How Important is your Internet Service to You?
We rely on the Internet more and more as every year goes by, or so it seems. Long gone are the days when the World Wide Web was a myth, and only the super-rich or the super-geek has an Internet connection. Long gone are the days when a connection was limited to 28kbps and was only on for an hour a day, or periodically to check emails. In this era of global technology and communications, every home and office has a permanent link to the Internet that is always on.
Twenty years ago, if you wanted to find something out, you’d probably have to visit a library, or look it up in a collection of encyclopedias. If you wanted to buy food, you’d go to the supermarket, or if you wanted to browse for a new TV or gadget, you’d go to an electrical outlet and look around. Now, we can Google virtually any fact we like and get the answer instantly, we can do our grocery shopping online and have it delivered directly to our doors, and for anything else there are a multitude of Internet companies selling electrical goods that offer significant savings to those found in actual shops.
So the question is, with all these services that enable us to do virtually anything from the comfort of our armchairs, are we getting to dependent on our Internet connections? Have you ever wondered what would happen if the Internet were to be disconnected globally just for one day? Is your Internet connection really just as important as your gas or electricity supply?
For many people, especially those who run a business from home, the answer to this question could be a resounding yes! The Internet being down for just a day could devastate a business that operates on a schedule and to tight deadlines. This is why many service providers promise an always-on service with 99.999% uptime, for companies and people who simply must have the Internet at all times. Some people even go to the length of installing more than one Internet line into their homes and offices, just for the occasion when one service goes down. Imagine if you have a small workforce working online. You still have to pay these people, even if they are unable to do their work due to a service disruption. Without electricity, you can run computers on battery backup or a generator for a number of hours, but if your working environment is in the cloud, you’re truly stumped without your Internet.
Many people are also looking at satellite connections and mobile phone technology to provide backups to their primary Internet connections. After all, having more than one cable into your home or office is no good if a construction worker puts a spade through a bundle of cables at the end of your street!
So think to yourself. What would you do without the Internet for a day, or a week? How would you get on? What kind of inconvenience would it be? How much money would you lose? Should you consider backing up your connection with an alternative service?
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If I lost the internet, I would be faced with some inconveniences. The biggest of these would be having to drive to the library to do research for my writing. Also, I’d have to shop at the local mall which, with the ailing economy, offers mostly closed doors and boarded windows. I would miss email, and would have to make more phone calls. Maybe that is not a bad thing. My social life, such as it is, is not conducted online so the absence of FB and Twitter would not pose a problem. What I would miss, is catching up on the news and surfing around to find out what is new in shareware. However, lately the news is bad and shareware is fading, so the fun part of the internet – for me – is dying. Unplug.
Without Internet? Maybe no problem. As long as i know, i can go online whenever i want. But if i couldn’t and know that i could – i would go through the roof – seriously!
Been there done that. Thought I would die with out.
A week goes by and all is still well.
So guess I could live without it once again if I had too. Notice I said “again”. I had no Internet until I was 8 (and that was only 28k and then finally 56k a few years later).
But yes very important and the day sucks without it. But I can live without it at the moment.
So while it might not be as important to me as air or water, or sleep, the Internet is still a priority. for sure. In fact I just bought a UPS last night. Power went out twice this past week and driving me crazy.
Pretty sad when you are wiling to spend most if not all your income on Internet related activities. ;)
I was without internet for 4 weeks when switching my ISP from AT&T to Comcast. It felt like fasting on food and water for a week:(
i use internet all the time, but when i go to a travel or somenthing i try to get away of it. i dont like mobile devices (smartphone, laptop), so normally its easy, and i dont want go to a cybercafe on my vacation.
I use the internet daily for work and play but could survive a day or two without it – inconvenient certainly but not the end of the world and wouldn’t result in financial loss.
Have yet to experience any loss of internet access lasting more than a day but if it ever happened then I would consider mobile 3G broadband (cheapest monthly pay as you go option) as a temporary alternative – but only if I really had to, I pay enough for internet as it is.
It’s blood through my veins.
The internet is very important to me, even though I don’t require it on the level that many businesses do. It’s one of the most important requirements for my current housing/apartment search: What are the choices for internet access, and how fast are they? While I have other requirements as well, the type and speed of the internet is one of the most important; I would, and have, rejected places that had everything else I wanted but the options for internet were either too slow or too restricted.
At this point, the internet is as important to me as food, shelter and running water! I simply can’t imagine going even a day without it.
I live at the Internet :-)