That's weird, only last Sunday I was telling a colleague about the Carrington Supersolar Storm of 1859 after he mentioned that everyone is getting to reliant on technology such as the Internet. He was having a bad day and his Internet wasn't working, to which I replied well at least if there was a repeat of the Carrington supersolar storm at least all the phones will go down as well, so at least folks won't be calling me about the legendary robust Internet technology when it doesn't work anymore.

http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/data_service/space_weather/alert_2011-02-15.html

New Scientist article.

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants/comments/7927.pdf