My internet has become unreliable twice shortly after my ISP sent technicians to work on equipment near the curb for a neighbor. Both times, the connection was fine beforehand, then became extremely spotty the following day. When I contacted the ISP, the technician focused on my equipment, claimed my router was the problem, and tried to sell me one of their own devices.
The first time, I replaced an older router with a Netgear Nighthawk. It worked normally for about a year, so it seems unlikely that the router suddenly became defective immediately after the ISP worked nearby. Now the same pattern has happened again with a router that is less than a year old.
Can an ISP remotely disable or intentionally make third-party routers stop working? Could work at the neighborhood equipment box change the service configuration or signal quality in a way that affects my router, or is this more likely a separate cable, modem, provisioning, or line problem?
2 Answers
They cannot physically destroy or remotely 'kill' a consumer router just because it is not supplied by the ISP. However, the ISP can change provisioning, authentication, supported modem requirements, or configuration tied to your account or device. They can also make mistakes while working on the neighborhood plant. Those issues would normally affect the modem or the incoming service rather than the Wi-Fi router itself, so ask for signal levels, error counts, and provisioning to be checked instead of accepting a sales pitch.
A neighborhood repair can absolutely coincide with a service problem, but that does not prove deliberate sabotage. A bad connector, damaged drop, noise on the cable network, incorrect tap configuration, or a provisioning error could make your connection unreliable. The technician may be blaming the router because replacing it is easier or more profitable than investigating the outside line.
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