Fix Constantly Changing MAC Addresses Using  eMMC

Fix Constantly Changing MAC Addresses Using eMMC

Constantly changing MAC addresses can be quite frustrating. This is a solution that we use when working with eMMC based devices such as the NanoPi R5C that we modify for OutagesIO. The code will try to discover the path and name of the eMMC device and if it cannot auto discover it, it will prompt you for the device name. In the case of the R5C NanoPi, the path is...

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ISP Competitor Analysis: Gain a Marketing Edge

ISP Competitor Analysis: Gain a Marketing Edge

Revolutionize your ISP strategy with OutagesIO Imagine having the ability to gain insights into your competitors' performance across various regions, cities, states, and even the entire country. OutagesIO helps ISPs to do just that. See how your competitors are doing in terms of network reliability, disconnections, and speed issues.  With this real-time data, you can pinpoint weaknesses in their...

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An Alternative To Monitor.io, Monitor-io.com

An Alternative To Monitor.io, Monitor-io.com

For the previous monitor.io, aka monitor-io.com, customers At OutagesIO.com, we understand that change can be both intriguing and daunting, and that's why we created this short article to address questions that come in from previous monitor-io customers now and then. The two main questions are Is the service identical: No, but you'll find OutagesIO just as useful for monitoring your Internet...

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AI Referrals vs Traditional Search Engines

AI Referrals vs Traditional Search Engines

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to advance, it has the potential to significantly impact the visibility and ranking of websites in search results. With the ability to provide highly personalized and relevant results based on user data, AI is changing the game of online search. But what does this mean for new online services and websites that are not well known or able to invest in...

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SCI Engineering Inc, costly damages avoided

SCI Engineering Inc, costly damages avoided

SCI Engineering Inc., a premier provider of consulting engineering services recently sent us a testimonial. They are using our OutagesIO hardware agent with environment-sensing capabilities. According to their testimonial, the OutagesIO agent alerted them of a temperature issue in the server room that could have caused significant damage to their equipment. Here's an excerpt from their email: "I...

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Internet outages independently observed

Internet outages independently observed

Adding independently observed Internet outage monitoring could greatly improve a company's ability to not only prevent extended downtime but even pre-empt potential problems. Monitoring Internet problems from each location can provide a number of benefits over centralized monitoring. One key advantage is that it can allow for a more granular and localized view of Internet outages and problems....

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Internet delivery accountability, how to obtain it

Internet delivery accountability, how to obtain it

Internet delivery accountability becomes critical as more traditional infrastructure gets moved to the Internet. Consumers and businesses find themselves not only dependent on their ISP but even at risk if the provider is not highly reliable. Remote employees can get into trouble if they miss critical deadlines or suffer too much Internet downtime. VoIP phones, media devices, and other...

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Smart outlets for data center and server room

Smart outlets for data center and server room

Smart outlets and relay remote controls to power cycle devices in a small data center or server room typically cost between hundreds and thousands of dollars. There are often situations that require remotely controlling devices but it's hard to justify spending that kind of money. With this in mind, OutagesIO recently added smart outlets and relays with the ability to control each from the same...

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Why Internet fails to reach advertised “up to” speeds

Why Internet fails to reach advertised “up to” speeds

Why does our Internet fail to reach advertised “up to” speeds? Actual Internet speed vs advertised can definitely vary prompting the question 'Why is my Internet so slow".  This is a common question we will demystify. We pick our Internet speed plans based on what we think our usage might be. There are few things that can help us to decide on the plan.One might be your work.  You might move huge...

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Smart Home Automation Without Invasive Apps

Smart Home Automation Without Invasive Apps

Smart home automation is a hot trend that includes home security systems, remote cameras and automatic control of IoT devices like plugs, lights, relays and other hardware. The conveniences can come at a cost as nearly every brand requires the installation of one or more apps on your phone or tablet. Some of those could have hidden vulnerabilities, invasive functions or are highly insecure....

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Trust Issues: Third Party Companies Damaging Your SaaS

Trust Issues: Third Party Companies Damaging Your SaaS

The Impact of Third-Party Services on Your Online Business How to Protect Your Reputation and Revenue IntroductionAs an online business owner, you may have experienced the negative effects of third-party services flagging your software or email servers. In this article, we'll examine the impact of third-party services on your online business and provide actionable tips to address the problem....

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Sometimes, Database Virtualization Is A Bad Idea

Sometimes, Database Virtualization Is A Bad Idea

A database virtualization server lesson. We recently suffered a serious problem where a large portion of the infrastructure serving OutagesIO members would come to a crawl. At first, it seemed that the main database (MariaDB) was locking up but we soon noticed the Linux servers connecting to that database were also locking up, many hitting 100 load. High loads with no unusual memory/CPU loads...

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Learn how to monitor your Internet and provider live

Learn how to monitor your Internet and provider live

Take advantage of a one hour online meeting with an OutagesIO developer and quickly learn how you can use the service to monitor your Internet and provider. The meeting will be a hands on demonstration and explanation on how the service and related tools work. Sometimes, being able to speak with someone rather than reading a lot of text goes a long way. If you have an agent installed using our...

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OutagesIO Managed Internet Outage Monitor

OutagesIO Managed Internet Outage Monitor

Our managed Internet outage monitor service can alert the right IT people in your company when specific locations are no longer communicating. Who better to dig through connectivity data then report problems than the ones actively developing it. No learning curve, no training needed, we'll handle all of the monitoring for you. Set each location as needed As your IT people install agents, they...

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Community Internet monitoring and consulting for free

Community Internet monitoring and consulting for free

Is your area suffering unreliable Internet services? As a community service and at no cost, OutagesIO.com can help your community get more reliable Internet services. The most challenging aspect of ongoing Internet problems is trying to gather enough facts, proof, and collaborative data when the provider won't fix or doesn't see the problems.  Individual complaints can be dismissed but a...

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Network Monitoring Tools – Overview Map

Network Monitoring Tools – Overview Map

The OutagesIO Internet / network monitoring tools include an overview map for enterprise users. It shows all locations being monitored with the choice of what to be alerted for. Chose to view all locations or only show those which have not communicated for at least around 30 seconds or those which have been offline for at least 30 minutes. Any of the combinations of the above can be selected and...

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Internet of things data in your OutagesIO dashboard

Internet of things data in your OutagesIO dashboard

Add your own data in your OutagesIO dashboard When developing software applications using Internet of things (IoT) devices like mini routers, raspberry pi and other development boards, having the ability to view outputs or send control commands and signals back to remote devices are critical aspects of overall functionality. Sure, using the term Internet of things might sound dated to some but...

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Monitor Your Internet With Raspberry Pi 3A, 3B+, 4, NanoPi, And Other ARM Devices

Monitor Your Internet With Raspberry Pi 3A, 3B+, 4, NanoPi, And Other ARM Devices

Installing OutagesIO on Raspberry Pi or ARM device In this article, we'll explain you how you can automate the startup of your OutagesIO Internet monitoring agent on your device using systemd. Here we assume you already have an account and have created your free software agent. Some might start and stop the agent manually while others might use something like rc.local to automatically start the...

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Monitor Your Internet With Linux Desktop Or Server

Monitor Your Internet With Linux Desktop Or Server

Automate your OutagesIO Internet monitor on Linux In this article, we'll explain you how you can automate the startup of your OutagesIO Internet monitoring agent on your device using systemd. Here we assume you already have an account and have created your free software agent. Some might start and stop the agent manually while others might use something like rc.local to automatically start the...

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Monitor Your Internet With Ubuntu Desktop Or Server

Monitor Your Internet With Ubuntu Desktop Or Server

Installing your OutagesIO Internet monitor on Ubuntu In this article, we'll explain you how you can automate the startup of your OutagesIO Internet monitoring agent on your device using systemd. Here we assume you already have an account and have created your free software agent. Some might start and stop the agent manually while others might use something like rc.local to automatically start...

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How 411 Locals keeps remote workers connected with OutagesIO.com

How 411 Locals keeps remote workers connected with OutagesIO.com

We wanted to hear how other businesses are using OutagesIO to monitor their Internet connections, so we reached out to Ray Champagne, Senior IT Director of 411 Locals, a digital advertising agency based in Nevada that started in 2007.  They specialize in local search engine optimization (SEO), web design, and online marketing solutions for small and medium-sized businesses throughout the United...

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Monitor Internet connectivity and environmental conditions

Monitor Internet connectivity and environmental conditions

Environmental monitoring Alerts before things get critical When working with remote locations. Getting quick alerts to environment changes or loss of Internet communications can be critical when managing remote connected equipment rooms, cabinets, field sensing equipment and others. The default function of OutagesIO is monitoring the Internet connection and alerting IT when one or more locations...

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Secure remote access without opening firewall ports or port forwarding

Secure remote access without opening firewall ports or port forwarding

What can't be seen, can't be hacked. Port forwarding exposes the network Opening firewall ports for remote access to network resources or to allow a vendor into your own network has the disadvantage of catching the attention of hackers that are scanning for open ports continuously. For this reason, OutagesIO offers an encrypted, secure method of gaining or providing access to remote networks and...

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Internet connectivity issues makes telehealth harder

Internet connectivity issues makes telehealth harder

Telehealth, remote patient monitoring and associated health devices all require reliable Internet connectivity both at patient locations and the office. The Internet has been down at our hospice office and in-patient unit all weekend. It's frustrating because we have a shared connection with another of our facilities, so it's hard to know exactly where the problem is occurring. Is it at our...

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Internet slowdown or outage proof for your ISP tech support

Internet slowdown or outage proof for your ISP tech support

We love it when our outagesio.com customers share their success stories. Nancy sent this one in to us recently: “I am a 75 year-old housewife, but I did work as a network administrator before retiring 18 years ago. Believe me, NOTHING in technology stays the same for 18 years, so I know very little about systems and networks today, and most every outage detector I found was way too complicated...

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Helping Consumers Understand Internet Connectivity Issues

Helping Consumers Understand Internet Connectivity Issues

As a provider of SaaS, eCommerce, or other online services, you are likely familiar with the Internet blame game that happens when customers experience issues accessing your service. Unfortunately, the first reaction is often to point the finger at your services without considering other potential causes. However, most customers don't understand the complexity of keeping busy web services up and...

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Do You Offer VoIP, IT Support, Content Services?

Do You Offer VoIP, IT Support, Content Services?

When Internet issues arise, especially VoIP related, customers using your services can quickly point the finger at you. You need a speedy way of determining if the problems are at the customer premises or with their Internet connection. By knowing where the problems are and taking care of them quickly, your customer will always trust that you are on top of things as you should be. Find problems...

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Municipal Broadband Projects

Municipal Broadband Projects

Maybe all the talk about net neutrality means opportunities Let’s be honest, the main factor behind eliminating net neutrality is pure greed and control. Internet Service Providers (ISP) like any other business, sometimes prefer not to invest in better infrastructure until they either absolutely have to such as seeing a competitive reason for doing so or when there are simply too many...

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Eliminate Most Panicked Customer Support Calls

Eliminate Most Panicked Customer Support Calls

In the IT/ISP industry, we sometimes experience customers quickly pointing the finger toward their support company if they lose Internet access and therefore, VoIP, browsing and other services. The majority of short lived problems are often Internet related and need to be assessed quickly in order to keep customer confidence. If your business handles customer premise managed services such as...

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ISP could SEE my outages thanks to outagesio.com

ISP could SEE my outages thanks to outagesio.com

We have a great ISP, Cable Systems of Nevada. They're very small serving only our community in southern Utah (SunRiver retirement community in St George) and one community in southeast Nevada.They are very responsive, but they have been having their own problems for a couple of months with intermittent outages of an unknown source. Consequently our many outages were ascribed to their problems....

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The Internet is down and it’s not my fault

The Internet is down and it’s not my fault

OutagesIO.com eliminates hours of frustrating calls to providers support line, gives consumers and IT support proof of what is happening with services during and after problems. PRESCOTT, AZ – How many times can you reboot a router before you give up in frustration? That's the question Mike Paradis, OutagesIO.com creator, asked himself a few years ago. Despite paying for an expensive business...

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Keeping the Internet healthy during COVID-19

Keeping the Internet healthy during COVID-19

It's Summer 2020 and with everything that is going on with COVID-19, reliable Internet access is critical. Internet and other service technicians are just as stressed about walking into customers' homes or offices as their customers are about being visited. With more employees working from home, work loads for technicians in the field will certainly increase. Whether working from home or self...

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Marketing Ideas

Marketing Ideas

Marketing Strategies Your marketing experts can leverage OutagesIO to craft compelling campaigns targeted toward customers using competing services. Offer solutions to help consumers better understand and navigate the complexities of their internet service. By demonstrating your commitment to transparency and reliability, you can attract customers seeking a superior online experience. Marketing...

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Sound of Silence: Dropped VoIP calls lose customers

Sound of Silence: Dropped VoIP calls lose customers

Sound of silence: Dropped VoIP calls lose customers. VoIP and online service providers solve service issues and retain customers with Echo Networks outagesio.com service. PRESCOTT, AZ – When Internet issues arise, especially Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and network related issues, customers can be quick to assign blame before considering that the problem is more likely with their own connectivity. VoIP...

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Local provider refused our helpful data

Local provider refused our helpful data

At a neighborhood party early this year (before covid-19), there was a conversation about the local Internet provider and just how difficult it is to get help sometimes. I decided to do some looking around and found this service. I talked a couple of neighbors into installing this on their PC mostly out of curiosity, not really believing much would come from it. Cuz I'm the techy one, they gave...

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Intermittent connection solved

Intermittent connection solved

A while ago I was having intermittent internet loss with my WOW service. I own my Surfboard Modem and Netgear WNDR4300v2 Router.   After a frustrating few weeks of calling WOW customer service, getting told to reboot my modem, reboot my router, everything is fine for a while then the cycle repeats. Of course, WOW says everything in FINE on their end, and it must be my equipment.   Then...

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Customer issue solved

Customer issue solved

In one case the problem appeared to have existed on the customer's equipment, but I had an ongoing saga with their previous ISP trying to get them to repair a VDSL line fault. They repaired the line but outages were still occurring somewhere within the ISP equipment, as in the end we switched ISP and the problem is resolved, as proved by

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