How to prove to your internet provider that your connection keeps dropping

This guide explains which evidence is accepted, how to complain in the right order and which deadlines start running from the first outage. It is useful even if you have not signed up for any monitoring service.

Why your word is not enough, even when it is true

A provider looks after millions of lines and cannot investigate every call. The first filter is automatic: they check the status of your line at that moment. If it responds, they close the ticket.

The problem is that a five-minute outage ceases to exist at five and a quarter minutes. By the time you have finished waiting on hold, the line is already back up. You are not lying, and neither is the technician: you are looking at different moments.

The way to break that deadlock is to arrive with the exact time. A dated outage can be looked up in the provider’s logs; an impression cannot.

What a provider accepts as evidence

Not everything carries the same weight. From least to most weight, this is what a provider finds when it opens a case file:

Evidence	How much weight it carries	Why
‘It keeps cutting out’	None	It cannot be checked against any log.
Browser screenshots showing the error	Little	They carry no reliable time and do not show whether the fault was in the line or in that page.
Saved speed tests	Little	They measure speed, not outages. And only at the moment they were run.
A photo of the router lights showing red, with the time from your phone	Moderate	It is the first piece of evidence that places the fault on the line and not in your office.
A list of outages with date, start time and duration	High	It can be checked one by one against the provider’s logs. It is what turns a gripe into a case file.
That same list, measured by an independent, continuous system	The highest	It adds the fact that measurement did not only happen when you remembered to look, so any outages missing from it simply did not occur.

What to note down for each outage

If you are going to keep the log by hand, a notebook next to the computer is enough. For each outage you need five details, and all five fit on one line:

• The date and start time, including minutes. ‘In the morning’ is no good.
• How long it lasted, even if only roughly.
• What the router light was showing at that moment. This is what separates a fault on the line from a fault in your office.
• How many devices it affected. If it was all of them, that points to the line.
• What could no longer be done. Taking payments, invoicing, answering the phone. This does not prove the outage, but it supports the claim for compensation.

A month of these notes carries more weight than ten phone calls.

The official procedure, in the order you must follow it

In Spain, complaints follow a set path, and skipping the first step invalidates the ones after it. The deadlines given here are taken from Spain’s Telecommunications User Office (Oficina de Atención al Usuario de Telecomunicaciones), the public body that resolves these cases.

• First, to your provider. You have one month from the date of the incident to file the complaint with its customer service department. It can be made by phone, online, by post or at one of its offices.
• Insist on the reference number. The provider is obliged to give it to you. Without that number there is no way to prove that you complained or on what date, and it is the only thing you will be asked for later. Write it down along with the date and the name of the person who dealt with you.
• Wait one month for the reply. If they do not reply within that period, or their reply does not resolve the problem, the next step opens up.
• Then, to the Office. You have three months to file it, counted from the provider’s reply or from the end of the month without a reply. It is filed online on the Office’s website.
• A decision takes up to six months. It is worth knowing from the outset: this is not settled in a week, which is why it pays to start measuring on the first day the line starts causing problems, not the last.

Step	Deadline	Counted from
Complain to your provider	1 month	The date of the outage
Wait for their reply	1 month	The date you complain
Take it to the Office	3 months	The reply, or the end of the month without a reply
The Office’s decision	up to 6 months	The date it is filed

About financial compensation

When an interruption exceeds a certain length, broadband contracts usually provide for compensation. The amount and the conditions depend on what you have signed and on the type of service, so no figures are given here: check the terms of your contract or ask in writing when you complain, and keep the reply.

What does apply generally is this: compensation is calculated on the proven time of interruption. Without recorded times there is no proven time, and without proven time there is nothing to calculate. That is the practical reason for keeping the log, beyond simply being in the right.

What Vigilatum provides if you subscribe

Vigilatum does not fix your provider’s line, and you should not expect it to. What it does is take the job of keeping the log off your hands, and do it with a consistency that cannot be achieved by hand.

• A probe installed on a computer in your office monitors continuously, including at night and at weekends.
• Each outage is recorded with its date, start time, duration and which of the three segments the fault was in, separating what is down to your office from what is down to the line.
• At the end of the month you have a report on your dashboard with the full list, which is the document you attach to the complaint.
• For each confirmed incident, the technical evidence from that moment is also saved, sealed, in case you need to go into detail.

If, on reading the report, it turns out that the outages were coming from a device in your own office, you will see that there too. That is also a result, and it is better to know before opening a complaint that goes nowhere.