How do I get online for the first time?

Connect your router's WAN port to the wall port with an Ethernet cable, give it a couple of minutes to come up, then run a wired speed test.

Plug your router into the wall port and give it a couple of minutes.

  1. Run an Ethernet cable from the wall port to your router's WAN or Internet port — usually the odd-colored one, set apart from the numbered LAN ports.
  2. Power on the router and wait for it to finish booting. Two to three minutes is normal.
  3. Connect a device to your Wi-Fi, or plug it into a LAN port, and open any website.

Run your first speed check

Test with a wired device plugged into your router. Wi-Fi is shared with everything else in your home and through your walls, so a Wi-Fi test measures your Wi-Fi, not your fiber line. On a wired test you should see close to your plan's rated speed in both directions — on Gigabit, roughly 1,000 Mbps down and 1,000 Mbps up. A lopsided result usually means you tested over Wi-Fi.

If nothing loads at all, reboot the router once — unplug it, count to thirty, plug it back in — and re-check the cable is in the WAN port, not a LAN port.

Your account, billing, and service details live at myaccount.bostonbroadband.com.

If that didn’t work

call (617) 693-9434, Mon–Fri 8am–6pm ET, or email [email protected] with what the router's lights are doing.

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Talk to us

Call (617) 693-9434, Monday to Friday 8am–6pm ET, or email [email protected]. We answer within 24 hours, and usually within an hour.

Boston Broadband is a service-area business serving Boston, Brookline and Cambridge, Massachusetts. There is no counter to walk up to — phone, email and your account at myaccount.bostonbroadband.com are the ways in.