How to Troubleshoot ISP & Internet Issues with Obkio

In this article, we’ll break down our video, brought to you by Obkio's network pros, where we show you how to use Obkio’s Network Performance Monitoring tool to troubleshoot an Internet issue on the Internet Service Provider’s end.

Internet issues can be frustrating, especially when they disrupt your business operations or daily activities. Often, these problems originate from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), making it crucial to identify and resolve them quickly.

Watch the video below to learn how to identify and resolve ISP-related Internet issues with Obkio’s Internet Monitoring Tool. We'll then quickly walk you through the essential steps to troubleshoot ISP-related Internet issues, as described in the video.

With Obkio, monitoring and troubleshooting Internet performance is incredibly simple. You can get started in just 10 minutes using our intuitive onboarding wizard, which guides you through a quick setup. This ensures you have immediate access to all premium features during a 14-day free trial.

You only need to install a single internal Monitoring Agent and one Public Monitoring Agent (which is pre-deployed over the Internet) to complete the basic onboarding process. Internet Monitoring is one of the most popular and easiest use cases to deploy.

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The first step in troubleshooting ISP issues is detecting that there’s a problem. With Obkio, you’ll receive smart notifications about network performance issues, such as packet loss, latency, or jitter. These alerts help you pinpoint when and where the problem occurred.

For example, you might receive an alert about packet loss or high latency during a specific time frame. This alert is your starting point for further investigation.

Once you’ve detected a potential issue, the next step is to confirm it. Log into Obkio’s app and navigate to the dashboards to visualize your network performance data. By selecting the relevant time frame, you can review metrics like packet loss, latency, and throughput to confirm the problem.

From the example in the video, Obkio's dasboards show us that, around 10pm the night before, the network experienced about 15% to 16% packet loss on two tests in two destinations.

The first is a test with a Public Monitoring Agent deployed in Microsoft Azure; the other is with an Agent deployed in AWS. So we can now confirm that there was indeed a network performance problem at that time.

After confirming the issue, it’s time to locate where the problem occurred in your network. Obkio’s Visual Traceroute tool, Obkio Vision, helps you visualize the path of your network traffic and identify problematic hops.

By analyzing the Quality Matrix and Network Map, you can pinpoint the exact location of the issue. This step is crucial for determining whether the problem lies within your internal network or on your ISP’s end.

Once you’ve opened Obkio Vision, use the arrows to select a time range. In the example from the video, since we know that the issue happened around 10 pm the night before, we're looking at traceroutes from that same time.

We can see that the problem happened at 10 pm in the “Quality Matrix” based on the red colour code. To dive deeper, select the same time range in the “Network Map” as well. Looking at the “Network Map,” we can see a performance issue between hops four and five.

To dive deeper, analyze the traceroute results for the affected Monitoring Agents. Obkio Vision provides detailed insights into each hop, including packet loss and latency metrics. This analysis helps you understand the nature of the problem, such as whether it’s caused by congestion, routing issues, or hardware failures.

By analyzing all this data from the example in the video, we can see a performance problem in hops four and five, that is to say, between these 2 IP addresses. There was approximately 3% packet loss over the five-minute period we’re analyzing.

More specifically, the problem seems to be between two Internet Service Providers, which we see as two “AS” Numbers. Therefore the interconnection between the Internet network seems to be experiencing a congestion issue at this moment.

The cause is therefore an Internet problem located in two Internet Provider networks, located further away from the Internet. This is what caused the packet loss on the Internet connections.

Once you’ve identified and analyzed the issue, the final step is to share your traceroute results with your ISP. Provide them with the traceroute results and dashboards to prove that the problem is on their end. This evidence will help escalate the support case and ensure a quicker resolution.

By following these steps, you can effectively troubleshoot ISP-related Internet issues and minimize downtime. For a more detailed guide on troubleshooting ISP issues, check out our full blog post: How to Troubleshoot ISP Issues.

Obkio’s intuitive tools make it easy to detect, confirm, and resolve network performance problems, ensuring your Internet connection remains stable and reliable.

Below is the complete transcript of the video, complete with timestamps, to help you follow along and understand every step of the process.

0:01 Welcome! In this video, we’ll be showing you how to use Obkio to troubleshoot an Internet issue on the Internet Service Provider’s end.

0:07 We identified an issue when we received an alert from Obkio’s App stating that there was a packet loss problem the previous night, around 10 pm.

0:15 So, we’ll use Obkio to identify where the problem occurred and what the cause is.

0:21 To begin, log into Obkio’s app and navigate to the dashboards to visualize your performance data.

0:30 Once in the dashboards, you can select a time frame and go back twenty-four hours to see what happened around 10 pm the night before.

0:40 In the dashboards, we can see around 10 pm that the network experienced about 15 to 16% packet loss on two tests in two destinations. The first is a test with a Public Monitoring Agent deployed in Microsoft Azure; the other is with an Agent deployed in AWS.

0:48 We can now confirm that there was indeed a network performance problem at that time.

0:54 Now that the time of the issue was confirmed, we need to identify where the problem happened in the network.

1:00 To find out where this problem is located, let’s look at the traceroute results for the Monitoring Agent called “My Agent”.

1:05 To do that, first click on the “Agents” tab.

1:07 Select “My Agent,” and then click on the button called “Visual Traceroutes with Obkio Vision.”

1:14 Once you’ve opened Obkio Vision, our Visual Traceroute tool, use the arrows to select a time range. Since we know that the issue happened around 10 pm the night before, let’s go back to then.

1:21 We can see that the problem happened at 10 pm in the “Quality Matrix” based on the red colour code.

1:28 To dive deeper, first select the time range from the “Quality Matrix”. That’ll select the same time range in the “Network Map.” Looking at the “Network Map,” we can see a performance issue between hops four and five.

1:38 To see Traceroute results specifically, click on one of the circles from the “Quality Matrix”, which shows you five minutes of data from the “Azure” Monitoring Agent.

1:48 By analyzing all these results, we can see a performance problem in hops four and five, that is to say, between these 2 IP addresses. There was approximately 3% packet loss over the five-minute period we’re analyzing.

2:00 More specifically, the problem seems to be between two Internet Service Providers, which we see as two “AS” Numbers. Therefore the interconnection between the Internet network seems to be experiencing a congestion issue at this moment.

2:14 The cause is therefore an Internet problem located in two Internet Provider networks, located further away from the Internet.

2:20 This is what caused the packet loss on the Internet connections.

2:26 The next step would therefore be to share the traceroutes results and the dashboards we looked at previously with your Internet Service Provider to prove that the issue is on their end, escalate the support case, and ensure that they resolve the problem quickly.

2:37 It’s as easy as that! Thank you for watching and we hope that this video helped you easily identify and troubleshoot your Internet and ISP issues with Obkio.

Looking for more resources to master network monitoring? Check out Obkio’s Video Library, packed with tutorials, walkthroughs, use cases, webinars, and more. Whether you’re new to network monitoring or looking to optimize your setup, our videos provide step-by-step guidance to help you get the most out of Obkio.

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When it comes to troubleshooting ISP-related Internet issues, having the right tools is essential. Obkio is an all-in-one network performance monitoring tool designed to provide end-to-end visibility and help users identify network, Internet, application, and ISP issues efficiently. Unlike standalone tools, Obkio monitors network performance across your entire infrastructure – from your local network and devices to applications, services, and even your ISP or MSP network.

Obkio uses Network Monitoring Agents to monitor performance across all segments of your network. These agents generate synthetic traffic to continually measure critical network metrics such as bandwidth, latency, packet loss, and more. By simulating real user traffic, Obkio proactively identifies issues before they impact your users, ensuring optimal network performance at all times.

Obkio is more than just a monitoring tool – it’s your partner in ensuring a seamless and reliable network experience. Whether you’re dealing with ISP congestion, application slowdowns, or internal network bottlenecks, Obkio provides the insights and tools you need to troubleshoot effectively and keep your business running smoothly.

• 14-day free trial of all premium features
• Deploy in just 10 minutes
• Monitor performance in all key network locations
• Measure real-time network metrics
• Identify and troubleshoot live network problems