You are a network administrator for a large organization. One morning, you receive reports from several departments that users are experiencing intermittent network connectivity issues.

The symptoms include slow internet speeds, inability to access network drives, and occasional disconnections from the email server. Given the variety of symptoms and the fact that they are affecting multiple departments, you decide to troubleshoot the issue.

In this scenario, what is the BEST approach to begin troubleshooting the network connectivity issues?

###answer###

Send a memo to all employees asking them to refrain from using the Internet for non$-$work related activities to reduce network load.

Restart all user devices in the affected departments to see if the issues resolve themselves.

Check the organization's internet usage policy to ensure no department is exceeding its bandwidth allocation.

Methodically prove the functionality of each component in the network system, starting from the user access layer and moving towards the core network infrastructure.