A BROADBAND BREAK AND THE TELEPHONE TOO

When we were cut off our broadband and telephone line by a damaged sub sea cable last week,  I thought I would do a bit more reading, even finish a book that I have been dipping into for some time, and  get to the end another book that was given me to read.  I intended to browse newspapers for a change and watch various news channels on the TV.  Thank goodness our media was not part of the internet package.  We did at least we did have that and the radio.

                                                               
The broadband service and telephone were restored in the late/early hours of Saturday/Sunday morning. All digits crossed it stays connected. Just in case it does not, I am busy catching up with correspondence and other communications.
                                  
I don't think 3G has arrived here yet,  let alone 4G, which, is being touted as the latest and best communication link to buy into.  My smart phone was severely  limited with what I could do with it for back up -I couldn't access the internet at all unless I went into a shop or a café that had wifi on offer to customers.  Where I live, there are only two businesses like that.  So, I made time to go to one or other of those places.  It was the time that I could have curled up with a book or browsed a newspaper.

I did though, watch a variety of news channels on T.V.  I glanced at one newspaper, the local bi-weekly rag.  Apart from a great picture of a relative in it, there was not much to read.  I often wonder why I buy it...the answer is the one that everyone gives; you buy it in case you miss something. I did get to the end of a chapter and the start of the next, in one of the books.

MUSINGS FROM AN INTERNET OUTAGE

An area the size of the country of Wales suffered an internet outage which lasted at least 18 hours for some people, and 22 hours for others, like me. There was a problem at the telephone exchange (how old fashioned a term is that). The general and cynical suggestion is, that the technicians and engineers were trying to 'improve' something. It is certainly the simplest and most likely explanation. The next simplest ones would be either a failure in the system or incompetence. Of course, there's no denying that it could have been all of those factors.

What did we do with the space, the temporary internet hole in our lives?

I messed about in the kitchen preparing nosh, nothing unusual about that.

Hubby watched TV. That has become an unusual activity.

We had talked about the endless possibilities that caused the failure of our internet service, and
re-booted the router several times.

I phoned a friend, also affected by the outage, who really wanted to chat for a change. His day was not the best day ever.

My most recent digital photos were uploaded onto my P.C. and sorted a bit sooner than they might have been.

This morning, I was awake early and crept in to the living room to see if hubby was surfing his blog and auction sites. There wasn't a computer to be seen. We were still without an internet connection. Hubby was contemplative, it went like this:

If an internet communication system fails, what else can fail. Wind turbines are remotely controlled, is there some backup support system for them? (They aren't a major provider of fuel, they don't work if there is no wind or if there's a gale).

Next, what if the major stores lost their central 'nervous' systems. What arrangements have they got in place to remain functioning nationwide. they would lose automated stock control, but what else? So many of the major stores these days, provide services over and above domestic food shopping; optical health provision, prescription pharmacy, financial services. You never know, they may have to go back to basics, and be food provisioning stores for a while, that's if people could get access to their own money during that time.