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A particular kind of quiet settles over a business when the internet goes down. The card machine stops asking for a PIN. The phones stop ringing, though nobody notices for a few minutes. Somebody says, "is anyone’s internet gone down”.
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What's the issue?
Spending a little bit of time understanding the problem can help speed things up. Being able to describe the fault can get you back online quicker when talking to your internet service provider (ISP).
Where to begin?
Start narrow and widen out. If one laptop is offline while everything else works, the fault is on that device, and the router is fine. If every device has dropped at once, the connection itself has gone. That single check tells the support agent more than anything else you can offer them.
Then look at the router. Most models signal a line fault differently from a local problem, usually through the colour or pattern of the status light, and your provider publishes what each one means. Make some notes before you restart anything, because the light often resets to something less informative.
Restarting the router
Restart properly, which is not the same as switching it off and on again quickly. Power down, wait thirty seconds so the connection fully drops at the exchange, then power up and give it a full five minutes to resync before you decide it hasn't worked. Routers frequently look dead for three minutes and then come back.
Check ISP status
While you wait, check your provider's status page. BT, Virgin Media Business, Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk and Zen all run one, and a known regional fault will appear there long before anyone answers the phone. It is also worth a glance at your account, because a failed direct debit can suspend a business line and the symptom looks identical to a technical fault.
If it's still down after all that, report it and get a fault reference number. Write down the time you reported it. Both of those matter later.
Businesses lose an average of 11 hours a week to connectivity issues, despite growing access to full fibre. Source: BusinessInfoMag.
Keeping the business running
Issues reported and the connection are now out of your hands. Keeping your business operational is now your priority.
Running on mobile data
Firing up a mobile hotspot from your phone won't support all your devices, but you can keep your card machine running. The constraint here may be the amount of data you have, not an issue if you have an unlimited SIM plan.
Understanding your card machine
Some card machines automatically have mobile backup. Payment machines like TakePayments offer great features to keep you online.
Some store transactions offline and process them when the connection returns, usually up to a value limit. Others simply stop. Which of those your machine does is a question for your payments provider today, not something to establish while a queue forms.
Check phone lines
If you've moved to VoIP, your phone system runs over the same connection that has just failed. Set up a divert to a mobile in advance and know how to trigger it, because configuring a divert usually requires the online portal you can no longer reach. After the PSTN switch-off in January 2027, this applies to nearly every business, including those still on traditional lines today.
Inform customers
A note on the door, a line on social media, a message on your website if you can reach it from a phone. "We're dealing with a broadband fault. Card payments are down, cash only until it's fixed." Customers forgive an outage far more readily than they forgive being left to work it out themselves.
Keep a log
Time the fault started, time you reported it, the reference number, who you spoke to, what they committed to and when. This takes two minutes, and it is the difference between a credible claim and an argument you lose.
Claiming compensation
Ofcom has an automatic compensation scheme that pays customers a set amount for each day a fault goes unrepaired or missed engineer appointments. However, this is for consumer broadband.
Here are the residential rates of compensation:
- £10.34 a day for a delayed repair
- £32.31 for a missed appointment
- £6.46 a day for a delayed start
Business broadband compensation
Some providers will pay something to business customers on a case-by-case basis. That's a negotiation, not an entitlement.
What protects a business much more than Ofcom residential payouts are Service Level Agreements (SLAs). These are outlined in your contract and are commitments from your ISP to ensure you stay online and what you are entitled to if they miss target fix times.
Those commitments differ enormously. A standard business broadband package may promise very little beyond best efforts. A leased line typically commits to a fix within hours, with credits attached.
Business compensation is rarely automatic, so you will usually have to claim it. And it is almost always credited against your next bill rather than paid out. Neither is a reason not to pursue it, but it does mean the fault reference and the timings you logged are doing real work.
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Plan before something happens
Having a small process in place could get things back up and running quicker. It does not have to be an extensive, costly document.
What stops working
List everything that fails when the connection fails: card payments, phones, booking systems, stock control, email, cloud files, remote access. Then rank them by how quickly each one costs you money. Card payments in a shop are measured in minutes. Cloud files in an office might be measured in hours. Stock control might not matter until tomorrow.
It's about working out what to prioritise when things go wrong.
How long can you afford to be offline?
Rather than just guesswork, it would be a good idea to work out how much money you would lose per 30 minutes or per hour. This could be broken down by peak and off-peak hours.
Have a backup
Mobile tethering costs nothing if your staff already carry data allowances, and it suits short outages affecting a handful of people. It is fiddly at scale, and it drains phones.
A dedicated 4G or 5G backup device sits alongside your main connection and takes over when the line drops, usually within seconds. This is the sensible middle option for anyone who can't lose card payments, and it's increasingly bundled into business router hardware. This is why getting a solid business broadband plan can come in handy.
Our business broadband buyer's guide covers how the underlying connection types differ if you're weighing this up.
Write down the plan
Plans fail when they live in one person's head, and that person is on annual leave. Put it somewhere reachable without the internet; printed and stuck inside a cupboard door is genuinely fine.
Regular internet outage
Sometimes the fault is a fault. Sometimes it's a pattern.
If you're losing connection regularly, or repairs take days where your contract implies hours, that's a commercial issue rather than a technical one. Another engineer visit won't fix a contract that never promised much. A stronger SLA, a different connection type or a different provider will.
Compare business broadband deals to see what's available at your address. If an hour offline genuinely costs you more than the upgrade, a leased line carries far tighter fix-time commitments
Frequently Asked Questions
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How do I tell whether my broadband is down or just slow?
Restart the router and give it five minutes. If devices still can't connect at all, it's a fault. If they connect but everything crawls, that's a performance problem; a different diagnosis with a different fix, usually related to contention or line quality rather than an outage.
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Will my card machine work if the internet is down?
It depends on the machine. Many fall back to a mobile network automatically, some store transactions offline up to a limit and process them later, and some stop entirely. Ask your payments provider which yours does before you need to know.
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Do my phones go down when my internet does?
If you use VoIP, yes, they run over the same connection. From the PSTN switch-off on 31 January 2027, this will apply to almost every UK business, so a mobile divert set up in advance is worth having either way.
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Does Ofcom's automatic compensation cover my business?
No. Ofcom's scheme covers residential broadband and landline products only; no small-business or sole-trader exemption brings you inside it. Business customers rely on the terms in their own contract, so what you're owed depends on your SLA rather than on regulation. Some providers pay business customers case by case, but that's a negotiation rather than an entitlement.
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How quickly should a business broadband fault be fixed?
There is no legal standard. Your SLA sets the target, and standard business broadband and leased lines commit to very different timescales. If you don't know yours, that's worth finding out before the next outage rather than during it.
