Like many people in Canada, life was a little disconnected yesterday.
Around here, we have a couple of different wireless carriers. A couple of the kids are devoted Rogers customers and the other and we are on the Virgin network.
I was reminded just how often we text and communicate with each other during the day. It’s seldom earth shattering and might not be as frequently if we had to pay for the texts but it was enough to leave a bit of a void in the day. As I think most Canadians realize, the Rogers network was experiencing a bunch of problems yesterday.
Rogers says service starting to return after Canada-wide wireless outage
This morning, according to the Rogers’ website, things are almost back to normal.
As per usual, the culprit is a software update and fingers will be pointing at a programming team at Ericsson for the cause.
It’s still early on Tuesday morning as I type this so I don’t know if their services have been restored yet. I’m sure that I will know shortly.
The whole experience is a reminder of how important communications is. After all, these days it’s a service just like electricity and water. If you weren’t affected, that’s great, but picture your day without water. Then, shift to your connected world and imagine life without connections.
Of course, I had to show off to my family what every teacher has – my Plan B. As we all know, every teacher has a Plan B (or C or D or E these days) for when things don’t go right or aren’t available.
There was a time when I kind of thought that I had a monopoly on that as the only computer science teacher in my school. We all know that those now are truly the good ol’ days.
Everyone needs reliable access to technology. Even the old “blue memos” that were in my mailbox every Friday afternoon itemizing what was happening the next week are but a fond memory. Maybe even planning for a week in advance is pointless these days.
As I finish this post, the dog and I have completed our daily stroll; I’m at about 5 100 steps and he has considerably more. But, I was greeted at the door by my wife who indicated that the Rogers side of the family has checked in and let us know that they’re back and connected.
Even if you weren’t affected, maybe this is a good reminder to check to ensure that your personal Plan B is workable and in place. After all, you’d hate to be incommunicado from friends and family because of a failure of one system to launch.
doug --- off the record 