's probably just my ISP that likes to do things randomly or do maintenance. The way I figure it is if it goes down and stays down for hours, it's them up to something or a problem somewhere (not me). If it goes down but comes back by power cycling, it was a problem somewhere in my network that was resolved by resetting.

I hope that's the case.

[Rachael]

If you have a cell phone, some phone carriers allow you to tether your internet connection to their service using your phone. This can be done either by the phone's internal WiFi or by USB cable. This often works pretty well, however data plans are often extremely limited so this should only be used in periods of outages and only when you really need it.

If you are on your parents' cell phone plan, ask permission before you do this. Nothing gets parents angry more than a cell phone bill with sudden usage overages.

[Remmirath]

All of a sudden, I think that italian ISPs are not so bad, after all. I haven't had a connection drop in weeks.

[Project Shadowcat]

Also in the US, and I only have one ISP option at all where I live. It drops daily sometime during prime time. Actually had a disconnection last a couple minutes right in the middle of our weekly BattleTech game. I was so, so mad at my ISP.
And my ISP just rebranded themselves to Charter Spectrum internet. I hate them so much. Their service sucks, too.