This Season's Best iPhone 5 Deal

As the festive season is on, there's a price crash on the iPhone 5 and now is the time to get it, SIM free or on contract. Several online re sellers are even cheaper than buying it direct from apple, saving you something for that leather case or additional accessories. So here's the latest offers from selected retailers.

Contract

Carphonewarehouse

The most recommended offer with an attractive monthly bundle is £36/month for 24 months. This is provided by O2 network with unlimited voice calls to any network, unlimited text cross network, and 1GB of data. You do need to pay £25 upfront for the phone, but it is still the cheapest and most attractive offer so far that I can find online. Delivery is free or you can choose to collect it from the nearest Carphonewarehouse outlet from your location. The total cost for this deal is £889. 

You can choose between black or white unit.

Dialaphone

If you are looking for the lowest effective cost after 24 months then iPhone 5 from dialaphone is the best option. For £33 line rental a month plus £49 upfront payment, Vodafone iPhone 33 is the deal for you. This gives you 600 free minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data. It also includes 2GB of wi-fi data from vodafone network. The total cost after 2 years is £840.96

Pay as you go

When call budget is an issue, pay as you go is a suitable option. Carphonewarehouse has a wide selection of networks to choose from offering the iPhone 5. 

Why buy pay as you go? The phone comes with a nano sim card which is ready to use and depending on your choosen network, you can have free international calls, priority tickets, buy one take one cinema tickets, free calls to the same networks and so on. The tag price is £499.95 upfront plus a £10 top up, a total of £509.95. 

SIM Free

Apple store sells the 16GB iPhone 5 at £529 upfront. Carphonewarehouse sells this for £509.95, a saving of  at least £19 which you can use to buy for a protective case or another accessory. The good thing about SIM free is you can use any SIM card from any network from any country. And if you have an existing contract  an incompatible SIM card size, you can call your network to provide you with a nano SIM card.

Accessories

Carphonewarehouse offers further savings of up to 25% off on all apple accessories including iPhone 5. Essential accessory like screen protector and case are a must to keep your device in mint condition and protect it from accidents. See details below.

Now is the right time to get yourself a new iPhone 5 at a holiday season price. I am sure you wouldn't like to miss the price drop, so strike while the iron is still hot.

iPhone 5 Tips

Internet Browsing

• Private Browsing (#1)

As you use your phone to browse the web, information on the sites you visit, the search query you've typed will be saved on the browsers memory. And if you share your iphone5  with your friends and family, this data will be readily available to those who have an access to your phone.  If you do not want  this from happening, activate the Private Browsing by going to Settings, Safari, Privacy, then turn on the Private Browsing button.

If you do not want websites to store your information whilst visiting their pages, you can opt not to accept cookies. Do this choosing Never at Accept Cookies menu.

• Clear History, Cookies and Data(#2)

If you have used your iPhone5 to browse the internet before setting on the Private Browsing option, you might first need to clear your history, cookies and data. And to see which websites has managed to save some data from your browsing habits, check it from Settings, Safari, Advanced, Website Data. You have an option to delete the site from the list or delete all. 

Which one not to delete? 

This depends on who have the access on the phone. If it's just you alone, then I will leave the data from emails and social networks. I will just erase that from banks or shopping and any site that involves financial transactions. Why? Just in case the phone is lost and somebody manages to get an access.

• Auto Fill(#3);

This function is useful in filling out online forms, especially when you are fond of joining websites that asks you to input the same personal entries. When turned on, the Auto Fill function uses the information stored under your name in Contacts. Or if you are creating a profile for one of your friends, you can automatically fill in his details as long as it is saved in his profile. 

You can Access this by going to Settings, Safari, Auto Fill, My Info then choose the entry where you keep your information.

• Reading List

Action Button

If you come across an article you want to read later, most of the time, you just hit the bookmark button and the web address is saved in the bookmark for later access. The disadvantage of this method is, your bookmark continuously piling up of addresses creating clutter especially when you seldom tidy up your list when you no longer need it or have finished reading what you've wanted to read.

A solution for this is to use the Reading List instead of the Book Mark. You can save a website to read later without adding it to your bookmark by pressing the action button  when you are browsing then press Add to Reading List.To get back to the saved reading list, tap the bookmark icon and the Reading List is at the top. Once you've accessed the saved item, it will be automatically deleted from the list.

• Reader's Aid

And whilst reading, you can magnify the text of the article without necessarily pinching it out to zoom the page with your fingers. You can even take off all the distractions like adverts and photos by using the Reader in Safari. It is activated when you tap on the title of an article, the Reader button will be available at the address bar. A tap on the reader will give you the option to increase or decrease the size of the text, by tapping on the relevant icon. The text then will be auto fitted into the screen for easier navigation and reading.

Texting

• Keyboard Shortcut

Predictive text helps texting quick and easy. The only downside to this is, it spells out the whole word in english. You can not use a shortcut of words when the function is on. Another way to compose text quickly is to use keyboard shortcuts. It doesn't matter if you use any language or several languages, or write abbreviations of words. It does understand and spells out words the way you want it, only in a flash and quicker way.

Try the function by going to Settings, General, Keyboard, Shortcuts, Add New Shortcut then enter the Phrase you want to use and the Shortcut for the phrase, one letter for each word and do not leave a space between the letters.

Useful when texting the same phrase or word every time.

• Customized Vibration

Allocating a customized ringtone to a contact lets you know who is calling before you answer the phone. This function has been around for sometime. How do you know who is calling when your phone is on a vibrate mode?

You can now predict who is calling you or sending you a message when your phone is on silent mode by just  observing the vibration it makes. There are several preset vibrations you can choose from to assign to your contacts. You can also make a new customized vibe by going into Settings, Sounds, Ringtone, Vibration, Create New Vibration then tap on the screen to make your own sequences.

To set up the customized vibration to your contacts, go to the name of your contact, tap edit and choose the preset vibe or the one you've made.

The Cheapest iPhone 5 Deal

The most sought  iPhone 5 is now available to most retailers, but sometimes the shelves are dried up empty  and could not cope up with the overwhelming demand, so ordering it is not straight forward. It test your patience and how well you plan for it's delivery. It also test your wallet.The lowest tariff at the moment without paying for the phone is £39 a month for 2 years contract. This translates into £936 for the 16GB model. If you want to pay for a lower tariff, you need to pay a contribution of owning it. The lowest upfront payment is £49 and £37 monthly or a total of £937 for 2 years. The difference in tariff is just a pound, but if you take a look closely, the £1 difference means a lot in terms of what you'll get, the free minutes and data bundle. See the deals here.

 Advantage of Buying Direct From Apple

 If you have the available cash to get this product, no doubt the cheapest way to get the iPhone 5 is through apple store. The lowest spec is priced £529 upfront. This is the 16GB model which you can have it on colours black slate or white silver. The price already includes delivery and packaging. It is almost one half cheaper than getting it with a contract.

The advantage of getting it direct from apple rather than from auction sites is you  are sure the product is authentic. You are sure about the warranty of the product that you can send it back in case there's a problem with it without necessarily shouldering the bill of sending and again, delivery back to you after repair or replacement.

Another advantage is, your iphone 5 is sim free. This means, you can pop in any compatible sim card from any network and from any country.


The only hassle that you will encounter when buying from apple store is the waiting time for the delivery of the product. For those who want the phone straight away, getting it from apple may not be suitable. That is because you need to wait about two to three weeks before your order is delivered. In my case, it took exactly three weeks. My advice is to calculate the day you are home before ordering because you need to sign for it and may need to show any identification card. If you will not be home, make sure to leave an identification card to whoever at home to receive your order. But just in case no one is around and you missed the delivery, you will be given a notice when they'll be coming back or a number to call to arrange a delivery. Buy iPhone 5 from apple.

Using an Existing Contract for the iPhone 5

What if you have an existing older iphone contract and hasn't ended yet? Can you buy a sim free iPhone 5 and put your existing micro sim in it?

The iPhone 5 takes a smaller form,  nano sim, and the existing micro sim won't be compatible to the tray provided. But still you can use your existing contract to use it with the phone. What you need to do is to request a nano sim card from your network. O2 is good at this. When I placed the order from the apple store, I did contacted them through their website, and the nano sim card was delivered two days after. Get your O2 nano sim card here.

Setting up your Sim Free iphone using existing credentials.

On O2, using your existing and current tariff to your iphone 5 is easy. Once you have your phone and nano sim, you just need to contact O2 that you want to transfer your existing credentials into the nano sim for your iPhone 5. You can do this online or through a text in four simple steps. You will need your existing phone number and the number of the nano simcard located at the back of the sim carrier. 

To do it online go to http://swapmysim.o2.co.uk/. Alternatively, send a text swap to 20220 from the existing number you want to use and O2 will send you a code for the sim swap process. The swap will take at least two hours up to 24 hours, but in my experience it was under 2 hours.

Is there any problems using a contract from a non iPhone sim card?

There was no problem making and receiving a call, sending and receiving messages, surfing the net via wi-fi or data bundle during the first two weeks, but I  noticed the other day that there was an error saying "You are not subscribed to data service" when it can not connect to the internet using the data bundle.

There was nothing wrong with the existing APN settings for iPhone when I compared it with the O2 website. Then I realised  that the existing APN is from a non iPhone unit. So I changed it with the credentials, APN and user name, of the original contract, and did not changed the password.

This resolved the problem!

Getting it Sim Free From Resellers

The 32GB, however, is available to their certified resellers at the same apple price of  £699. The advantage of buying your iPhone through them is the readiness of the product. You can get it the next working day after you order or you have the option to pick it up at their store later if you buy online. Another advantage is you can choose which day you want your item delivered. See further details here!

The Round Up

No doubt, like the past models, the price of the iPhone 5 with contract will drop, but I guess not any sooner. When the next model will be out, might be an iPhone5 S or 6, will be the start to get it at a lower price if you have the patience enough to wait for sometime.

If you can not wait that long the cheapest way then to get it is to buy sim free from apple for the lowest spec, or from their re sellers  for the higher specs and want it ASAP.

Practical Features of IOS 6

IOS 6 is not only available to the new iPhone 5, the latest apple mobile phone released. The older iPhone 4 or 4S can also be upgraded to IOS 6. This newest operating system makes everything faster than the previous one. It also bundled with features that makes even the older devices do more and simplify things by launching a function in fewer taps, thus saving more time.  

Here are some of changes that the IOS 6 I think are useful, specially to the old iPhone models.

Battery Percentage Indicator

The first feature I noticed is the presence of battery percentage indicator at the top of the screen. This feature can be turned on or off by presing to the Home Screen>Settings>General>Usage(then scroll down further)>Battery Usage> then turn on the On button.

You can monitor more accurately the approximate remaining time for your phone before it needs charging. The percentage data can also give you a hint on when to turn off some features of the phone to keep your phone running the ability to receive calls for longer.

Email Attachment Made Easier

Sending email attachment was a nightmare in the previous Mail native application. Copying and pasting one at a time at the files you want to attach was a pain. This time with the new IOS 6 it is easier. 

Whilst at the compose mode at the mail application, lightly tap a part of the typing area and tap the arrow after Select All to get to the attachment menu. From there you can attach photos or videos.

Ease of Button Access

The iPhone's distinct one function button interface makes it simple to use. But sometimes there are times that you wish it has other buttons to get you from a function to another without pressing repeatedly at the same single button. And sometimes that single button becomes stiff and needs a stronger push for it to work. Taking a screen shot requires two hands and a combination of two buttons, which is not really user friendly to do, as one will be holding the phone and pressing the power button and the other pressing the home button to make the combination.

With the Assistive Touch, you can do the task with only one touch. Activate it by going to the Settings>General>Accessibility>Physical & Motor>then turn on Assistive Touch.

This will show a button that can be dragged and positioned anywhere you want in your screen. The button can give you an immediate access to the Home button, favourites, Voice Control, and functions of the device like lock and unlock and rotation of the screen, volume control and mute, screenshot and can check the opened application.

Add Fun Emoticons and Clip Arts on Messaging Applications

Make your messages more interesting by inserting emoticons, symbols, and signs. This is compatible to notes, messages, emails and social network status updates. This is activated by adding other keyboard function on the iPhone.

Go to Settings>General>Keyboard>Keyboards>Add New Keyboard>choose Emoji. On the keyboard, you will notice a new globe icon at thee second left bottom of the screen. Press that and a large collection of signs, symbols, clip arts and emoticons is ready to use in your messages. Impress your friends by adding this in your messages.

Spotlight Search

The spotlight search is beefed up some muscle as it can tell you the folder where a certain item is located. It is useful when you are looking for a  certain application from a folder you can not remember. It also works with any file, music files for example. Very useful when you keep hundred of songs inside your device. This saves you from  opening folders and scrolling through the contents of the folder.

Last Tip

Though it is a bit lengthy to update an apple product,  it is worth the trouble. The last thing you do not want to do is to lose file in the process. It is very important to do a back up before you start updating, as this may wipe out files and can no longer be recovered.

This is done by right clicking the name of your connected device on the iTunes interface and clicking back up. And I would choose to back my files up both into my computer and up the cloud.

Easy Sync Mobile Contacts for iPhone5

The painful part of having a new phone is transferring contacts from the previous mobile phone. There are ways to do it using the native hardware and application provided within the phone like bluetooth transfer or just the simple SIM swapping on most phone brands, however in apple products, it is inconvenient, bluetooth doesn't support contact transfer. And again, even if you have managed to save all your contacts into your regular SIM or micro SIM, there is still a problem specially with the iPhone 5 that requires the newest nano SIM form factor, they just do not fit,physically.

iTunes is still the best solution of connecting and transferring of contacts between apple devices, but as it needs computer to connect, it is not convenient. Using iCloud service is also an other alternative and could free you from wires but  is only applicable to apple devices in terms of contacts synchronization. Latest update of the devices is also needed for the service. If you are in a hurry and wants to sync your contacts straight away, you can bypass both iTunes and iCloud with the free PhoneCopy application.

Phone Copy Application

This application lets you syncronise your contacts between your iPhones or other phones without downloading large applications. You do not need iTunes and doesn't need wires either. It is a time saver and no complicated settings. Just register online, download the application on your iPhone, synchronize it, and you are ready to copy your contacts to your new iPhone 5.

Register online. 

On your PC, go to https://www.phonecopy.com or just click the logo above. Choose to register and a confirmation email will be sent. Go to your email and confirm.

Download App

On your source iPhone(where the contacts you want to copy), download the phone copy application using iTunes. Sign in with the credentials you have associated with phone copy and press synchronize. 

During the synchronization, you will be asked to choose which way you want to synchronize, from the device to the server or from the server to the device. Obviously for the first time, you want to copy all your contacts from your device to the server. This would take a minute or two depending on the number of contacts in your phone.

Edit Contacts. 

Check the synchronized contacts by logging in with your PC ( why PC?  It is easier to edit documents with a laptop or PC), and delete or  edit your contacts as necessary. 

Do not worry if you've deleted a contact accidentally as the deleted contacts will be in a separate folder and can be reverted in just a click.

Synchronize on the New iPhone 5

On your new iPhone 5, download the same application and log in with the same credentials as the old iPhone. Click synchronize, this time from the server to this device,  and you're done!

This application supports Android devices as well.  Just follow the same procedure and you can sync contacts from apple to android or vice versa.

Edit Mobile Videos With FreeMake

Download Freemake Video Converter

Do you take videos with your phone? I usually do, because mobiles are more handy to bring along than a proper video camera. But most of the time I am not aware that it is up-side-down or tilted to the left or to the right when I use it. Who cares, specially when I only play it back with the phone I took the video with. I am confident that it will be corrected automatically with the auto rotate function of the phone later during playback.

The problem arises when I try to upload it online. The resulting video will be tilted to the right and there's nothing the viewers can do than to tilt their heads inline with the video's orientation. There is a basic built in video editor in my phone that can do the job of correctly reorienting the video, but there is a free program that can do this and can do more. It is a free program that can be downloaded for windows or apple. It is easy to use and can output the edited video into popular formats and has a button to upload it into social networks straight away.

Editing Videos with Freemake Video Converter

The most common problem when you are shooting a video with your mobile is the orientation of the resulting clip. Most often, the video is tilting sideways when you shoot a clip with the phone upright. Freemake can help you easily reorient the movie correctly.

1. After download of the software(just click the logo above ) the first step is to transfer the mobile phone movie to your computer where the Freemake Video Converter software is installed. 

2.Then open up the software, click Video+, go to the directory of the movie and select it from there. It should register in the software's interface.

3. The next step is to trim the movie by clicking on the editing room button(1).This will get you into the editing mode where you can cut the part of the movie you do not want. To cut or discard a part of the movie, slide the button of the time line to the part you want to discard and click the first scissors button(2). This will mark the beginning of the part you do not like. Then move the timeline button up to the part that you do not like, then click the last scissors icon(3). This will mark the end of the cut. Then click the third scissors button to delete the selected scenes(4).

Do it again on the parts you want to discard.

4. After trimming and discarding the parts you did not want, re-orient your video by rotating it into 90%  clockwise by clicking the CW button, or CCW if the video is rotated the other way. Do not forget to click OK to save the changes.

5. Now you are ready to convert the video. Click on the convert button and choose which format you want. If you want to play your video into a another portable devices like PSP, iPhone, iPad, iPod,  and others,  choose MP4. After conversion, you can load the converted file and upload it to youtube, or transfer it to any device. 

There is also an option to upload your videos straight away to youtube. Personally I prefer to convert it first  into mp4 before uploading because I find it faster.

Why convert? 

Raw videos taken from a HD or high frame rate smart phones are much larger in size and if you upload these videos without converting first could take sometime, as the website you upload to will still do the conversion  into smaller package. 

Converting them into smaller sizes can reduce the upload time significantly and reduce the time before your videos become live or ready to view.

6. If the cutting of your videos resulted in creating many clips, or you want to join other clips in one continuous video, just open them all in the freemake's interface and turn on join clips, click convert and choose your conversion parameters!

The resulting clip edited with Freemake showing some clips during the launch of the Windows 8 phone in London with my "borrowed" identity!

Play Mobile Mp3 from Any device

Nothing is easier to get music tracks than downloading them from the internet. A 10-a-day download would fill up a decent collection in a month. But how do you usually play these music, I bet with a headphone, or  perhaps a music dock, if you want to share it among everyone in the room.

Music docks come in variety of  shapes, sizes and prices. And most of the time the more expensive it is, the better it sounds. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but sometimes, we just need a little device to play these music into our existing stereo system, if ever we have one, thus saving us money and too much clutter of devices we've replaced.

How?

There are four connections that I know of and have been using to stream the music content of my phone(or any multimedia devices, including PC'c and laptops) into our existing stereo system and car stereo. They are cheap and the method of connection is "you can do it your self".

• Using 3.5mm out.

This is the easiest, cheapest and simplest way.

This type of audio out on most smartphones are handy, as this only needs a simple 3.5mm to 3.5mm male to male connector to connect to most, if not all, stereo players that have an audio input port. Connection is simple, just put one end to your smartphone's headphone port and the other end to the stereo's input port. You just need to adjust the stereo source into it's auxiliary channel to hear the music, just like what you do with a stereo dock.

Where to get the 3.5mm to 3.5mm, male to male connector? Please see below.

3.5mm to 3.5mm Male to Male Connector

• Using Radio Signal 

The advantage of this connection compared to a wired one is there is no  need to physically connect your device into the stereo's input port. You can play it wirelessly by connecting a transmitter to stream music into the FM channel of your stereo. Useful when the stereo system has a difficult to reach input port or physical connection is not possible like no input auxiliary port like in radio receivers. 

This device needs power to work, and it can be battery or mains powered. I myself prefer a dual powered device that can take both battery and mains. This saves the need for batteries in case you'll use this often. 

Procedure is quite simple, just connect the 3.5mm cord of the transmitter into the headphone jack of your phone, then select and set the transmission range. In your stereo, set the channel into FM mode and adjust the frequency range to the same frequency that you've set on the transmitter. Then play your music.

If you have a problem with the output sound like not clear, inaudible or garbled, try turning down the volume from your phone, say put it into the middle volume only and control the overall volume from the stereo. This is to eliminate over modulation of the signal that is being transmitted for better sound. 

If the sound being played on your stereo is not that loud even when you turned up the maximum of the stereo, check if there is a volume adjustment from the transmitter. If there's none,  try turning it up from your mobile phone.

FM Transmitter

• Using Bluetooth Signal

All smartphones are bluetooth enabled and you can use this to stream music into a bluetooth receiver. Bluetooth enabled stereo are out the market though has a higher tag price. But who needs those if you have an existing stereo already? You can bluetooth enable it easily by a suitable bluetooth music receiver.

Like the FM transmitter, this device uses power to work. Most of these devices has a built in rechargeable battery that can lasts for up to 12 hours. The connection is opposite compared with the FM transmitter. The device is connected into the input port of the stereo. Turn on the bluetooth on you both of the devices and pair your mobile phone. On your mobile phone, go to the name of the bluetooth receiver and tick the service that streams music, Media Audio. Play your music and your phone should be wirelessly streaming the sound into the receiver and the receiver into the stereo's input port.

The signal should at least decent on up to 10 meters of transmission distance.

Bluetooth Music Receiver

• Using Booth Bluetooth and FM transmission

This is the one in my car, a receiver and a transmitter in one. The device receives signal from the phone through bluetooth and transmits it through FM signals into the car's FM stereo. It can be powered by a rechargeable battery or by the car's cigarette socket. There are devices that can only receive  telephone calls and others can  take both telephone and multimedia sounds. So be careful when you buy one to avoid disappointment.

Setting up is also easy, pair the bluetooth connection to both devices (mobile and the device), and pair the device's FM transmission setting to your car stereo's FM frequency. I usually use 88.1 which is the lowest and most accessible on both the device and the car's radio.

Bluetooth FM Transmitter

My Thoughts

New devices are created everyday,  but if we think of it, some are just redundant to existing ones. The ability to innovate and to know how to turn these existing devices into something that can enhance their potential is all we need to enjoy the technology offered by these new gadgets. It is not just saving money, but somehow putting this old gadgets into their usefullness, longer.

Simple Fix For Internet Connectivity

There's nothing more annoying than an internet connection not working. Like the annoyance of a power cut in an early evening or TV signal is off when a favourite program is on,  what makes it really annoying is it coincides when you're doing something important or real urgent. Although the interruption is not permanent, sometimes it is enough to ruin your day waiting for the service to resume.

I really do not know the real reason behind it as to what causes the problem but there are situations that I noticed to contribute to the non connectivity. And maybe you experience the same situations, too.

1. Am I Connected or Disconnected?

One situation is when the power of the laptop is low. The connectivity button icon looks like it still connected but when you open up a page, it says "check internet connection", the page does not load and the usual animation of blinking lights between the two computer screen icons is static.


 

 What happens when the laptop is low in power is it tends to conserve the remaining battery and in effect, wireless connectivity is affected, thus losing internet conectivity. The icon might not change or shows an X for no connection symbol.

To avoid this problem, you can change the power saving option so that the laptop will not turn off the wi-fi signal when it is low in power. 

 

Click >Start>type in Device Manager>click the + at the Network Adaptors>right click Wireless Adaptor> click Properties> Power Management>untick Allow computer to turn off the device to save power>click OK

 



2. Can't Acceess Particular Sites

 

Sometimes, even when you are sure and have no doubt that your laptop is connected to your router, you can not open up a particular web page, but has no problem accessing other sites. It seems like  it got stuck particularly at that page. Like when you are logging in into a social network but it seems like it's forever loading the page. The social network profile update doesn't seem to be happening, or downloads and uploads seem not going anywhere.

The simple solution for this is to empty the cache of the browser.

During web surfing, the computer saves a copy of the webpages you visit in the browser's cache for later use. This makes pages load faster as the computer fetches data within the cache and not from the site. But when the copy of the site is already outdated and the data that were stored are no longer available, the computer makes an "unreachable" call and comes back with an error message.

To empty the cache in internet explorer, click tools>internet explorer options> under browsing history, click delete> tick Temporary Internet Files>click delete.

In Google Chrome, type in chrome://chrome/settings/clearBrowserData at the address bar and tick empty the cache>click Clear Browsing Data.

3. One of My Devices Can Not Access the Internet

There are also times that the router restricts a device to get an internet connection. Whilst everyone is enjoying the internet with their devices, it seems like my laptop or smartphone can not get an internet  signal, even when it says, it is connected to local and internet access.

What I do to fix this is to disconnect then reconnect again to my router. If this does not work, click diagnose and repair. The computer usually fix any connection problem.

Another solution for this problem is to forget and re add the network.


Goto control panel> network and sharing center > click manage wireless networks> highlight your wireles network> click remove

Once you've removed your network, reconnect to it by right clicking at the wi-fi connection icon (previous screen shot 2 above)> connect to network, you need to re-enter your network key.

4. Router not working, or the lights on the router do not blink.

 

When all of a sudden, all of your connected devices can not access the internet, you noticed your router stops blinking and it's internet lights turns amber rather than the usual green(or blue on other brands), there might be a problem with your connection! But before calling your internet service provider you can do the following.

 

 

 

Turn off your router and wait for sometime before turning it on. If there is no on or off button, you can just remove the mains plug from it. If the colour of the internet light turns out to be normal, then you can try to see if it can give you internet connection.

 

 

If the internet button is green but not blinking and you can not access any web page, then it is worth disconnecting and reconnecting your filter. This is a small device, that splits the telephone socket into two, one for your telephone and one for the router. check your other cables connected to the router as well for breakage. If you are using a long extension cable from the main telephone socket into the filter and router, try connecting without the long extension cable.

 

You can also reset your router into it's factory default, but be sure to re enter your internet security key on it's web interface.

 

 

If you've checked all of these and still your router's internet button is not greenish in colour or intermittently turning from green to amber, then you should call your internet service provider for assistance. It might be just a case of transient signal failure from their side!