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Free network check

Free field guide · PDF · 16 pages

Twelve ways your network fails without telling you.

Each failure pattern comes with what it looks like, why status dashboards miss it, and a ten-minute check you can run yourself with the data you already have.

One email with the PDF, then a monthly field note. Unsubscribe any time.

Inside

Four parts, twelve checks.

Written for operations, facilities and IoT teams. No vendor setup required: every check works with an export from the platform you already run.

Delivery

  1. 01
    The silent hourA device stops sending readings for hours while its link stays up. The dashboard still shows it as online.
  2. 02
    The missing cadenceNobody can say how often a device is supposed to report, so nobody can say how many reports are missing.
  3. 03
    The slow fadeDelivery drops a little every week. No single day looks bad enough to investigate.

Integrity

  1. 04
    The frozen sensorA sensor keeps sending the same value. Delivery looks perfect. The data is useless.
  2. 05
    The impossible readingA probe reports a value the environment cannot produce, and it gets stored, averaged and reported.
  3. 06
    Healthy link, sick dataSignal strength and uptime look fine. Payloads are duplicated, malformed or late.

Coverage

  1. 07
    The planned mapThe coverage map everyone trusts is the radio planning estimate made before installation.
  2. 08
    The moved shelfCoverage was fine at installation. Then racking moved, a wall went up, a building rose next door.
  3. 09
    The 3D blind spotStreet-level measurements look good. Devices on rooftops, upper floors and inner courtyards still drop out.

Response

  1. 10
    Nobody owns deliveryIT owns the network, operations owns the process, the vendor owns the devices. Nobody owns whether the data arrives.
  2. 11
    Alert by complaintYou learn about missing data when a user, customer or auditor asks where it went.
  3. 12
    Dashboard sprawlEach vendor and protocol has its own dashboard. Nobody looks at all of them on the same morning.

Sample check · chapter 01

The silent hour

A device stops sending readings for hours while its link stays up. The dashboard still shows it as online.

  1. Pick five devices that show as online right now.
  2. Export their readings for the last 7 days.
  3. Find the longest gap between two consecutive readings for each.
  4. Compare it with the interval the device is supposed to report at.

What good looks like: Every device has a longest-gap figure, and gaps longer than two intervals raise an alert.

Get all twelve.

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