For years I’ve heard the marketing of the smart home industry’s networking companies that state the importance of a quality home network and the service to back those networks up. If, I had ever doubted these assertions those questions were put to rest over the weekend when my son and his friends took my professionally installed Access Networks Core System down.
What Caused the Network Outage in the First Place
Not knowing how to connect a Nintendo system from our television upstairs to the TV downstairs near the Access Networks components, the kids simply started to unplug and plug cables back in.
In a scenario that sounds like Access Networks could have written it for its marketing materials, the kids realized after a few minutes of unplugging wires they no longer had network connectivity.
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Getting a text from my wife she told me we had no Internet and asked if I could get the network back online when I got home (I was at the AV Therapy Spring 2025 marketing event).
Getting home around 7 p.m. I tried for about an hour, including hard reboots and connecting and disconnecting my Comcast router/modem from the Access Networks Sophos firewall.
After giving up, I thought maybe it was the Comcast router/modem and using the Xfinity app I scheduled a technician service call with my Internet provider. Comcast called me early the next morning (Saturday) and after a few attempts on their end I was able to get the Comcast router/modem to work as a basic ISP (Internet Service Provider) router.
Solving the Connectivity Issues with the Help of an Integrator
Wanting to get the Access Systems network back online I contacted Access Networks’ customer service, and it wasn’t long before I heard back from Michael “Willy” Williams, business development manager for Access Networks and Jon Peckman, sales director for Access Networks.
By the end of Monday Jon and Willy had my address and were working on finding a dealer to come and service my system. On Tuesday June 3 Access Networks had lined up a dealer—Kreative AV, which is owned by Shawn Armstrong—and after speaking with Shawn to confirm the site visit, a technician was set to visit my home between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. the next morning.
Arriving early at my home, Jason Potter, senior technician for Kreative AV, pulled into my driveway at roughly 7:55 a.m., and approximately 45 minutes he left after diagnosing the problem, getting the system back online and explaining to me what was done to get the system back online.
Troubleshooting my five-year-old Access Network system, he examined the connectivity of the Sophos firewall, the network switch and the status of the router/modem. Ultimately, he figured out that the kids must have unplugged some of the connected components, including the firewall, which was connected back to the wrong port on the switch.
Admittedly, Potter told me that because they weren’t the original dealer some of the things Kreative AV would have done weren’t done, and the age of the system made troubleshooting a bit more difficult but he was able to figure out the issue.
“It’s different when we get clients we didn’t originally handle,” he notes. “Shawn [Armstrong] would recommend coming in and updating it [the existing network) so we can handle it and not have to roll a truck.”
ISP vs. Professionally Installed Home Network: The Difference is Staggering
Those in the smart home industry already know, this but it is a cold reminder that once you get used to having a quality professionally installed home network, stepping back into the network provided by your ISP provider is shocking.
Despite solid testing numbers from websites such as Speedtest.net, connectivity did not seem as robust or safe as it had been with my Access Networks system.
Where I particularly noticed the differences between the capabilities of the Access Networks and Comcast’s services were opening work-related websites such as Dropbox and Smart Sheets. Using Comcast some sites took a long time to access or worse, I could not access the site period.
I also noticed quite a bit of buffering at times with streaming media. Watching content from Netflix and Max for example, the quality of the image varied, and I felt that it did not correlate to peak Internet traffic times, it was simply randomly compromised with blocking artifacts and pixelization around the edges of people.
Additionally, I will emphasize that anything that sat on the Access Networks, including my Sonos and Crestron Home system was no longer functional. I had basic functionality with my ISP and nothing more.
Through this experience I learned a couple of things: Don’t let anyone touch my network that doesn’t know what they are doing—and two—the marketing that drives the network capabilities the smart home has to offer with professionally installed solutions like Access Networks are legit. Basic ISP services aren’t enough in modern smart homes.
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