Peter Griffin: The terror of being offline for a day

It started out like any other Monday morning. I booted up my laptop, logged on, checked my email and began browsing the world's news websites.

But at 10.48am my electronic routine was shattered - the web traffic inexplicably stopped dead.

I checked my high-speed internet connection - the data packets had dried up. Short broadband outages are relatively common, so I decided to push on using a dial-up internet account.

The 0800 Telecom Xtra number was permanently engaged. Dial-up was a no-show.

I tried ringing Xtra's helpdesk but I couldn't get through.

I turned to mobile Jetstream hoping at least to check my email on my internet-enabled phone. Unable to connect.

I rang friends in Auckland to find out if they were also experiencing connection problems. The calls to their inner-city landlines didn't go through. I tried their mobiles - a patter of beeps signalled disconnected numbers.

It felt like a scene from the Quiet Earth even if it didn't look like one. People still bustled past out in the Wellington streets. Couriers came and went dropping off parcels, trucks engine-braked their way through the city. But it was a different world.

Someone - a yellow-toothed rat and a bloke with a wandering post-hole borer, we'd later discover - had pulled the plug on the net. As a constant web-user, it felt like a vital organ had shut down.

As my confusion grew, the man from the office upstairs wandered the carpark puffing on a cigarette. I'd never seen him do so before, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to him. I feared he'd tell me that his connection was working just fine.

Every few minutes my eyes would wander to the flashing lights on the US Robotics router - the black box linking me at 256Kbps to the internet. The ADSL indicator remained ominously dark. I was flat-lining.

I sent out a few text messages. No replies. I turned on the radio. Plenty of news but nothing hinting of a cyber meltdown.

I wanted to check that I'd paid my internet bill, but how could I?

I started worrying about my Gmail.com email account, where I store all manner of important files. What if an internet disaster had destroyed the precious files and email messages collected there? Surely they mirror Gmail on servers all over the world, I thought.

Pull yourself together, I told myself, thinking of the numerous chores I could get done offline.

I launched myself into some book-keeping. It was pointless. Without access to online banking I didn't know where I was.

I considered wandering down to the bank. The thought scared me. I hadn't spoken to a bank teller in years - couldn't even quote my account number.

Online banking, Eftpos and ATMs are my financial go-betweens. If I'd stuck my head out the door I'd have quickly found all those electronic tools were temporarily dead.

I needed to set up some meetings, but that required emailing or phoning people.

By midday the situation was getting serious. The phone had been eerily silent all day. Sunday morning silent.

I pulled my router apart and stuck a pin in the back to reset it. Nothing.

Finally, the midday news bulletin provided an explanation. No conspiracy against me, no cyber war. Just 100,000 other customers equally as frustrated at being kicked off the internet as a "one-in-a-million" fluke network outage brought Telecom to its knees.

I sank back in my chair relieved. If the people at the stock exchange were twiddling their thumbs unable to trade, I didn't feel so bad about doing so myself.

I revelled in the fact that so many others couldn't communicate either. I wasn't alone!

It was the biggest network outage I could recall. But it didn't matter because we were all out in the cold together.

When I managed to get back onto the internet late Monday afternoon, the geeks were picking over the bones at their virtual clubroom, the New Zealand Network Operators Group (link below).

Drew Collins, the man in charge of communications networks at APN, which publishes the Herald, The Aucklander and a host of other regional newspapers, had cause to be thankful. "Without our redundancy via TelstraClear today we would have lost three of our major newspapers. So full vendor redundancy works, it just costs more," he wrote on NZNOG.

Redundancy. Unfortunately it's a term regular internet users aren't familiar with. Businesses worth their salt make sure they have a back-up plan if their communications provider fails. If you use Telecom as your primary provider, chances are TelstraClear will be your plan B.

Thankfully, widespread internet and phone outages are rare so investing in an internet plan B as a household or small business isn't worth the expense.

And the reality is, Telecom owns the only complete network in the country anyway, with rivals piggybacking on it. That's why Monday's outage also hit ihug, Orcon and dozens of other internet providers.

If Telecom was incredibly unlucky with the double whammy on its network, the communications blackout was a wake-up call for those of us who are dependent on the web to function. It may pay to re-acquaint ourselves with how things were done before e-commerce, email and the internet took the effort out of it for us.