Woke up this morning to find the Internet down. Not just the broadband at home, but all of our phones as well. Optus had fallen over. I shrugged it off at first, thinking, well, at least I won't be tempted to waste time on Facebook. I'll be able to get an early start at work. And I was, except, of course, that I couldn't access any of the online tools I normally use.
It was certainly remarkable, and you know with all the concerns from ministers, senior executives, directors all demanding updates and 'when will it be restored' the actual 2 techs who have been around long enough to know where the code was patched last to actually try and fix it were saying "this would probably resolve faster if I could spend the time doing it and not having to update 8 different directors every 15 minutes". Also anyone want to guess if the cause is ever determined that there was a document filed by a dissatisfied tech probably in the last 18 months who has been desperately trying to make management aware that there was a critical point which could fail catastrophically unless we invest the time and resources, they final gave up a left when it was pencilled into the 2029/2030 budget estimates.
Part of me wonders if people raced off to the various Telstra shops to get a prepaid to tide them over.
That said, I have a friend that has an Aldi phone on the family deal that uses it primarily for hotspotting because the amount of datat they get is insane (and you can have 4 phones on the deal for $80 a month). We use the same deal here (because we have 4 people in the household), and sometimes I'll forget to turn off hotspotting and use it all night and not even notice the difference between the NBN speed and the hotspotting speed (I've even watched movies, etc on Netflix). The first time this happened the only reason I knew it happened was because I forgot to plug my phone into the charger and it beeped at me in the morning to tell me it was down to 10% power...
Yes, it seems a cheap backup phone with a different provider and one of those wireless transistor radios that were all the rage amongst us kiddies in 1970 London are becoming essentials. Maybe I can steal my 88yo neighbours wireless when he's fallen asleep to Ray Hadley again.
Starlink in Oz is A$ 139 per month for the residential option. The hardware is A$599 or if you can work with used/refurbished kit it's A$299. Check though if you can get signal at the compound. You can do that through the app.
This triggered a strong urge to re-listen to Fail State, and also made me grateful that I refused to give one telco all my business. I lost my mobile coverage but iinet had me covered with interwebs, which sadly meant that I had no choice but to rock up to work. My product manager was forced to hotspot off his phone all day as his broadband was dead 😂
After years of shit service from Optus, although we still use them for broadband, we have Telstra phones, and a back up wireless modem with 50Gb not expiring for 12 months, also Telstra, so we're covered when shit goes down. Handy today for sure.
Someone should write a book about this!
It was certainly remarkable, and you know with all the concerns from ministers, senior executives, directors all demanding updates and 'when will it be restored' the actual 2 techs who have been around long enough to know where the code was patched last to actually try and fix it were saying "this would probably resolve faster if I could spend the time doing it and not having to update 8 different directors every 15 minutes". Also anyone want to guess if the cause is ever determined that there was a document filed by a dissatisfied tech probably in the last 18 months who has been desperately trying to make management aware that there was a critical point which could fail catastrophically unless we invest the time and resources, they final gave up a left when it was pencilled into the 2029/2030 budget estimates.
I just finished zero day code today. The timing of that was rather serendipitous and very funny at the same time.
Part of me wonders if people raced off to the various Telstra shops to get a prepaid to tide them over.
That said, I have a friend that has an Aldi phone on the family deal that uses it primarily for hotspotting because the amount of datat they get is insane (and you can have 4 phones on the deal for $80 a month). We use the same deal here (because we have 4 people in the household), and sometimes I'll forget to turn off hotspotting and use it all night and not even notice the difference between the NBN speed and the hotspotting speed (I've even watched movies, etc on Netflix). The first time this happened the only reason I knew it happened was because I forgot to plug my phone into the charger and it beeped at me in the morning to tell me it was down to 10% power...
I'm excited at the idea of a battery-powered dictionary/thesaurus, for use in cases of emergencies.
Yes, it seems a cheap backup phone with a different provider and one of those wireless transistor radios that were all the rage amongst us kiddies in 1970 London are becoming essentials. Maybe I can steal my 88yo neighbours wireless when he's fallen asleep to Ray Hadley again.
Starlink in Oz is A$ 139 per month for the residential option. The hardware is A$599 or if you can work with used/refurbished kit it's A$299. Check though if you can get signal at the compound. You can do that through the app.
Welcome to my world, with semi-reliable rural internet.
This triggered a strong urge to re-listen to Fail State, and also made me grateful that I refused to give one telco all my business. I lost my mobile coverage but iinet had me covered with interwebs, which sadly meant that I had no choice but to rock up to work. My product manager was forced to hotspot off his phone all day as his broadband was dead 😂
After years of shit service from Optus, although we still use them for broadband, we have Telstra phones, and a back up wireless modem with 50Gb not expiring for 12 months, also Telstra, so we're covered when shit goes down. Handy today for sure.