I spent the afternoon Thursday packaging up a set of tray tables I’d built to fill an order. It had taken me a long time to build the tables and my client had been very patient with me. It was time to request his payment and process a shipping label. I went to my computer.
I went to PayPal to send my client: Phil, a request for payment. Unable to connect. I checked my network status: connected to LAN, no internet gateway. That usually means the modem has gone wonky and I need to reboot it. I was on my way over to do that when my cellphone rang.
I carry a cellphone as emergency communication between my wife, Marie, and I. No other reason. This had to be Marie – unless it was a wrong number or robo-caller, which does happen from time to time. It was Marie.
She had been trying to call me on our home phone but was getting a “Not available” message. She wanted to let me know that their internet was down at work. That is a big deal since much of the data processing work they do is done over the internet on remote servers. She had heard that a wreck on Highway 25/70 took out some necessary infrastructure and a large area was blacked out and without phone or cable.
By this time I was in the office and could see that the modem was not receiving any signal from Comcast. My problem was external; rebooting won’t help. Cable TV was out too. I am electronically MAROONED!
I spent the rest of that afternoon and evening getting a lesson on just how dependent I have become on the internet. Most immediate: I needed to notify Phil that his tables are done and send him a PayPal invoice so I could receive payment. Then I needed to process a shipping label and schedule a pick-up with FedEx. None of which could I do.
I have no phone service because our primary phone is a VOIP service.
I kept catching myself going to the computer to check Facebook or Twitter. OK, well, I’ll work on a web site… no, can’t do that. I can write, I’ll work on my current article some more. But I needed to do fact checking: that needs the internet.
I grabbed my Kindle and decided to read. I finished my current book. There is a sequel, do I want to buy it? Let’s check it out… no… that requires WiFi (which I had) and internet connection to Amazon.com (which I didn’t).
So I settled in with a paper book and my cup of coffee. I took a sip: ugh! It’s tepid. I can drink coffee hot or iced, but tepid is … ugh. Fortunately we do have power, the microwave works, so I could heat it up.
When Marie got home from work she too fell into the pattern, “I’ll just check the news…” no: can’t. “OK, then I’ll just…” Nope, can’t do that either. Finally she settled in with the newspaper she brought home with her and read that front to back.
We went to bed early.
This morning we’re back on line. I processed the invoice and caught up on some reading and posting. I’m not feeling marooned any more. But it does make me wonder how well I’d fare if the internet ever went out for a long time. News feeds talk about terrorist strikes and hacker attacks. ISIS is technologically savvy and hates western civilization. Russian hackers have been engaged in DNS poisoning that shuts down big blocks of ISP services for 24 hours or so. It is not beyond the realm of possibility.
How many businesses could not do business? How many banks could not manage their accounts? How many people would lose a major line of communication? I do know people – no: I know ONE person – who has no internet at all. No computer and would not have one if you paid him. He gets along just fine, but he does have a cell phone and depends on it heavily. If wireless communications went down, he’d be hurting too. It does give one pause for thought.
ya, we are hooked