A Post-Storm Network Failure and the Solution

Coming home after a weekend away should be a relaxing experience. You put your bags down, settle in, and get ready to catch up on all the streaming content you missed. But what happens when you find yourself in the dark? Not from a power outage, but from a complete loss of your home wireless network. That's exactly what happened when I got home from a family event, and it led to an unexpected late-night project at my mother’s house.

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A Quiet Evening Turned Tech Emergency

When I got home from a family event, I realized none of the wireless devices at my mother’s house could connect to the Internet. My first thought was that the internet service provider, NOW by Xfinity Internet, had an outage, or that their equipment had failed. I was immediately concerned, as a cord-cutter's primary connection to entertainment is through their network. But then I remembered the heavy storm from earlier that day and began to suspect a different culprit.

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The Troubleshooting Process

To figure out what was really going on, I decided to use the Xfinity gateway’s built-in wireless network. While I prefer to use my own equipment, the gateway's Wi-Fi was an excellent tool for troubleshooting. I simply connected a device to the Xfinity network, and just like that, I had internet access. This simple step-by-step process confirmed that the internet connection itself was working perfectly. The problem wasn't with the provider; it was the wireless network at the house that had failed.

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The End of an Era: The Old Network's Long Run

The network that went out was a trusty Google Wifi mesh system. My mother had it installed in her house back in 2018, so it had a very long and impressive run. The typical lifespan for most routers is three to five years, so to get more than seven years of consistent, reliable service from this system was remarkable. But all good things must come to an end, and it's highly likely that a power surge from the recent storm was the final nail in the coffin for the aging hardware. I've been through a similar network failure with my own system a couple of years ago, so these things do happen. It was a good reminder that even the most dependable technology has a finite life.

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The Unexpected Upgrade

With the old network officially gone, I knew I needed to act fast to get the streaming life back to normal. The solution was a new Google Nest system. Though it was a late night of setting up the new mesh network, the process was straightforward. I was able to get all the devices connected and had a strong, stable signal across the house once again. It was a chore, but it was a relief to have the problem solved.

My Streaming Life has relied on a good home network, and so should yours.