I woke up yesterday morning to a national blackout of my internet provider, Rogers Communications. This kind of thing sometimes happens, for no adequately explained reason, but the outage doesn’t last more than an hour or so. Yesterday, we were out from early morning to almost midnight…
A communications data centre: All messed up…
We still don’t know why Rogers Internet services were totally down for a whole day. There were dark rumours circulating yesterday that the Russians had hacked the network in reprisal for Canada joining the international club of countries sanctioning the Big Red Bear for its attack on Ukraine. But because other competing communications service providers were not targeted, I think that was just the usual hiding-in-the-basement conspiracy theorists talking.
You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone
With Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi playing in my head, I sat dazed in front of a screen that was suddenly useless.
Since Windows 10 was foist upon us, an internet connection has been essential to make anything happen with Microsoft applications – and any others you now have to subscribe to off the Cloud. And your data stored in the Cloud is likewise unavailable.
But the big thing for me was the inability to write a blog post. Not only was my authoring platform useless, but I was totally unable to do the usual research it takes to perform due diligence on the task. Nor had I access to e-mail, Skype and other services I have come to take for granted; have made essential components of my personal communications operating system.
All our comms eggs in one basket
Our Internet connection is supplied by Rogers Communications, one of the two largest providers in Canada. You pay a premium, but you (usually) get the stability, speed and reliability you think you’re buying.
Thing is, we also get our smart phone and home phone connections from Rogers. And our multi-hundred-channel TV service. The cable goes out, it all goes out.
In summary, yesterday was like a power failure, but with the lights on, the fridge humming and the air conditioner whooshing.
Meanwhile, out in the world, stores were operating as usual, but debit card transactions were unavailable. Some credit card transaction approval services were apparently available, operating on non-Rogers networks. Critically, many phone customers were unable to reach 911.
As a result…
I’m going to let Fast Food Week pass this time around. But just think what a rich lode of salty, fatty, sugary sinfulness next Saturday will bring! Stay tuned for Sunday Musings as usual tomorrow…
~ Maggie