Getting the best performance from your Telco router - clearing the cache

By design, all routers, including your Telco router, store information about the websites you visit. Info like IP addresses (website locations) helps you navigate from site to site more efficiently. But your router could also save errors along with the good info. When that happens, it can cause trouble visiting certain websites or opening some applications.

Luckily, the fix is easy.

What is my router's DNS cache?

The DNS cache is where your router saves IP addresses and other information related to websites.

Why do routers save information in their cache at all?

Your router saves multiple types of website and connection information to help you connect to websites efficiently. (things like admin activities, uptime, IP addresses, domain names and devices)

When you want to see a website, your computer sends a request to a remote server which has to respond before you see anything. All this happens very quickly. Once you make that request, connected systems including your router check to see if the address or routing information to reach the destination is already saved before trying to acquire it from scratch. It's faster to reach the website if the info is already saved. Having to make a new connection every single time you view every website you visit would make it take a lot longer for you to navigate around the internet.

Using saved (also known as cached) information that could potentially be outdated or contain errors rarely creates issues and the benefits far outweigh the occasional snag.

Why is it important to clean the cache from my router?

To prevent those occasional snags.

Your router remembers everything including when it makes a simple mistake, and outdated or incomplete information won't help you get anywhere. There's also a possibility some of that stored information could become unstable and the files become corrupt. All this can get in the way of you moving around smoothly online or can interfere with opening some applications.

Knowing there could be saved mistakes, errors or outdated info, it just makes sense to clear those out of the memory. This allows your router to run better without being bogged down by past problems. A clean slate.

Clearing the cache in your router

As simple as it may sound, the best way to clear the DNS cache in your Telco router is by doing a simple power cycle. In other words, turn it off and then back on.

See? We told you it was easy to fix.

1. Unplug the power cable from either the router itself or the wall plug.
2. Wait 30 seconds.
3. Plug the power cable back in.
4. The router will fully reboot within about two minutes. (you'll see all the lights back on)

This will clear any temporary files saved in the router's memory so the router starts fresh.