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Discover why businesses face connection issues & poor service despite paying premium prices, & how ISPs' support processes often fall short
Driving SD-WAN Adoption in South Africa
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Itâs a frustrating reality for many businesses: persistent connectivity issues and poor user experience despite paying for premium internet services. The root cause of these frustrations often lies not in the technology itself, but in how Internet Service Providers (ISPs) handle support and troubleshooting. Far too often, the ISP's support process is insufficient, resulting in unresolved issues, wasted time, and missed opportunities for businesses that rely on consistent connectivity.
One of the most common flaws in ISP troubleshooting is that their tests are often limited to their own network, primarily focusing on the last mile connection. While it's important to ensure the last mile (the final segment of the connection between the ISP and the customer) is functioning, this is just one part of the overall internet experience. Connectivity issues can occur anywhere along the full path from the user to the cloud and beyond.
Unfortunately, many ISPs test the connection within their network only, and once that segment is verified, they consider the problem resolved. This approach fails to address the real-world needs of the user, who is often trying to reach services and applications outside of the ISPâs network, in the cloud or across the broader internet.
A key misconception among many ISPs is that providing a working connection to their own network is enough. However, businesses expect full connectivity to the services they useâwhether itâs accessing cloud applications, conducting video calls, or performing e-commerce operations.
When thereâs packet loss, high latency, or a partial outage outside the ISPâs network, the user experience suffers, yet the ISPâs support team often claims thereâs no problem because their internal tests show the last mile is functioning. This failure to test the entire end-to-end path leaves users stranded, even though they technically have a connection.
Packet loss, latency, and other network issues can happen anywhere along the path between a business and its cloud-based services. A typical userâs experience doesnât just depend on the last mile but on the entire route data takes to reach the destination. This means ISPs need to test the connection from the outside in, rather than just from their network outward.
For example, testing between two points within the ISP's network doesn't tell you if thereâs a problem occurring beyond their border, such as at a peering point or in the public internet. Without end-to-end testing, problems outside their infrastructure remain undiagnosed and unresolved, leading to performance degradation and frequent downtime.
Another shortcoming in many ISP troubleshooting processes is that their tests often provide only real-time snapshots. If they aren't conducting extended testing or analyzing trends over time, intermittent problemsâlike brownouts or partial outagesâcan go unnoticed. These issues often appear less severe in real-time testing because theyâre averaged out, but the user experience reflects frequent and ongoing disruptions.
Even when ISPs run extended tests, they often focus on real-time data aggregation that masks smaller issues, allowing major problems to go undetected. For example, they might run a ping test for a short period of time, which can result in no visible packet loss in that specific window, but users might be experiencing frequent outages that arenât captured in these quick snapshots.
To compound the issue, many ISP support staff rely on basic desktop troubleshooting tools, which are inadequate for diagnosing complex network issues, particularly brownouts or sporadic performance drops. These tools might be good enough to confirm a complete blackout, but they arenât built to uncover more subtle problems like inconsistent packet loss or fluctuating latency.
In these cases, resolving the issue becomes like searching for a needle in a haystack. The limited capabilities of frontline support teams leave businesses waiting for answers while productivity suffers.
The situation becomes even worse for businesses using a single internet connection or those with a secondary link that doesnât have enough capacity to serve as a true backup. When a company relies on just one link, it leaves them vulnerable to any last-mile issues. Even if they have a secondary link, if that link lacks adequate capacity, switching over during a failure doesnât provide true redundancy. Instead, it results in bottlenecks and degraded performance, defeating the purpose of a backup connection.
This reality highlights the need for more advanced monitoring and robust tools to detect, mitigate, and resolve these issues more proactively.
ISPs must implement better Network Management Systems (NMS) and more advanced traffic analytics tools to truly understand and resolve these network issues. A well-designed NMS would include:
Historical data analysis to identify trends and issues that arenât immediately apparent in real-time testing.
End-to-end path testing that checks not just the last mile but the entire route, ensuring a reliable user experience beyond the ISPâs own network.
Advanced packet loss and latency monitoring, providing businesses with real-time insights and the ability to correlate network performance with business impact.
Without these tools, ISPs will continue to misdiagnose problems, leaving businesses frustrated by poor connectivity and unreliable internet experiences.
For businesses tired of dealing with these ISP-induced issues, the solution is to implement Nepean Networkâs SD-WAN. With Nepean Networkâs next-generation SD-WAN, businesses can mitigate the risks of last-mile problems and take control of their internet experience.
Hereâs how Nepean Networkâs SD-WAN helps:
Path Monitoring: Nepean Networkâs SD-WAN constantly monitors the entire path, not just the last mile, to detect and reroute traffic around problem areas.
WAN Aggregation: It combines multiple internet connections, ensuring that even if one link experiences issues, another can take over without loss of performance. This ensures that a business doesnât rely on a single, underpowered backup link.
Real-Time Analytics: Nepean Networkâs SD-WAN offers advanced real-time traffic analytics and historical trending, allowing businesses to understand their connectivity over time, and catch performance issues early.
Automated Failover: In the event of an issue on one path, the system automatically fails over to the most reliable link, ensuring business continuity without manual intervention.
With these capabilities, Nepean Networkâs SD-WAN provides a robust solution that prevents businesses from being at the mercy of an ISPâs limited troubleshooting methods.
The problems plaguing many ISPsâlimited testing, insufficient tools, and lack of historical analysisâare a major cause of poor user experience and unresolved issues. Businesses are often left in the lurch, dealing with the fallout of inadequate support systems.
The way forward is clear: ISPs must invest in better NMS systems and tools for end-to-end testing. However, for businesses that need reliability today, the answer is Nepean Networkâs SD-WAN, a solution that not only monitors the entire path but provides robust, automated failover and traffic optimization.
By using Nepean Networkâs SD-WAN, businesses can overcome the limitations of their ISPs and ensure a smooth, consistent, and reliable internet experienceâno matter what the provider fails to detect.
Ronald Bartels ensures that Internet inhabiting things are connected reliably online at Nepean Networks - the leading specialized SD-WAN Last Mile provider in South Africa. Learn more about the best SD-WAN in the world: đContact Nepeanâď¸