This support FAQ is a work in progress.  For information on anything not covered here please phone technical support or 1 (844) 776-3747.

Connection problems
Speed problems
Safety tips

Connection problems

The first thing to try if you are having connection problems is to reboot your radio. It is also helpful to reboot your wifi router. Both can be done at the same time if they are plugged into a power bar, in which case you can just switch off the power for 10 seconds and then power back up. This is also known as a “power cycle”. If you’re not using a power bar (although we recommend you do), you can just unplug the power supply from the wall for 10 seconds. The ESIS power supply is usually a black or white rectangular box with a small LED light, about 1x2x4″ with two ethernet cables plugged in; one for the ESIS dish (POE) and the other for your router or computer (LAN). It is very important you don’t plug your router or computer into the POE port on the power supply. This is meant to send power to the ESIS dish and could damage your equipment if it’s plugged the wrong way around.

If you’re curious about whether your router is having an issue or is it the ESIS equipment, you can power-cycle your router first and then test the connection. Wait about a minute after power-cycling for the router to reboot.

Speed problems

On a shared system such as ours, the network can slow down at times of peak usage. These are generally evenings. If you are curious as the true performance of your internet connection, please visit  www.speedtest.net and record your results. By keeping track of the speeds you see at different times of day you will see what your connection is capable of and also how it performs when the system is busy. If your download speeds are consistently below 5 Mbps please contact technical support. It’s important when running a speedtest to make sure that your connection is not being used by other devices on your network, which can be downloading in the background without you being aware. The best way to avoid this is to bypass your router and plug your computer’s ethernet port directly into the ethernet cable from the ESIS power supply (LAN) port temporarily.

Safety Tips

Anti-virus and anti-malware software

In our informed opinion as your Internet Service Provider, it is essential that you maintain basic protection from malicious software on your devices. Antivirus and anti-malware software is easy to find and install and there are a variety of free options available on various download sites around the net. There are also options for blocking popup ads in most browsers and we encourage you to try other web browsers to find one you like best. Be careful with plugins and especially toolbars as some can slow down your computer and degrade your web-browsing experience. While ESIS cannot endorse any particular products, our technicians often recommend Avast! Free Antivirus and MalwareBytes Anti-Malware.

Popups

Many popup and other web ads pretend to be things they are not. Don’t click on anything but the red X of any window you don’t trust or didn’t ask for. Some will even pretend to be windows operating system, or antivirus messages. Be wary and vigilant to guard against scams. If you are getting a message about an infection ensure it is coming from the antivirus program that you have installed. There are fake anti-viruses which are scams.

Installing software

Be careful not to install any optional, ad-supported, or other components which are not part of the software package you are installing. Very often free software publishers are subsidizing their operations by putting a “would you also like to install this?” type of option which will get you something else, which might compromise your system. Toolbars can often be adware or spyware (two types of malware) and often sneak into your system this way. Watch for them, and uncheck those boxes during installs. In Windows, you can generally uninstall any unwanted program through the control panel. Be careful and play it safe.