Internet Disconnecting every 3-5mins

[trigun500]

I live out in the middle of nowhere, so getting the normal cable modem or DSL is not an option. We do have a Wifi internet provider where we can get high speed via a dish.

When we first got the internet it worked great just like and other kind of internet service (online games and Xbox live worked). But recently the internet cuts out every 5 mins totally disconnecting us. We asked our provider what the problem is and he said that everything is working on his end and that our signal is good and out dish is fine.

We have tried different modems and have worked with our provider many times trying to fix the issue; it had come down to this conclusion that we need to replace our Ethernet cable that goes from our house to the dish. He thinks that water is getting on/in the cable and shorting it out. The cable we have going out right now is (I believe) just a normal Ethernet cable.

Does this sound like a reasonable solution to the problem? I hate to spend the money on this Ethernet cable to end up with the same problem. My thinking is shouldn't the internet not work at ALL if there's water in the cable?

Cliffs:
- Internet cuts out every 5mins
- Only solution we can think of is water is getting on the Ethernet cable outside
- The cable they installed outside is a normal Ethernet Cable
- Should we get a waterproof/conduit Ethernet Cable?

Thanks a lot for any help; this has been going on for a month straight now.

 

[stlcardinals]

Figure out how long of a cable you need, buy one from monoprice.com. They're cheap and reliable. Once you replace the cable and it turns out it is working, then you can look at replacing it with an outdoor rated cable or running some conduit.

 

[RebateMonger]

How long is the cable outside? You can buy a new 100 ft. Ethernet patch cable for about $10 at http://monoprice.com. If this is adequate length, you could TEMPORARILY run a cable outside and see if that fixes the problem. Or set up a laptop computer and any other necessary networking equipment outside next to your antenna with a short Ethernet patch cable and after ten minutes you should know if the problem is cabling or not.

 

[gsaldivar]

As RM mentioned, ethernet cable is the cheapest stuff in the world. Unless it's really hard to reach (underground, trenched, in walls, etc...) I would recommend replacing it with fresh cable just to rule that out as a possible cause.

Good luck!

 

[RadiclDreamer]

If its outside it needs to have outside facilities.

 

[trigun500]

Thanks a lot! I'll look into this

 

[mloiterman]

Are you really connected to the dish with cat5e cable? I would think it would be RG6, but I have never used a Dish for Internet access.

 

[RebateMonger]

Are you really connected to the dish with cat5e cable? I would think it would be RG6, but I have never used a Dish for Internet access.

I had a Sprint Broadband connection. This used a dish on my roof to connect to radio towers on a mountain. The towers then talked to a satellite.

At my house, RG6 ran from the dish down to a modem in the house, which then had an Ethernet conection. to my network.