Internet dropouts ยท symptom
The internet drops out every few minutes
Frequent short dropouts almost always mean the connection is being re-established over and over because something is marginal, rather than broken. Marginal faults are the ones providers close without fixing, so this is the symptom where evidence matters most.
Last reviewed: 15 August 2026 · by Alien IT Solutions
Which connection type are you on?
Frequent short dropouts almost always mean the connection is being re-established over and over because something is marginal, rather than broken. Marginal faults are the ones providers close without fixing, so this is the symptom where evidence matters most.
The answer to this symptom is genuinely different on each of the five nbn technologies, because the physical thing that fails is different. All five are written out below. Jump to yours, or read the lot.
Jump to your connection type
Not sure which one you have?
Look at the box your router plugs into. A separate nbn box with Power, Optical and Alarm lights means fibre to the premises. Four lights reading Power, Downstream, Upstream and Online means HFC. Blue lights on a small unit means fibre to the curb. An antenna on the roof means fixed wireless. And if there is no nbn box at all, only a modem from your provider plugged into a phone socket, you are on fibre to the node.
The light decoder walks you through it, or read the longer explanation of the connection types.
FTTP: Fibre to the Premises
Unusual on fibre. Suspect power or hardware first.
Fibre links do not normally fail every few minutes. When an FTTP service does, the cause is usually not the fibre at all but the equipment attached to it: a failing power supply on the connection box or the router, a router overheating, or a genuine hardware fault in the box, which is what the red Alarm light is for.
What to try yourself
- Check the Alarm light. Red means the connection box has a fault and nbn's documented answer is to contact your provider.
- Feel whether the router or its power adapter is unusually hot, and give it room to breathe. If anything smells hot, stop and unplug it at the wall.
- Try a different power outlet, and if you have a spare compatible power adapter, try that.
- Plug a computer straight into the router with an Ethernet cable and turn that computer's Wi-Fi off. Leave it that way through the next few dropouts. If the wired machine keeps working while the wireless ones drop, the problem is your Wi-Fi and no amount of arguing with your provider will fix it. If the wired machine drops too, it is the connection, and you now have proof.
What to say to your provider
Say: I am on FTTP and I am dropping out every few minutes. The Alarm light is red, or the Optical light keeps changing.
On FTTP this combination usually results in nbn replacing the connection box. Ask your provider directly whether an NTD replacement is warranted.
FTTN: Fibre to the Node, and Fibre to the Building
Your line has too little margin. This is a fixable, well known fault.
Repeated short dropouts on FTTN mean the modem cannot hold synchronisation. The line has enough noise, or too little margin, that the link keeps collapsing and rebuilding.
The causes worth chasing are noise sources in your own house and faults in the copper. Electrical noise from a failing power supply, a cheap phone charger, a halogen dimmer or a fluorescent fitting can raise the noise floor enough to break a marginal line. So can a faulty device on an extension socket.
What to try yourself
- Plug the modem into the first phone socket in the house, the one closest to where the line enters, and remove any extension leads, splitters and line filters you can.
- Unplug everything else from every phone socket. Old handsets, fax machines and alarm diallers all load the line.
- Switch off suspect electrical items one at a time for a few hours each. Dimmers, cheap chargers and old fluorescent fittings are the usual offenders.
- Record the disconnection count from your modem's status page before and after each change, so you are measuring rather than guessing.
What to say to your provider
Say: I am on FTTN. My modem has logged X disconnections in Y days. I have already tested at the first socket with all other equipment removed and the fault continues. Please raise a fault with nbn.
Saying you have already tested at the first socket with everything else unplugged removes the entire first page of their script and is the fastest route to a real fault being raised.
FTTC: Fibre to the Curb
Check for an off hook phone first. It is a real cause with a distinctive light.
Frequent dropouts on FTTC come from the same family as FTTN, a line that cannot hold synchronisation, but there is one cause here with its own indicator. nbn documents that the Connection light alternating red and blue means there may be a line fault such as a telephone off the hook.
A handset sitting crooked on its base, or an old phone plugged into a back bedroom socket, will do this. It is one of the few genuinely common faults you can find and fix yourself in ten minutes.
What to try yourself
- Look at the Connection light. Alternating red and blue points at something plugged into a phone socket.
- Unplug everything from every telephone wall socket in the house, including cordless phone bases, fax machines and alarm diallers, and check the light again.
- Plug them back one at a time, leaving a few minutes between each, until the fault returns and names the culprit.
- If the light is solid red instead, nbn's instruction is to switch off the power to the connection device and contact your provider.
What to say to your provider
Say: I am on FTTC. The Connection light alternates red and blue. I have already unplugged every device from every phone socket and it continues. Please raise a line fault with nbn.
HFC: Hybrid Fibre Coaxial
Usually signal levels or noise on the cable.
An HFC box that drops repeatedly is normally struggling with signal levels that are too high, too low, or too noisy. Common physical causes are a poor or corroded connector, a splitter that was added for a TV outlet, a damaged cable, or a fault in the shared street equipment.
This is one where your provider can see the answer without sending anyone, because the box reports its levels back to them.
What to try yourself
- Remove any splitters between the wall outlet and the nbn connection box, so the box has the cleanest possible path.
- Check the coax connectors you can reach indoors are finger tight and not corroded. Do not start on outdoor connectors.
- Note which of the four lights fails and whether the box reboots.
- Write down the date and time of every dropout and how long it lasted, for at least three days. A list of timestamps is the difference between a fault your provider can escalate to nbn and a phone call that ends in try restarting your router.
What to say to your provider
Say: I am on HFC and dropping out repeatedly. Please read me my upstream and downstream power levels and my signal to noise ratio, and tell me whether they are inside nbn's acceptable range.
If the levels are out of range, that is a physical fault at nbn's end and a technician visit is the correct outcome, not a modem swap.
Fixed Wireless: nbn Fixed Wireless
Marginal signal, interference, or something in the path.
A fixed wireless link that drops every few minutes has too little margin to stay associated with the tower. Causes are a weakened or misaligned antenna, something new in the signal path, interference, or a damaged cable between the antenna and the indoor box.
What to try yourself
- Watch the lights for a full 60 seconds and confirm whether they are cycling, per nbn's guide.
- Check the cable where it enters the wall, and the plug at the connection box, for damage, kinks or corrosion. Check indoors only.
- Confirm your router is in UNI-D 1 unless your provider told you otherwise, which is nbn's documented default for fixed wireless.
- Write down the date and time of every dropout and how long it lasted, for at least three days. A list of timestamps is the difference between a fault your provider can escalate to nbn and a phone call that ends in try restarting your router.
What to say to your provider
Say: I am on fixed wireless and losing the link repeatedly. The lights cycle when it happens. Please check my signal level against what it was at installation, and arrange for the antenna and cabling to be inspected.
On this connection type
- Inspect indoors only. The antenna and anything above head height is not your job, and nbn's own guide tells you to call your provider rather than approach an outdoor unit more than 2 metres up.
Then, whatever they tell you
Providers work from a script, and the script assumes you have not checked anything. Say this early and you skip most of it.
- Ask them to raise a fault with nbn, and ask for the fault reference number. A fault that was never raised cannot be tracked, and this is where most calls quietly end.
- Ask what the line is actually doing at their end right now, and whether they can see dropouts in their own logs. They usually can.
- If they close it without fixing it, ask for the complaint to be escalated internally, and get the complaint reference in writing.
If it stays broken and they stop being useful, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman is free for you to use, and providers do respond to it. Here is how that works.
Before you touch anything
- Do not go up a ladder or onto a roof. That includes fixed wireless antennas and dishes. nbn's own fixed wireless guide tells you to contact your provider rather than touch an outdoor unit mounted more than 2 metres off the ground. There is nothing you can fix up there that is worth a fall.
- Do not open the nbn connection box, and do not touch the pit or the lead-in cable. That equipment belongs to nbn, not to you or your provider. Fibre terminations carry laser light that you cannot see and should not look into. Opening it can also end your service and leave you liable for the repair.
- Leave the backup battery alone beyond what your provider's own script tells you. If you have the optional Power Supply with Battery Backup, follow your provider's instructions for it and nothing more.
- Burning smell, scorch marks, or a modem too hot to touch: stop. Switch it off at the wall, unplug it, and do not plug it back in. Tell your provider it needs replacing. There is no troubleshooting step that comes before this.
Where this comes from
Every light state and every figure on this page comes from the sources below, each checked on 15 August 2026. Where a provider's guide disagrees with nbn's, the provider is describing their own hardware and you should follow theirs.
While you are on the phone to them anyway
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