VPN and office laptop configuration issues

[stillmyself]

Is there a resource that can help pinpoint home working issues?

One of my family has just started using an office laptop and is experiencing download speeds of ~0.5Mbps.  His office's tech support response is to get the Sky to reset 'the server' - despite the same symptoms over a Vodafone hotspot.

It strikes me that there is a risk of having ISP and Office IT support pointing at each other as responsible for issues - especially as smaller firms (and even many bigger firms) tend not to have the instrumentation to identify what is not working correctly from the pov of the laptop. Having a resource to help nail such issues (e.g. known bad configurations/ tests to run - not proprietary to the sky box, ideally  - could be a boon to all).

[jamesn123]

@stillmyself 

No resource unfortunately

If the same issue is happening on a different provider (Vodafone hotspot) it has to be the office side.  

[TimmyBGood]

@stillmyself 

Also worth noting that realistically the ability of a domestic ISP to provide individual support for such things is going to be distinctly limited, and they are under no obligation to do so.  Despite the boom in 'working from home' we all expect to pay as little as possible for the benefit.

[stillmyself]

I agree with both your comments, and maybe this is a new market that's currently not served at all. There will be issues: there already are. In this particular case, the corporate laptop was achieving 0.1Mbps downloads over wifi, both via sky and via a vodafone hotspot and 40Mbps over a wired connection. All other kit in the house was faster than the 40Mbps.

Without a knowledge base to refer to the IT support response was 'get the ISP to reset their kit in the local exchange' (ignoring the fact that the issue arose with mutiple routes). Essentially, disowning the problem, after a quick remote login and driver updates.

I had similar concerns over the increasing complexity from other OTT services such as IoT while designing BG's Hive architecture: atm, each house needs its own IT department to just manage the internal network. 

This is only going to get worse as multi-homing becomes more common, and the patterns of use move away from simple media consumption.

[TimmyBGood]

@stillmyself 

One possible route is to use a much smaller (and almost inevitably more expensive) ISP which can actually take an interest in investigating specific issues and building up a genuine knowledgebase rather than a call-centre script.  A&A is often given as an example, though I've no personal experience of them.

[simon194]

Residential ISPs are the bane of our IT department.

It was OK prior to the lockdown when they had less employees working from home, it was easy enough to get the company to pay for a business broadband connection at home. Now with about 80% of employees opting to work from home permanently they aren't so eager to fork out anymore.

[stillmyself]

Exactly so. And this is the gap in the market.