At The Atlantic,
James Fallows has a guest columnist with an interesting story. In the San Juan Islands, in Washington State, most communications with the outside world go through one undersea cable, which has broken.
This past Tuesday morning, a large portion of an entire United States county woke up to find itself without cell phone service or access to the internet, and nobody in the county had long distance phone service. This is not an alternate-history fantasy; this county is totally dependent for virtually all its telecommunications on one private phone company, Centurylink.
For folks living on islands, this is kind of a big deal. You can't just hop in your car and drive to somewhere where you can make a phone call. Because it's an undersea cable, repair could take awhile. A few places (the library and a few businesses) had a different connection to the outside world, and still had functioning internet.
On the other hand, many of the electronic haves, most of whom have access to the power co-op's fiber, are sharing with the have-nots: the alternate ISP in Friday Harbor is opening its usually subscriber-only hotspots to the public; some coffee shops are allowing noncustomers access to their service; I saw a sign on the hardware store advertising free wi-fi. The parking lots of the power co-op and the library are full. There are no free seats at the library. OPALCO, which is a national expert in underwater cable technology, immediately offered to help Centurylink with repair work.
In my personal view, the real heroes so far are the San Juan Island Library and OPALCO. The library staff has been patiently and cheerfully helping folks with their computers and programs, after having set up extra work spaces in the main areas.
, work arounds are beginning to get some 911 and some phone service back.
Sounds like a good reason to get into Ham radio.
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