The internet

[Criticalt]

When the post office can't deliver their mail and the phone company can't complete their calls, and the banks can't cash their checks how well will their "backup plans" work ?

One little corner of the internet being down is no big deal, but the whole thing going down takes *a lot* of infrastructure with it.

It would not be seamless but companies realize this may happen and do have plans for internet outage.
The phone lines will still work. People will just have to use phone and paperwork fo awhile.
A stores internal inventory system only needs internet to send the order. That can be done by fax.
The old systems will still work but may take awhile to implement.
The big problem would be people freaking out because they think the world is over.

 

[GOPerfect]

Technically speaking it can't just go down country or world wide unless the power went out. That's what I'm saying.

I'm not smart enough to know either way. Just mass speculation.

 

[NirvanaFan]

It would not be seamless but companies realize this may happen and do have plans for internet outage.
The phone lines will still work. People will just have to use phone and paperwork fo awhile.
A stores internal inventory system only needs internet to send the order. That can be done by fax.
The old systems will still work but may take awhile to implement.
The big problem would be people freaking out because they think the world is over.

I guess it depends on what caused the internet to go down. The phone network is similar to the internet.

Your phone call isn't totally analog anymore. It may be for the last mile to your house, but once it hits your providers network, it's probably turned digital. The PSTN network is almost entirely digital now. Many large companies get their phone service through VOIP now. IP trunking is used to move calls around. If you're talking about the internet going down, more than likely, the phone network would too.

 

[Robin]

I seem to remember Iran shutting down the internet, and China doing a partial block out. How would they make that happen? I have no and know idea.
Robin

 

[NirvanaFan]

I seem to remember Iran shutting down the internet, and China doing a partial block out. How would they make that happen? I have no and know idea.
Robin

They can shut off the internet because they control the Internet service providers.

 

[spat]

It would not be seamless but companies realize this may happen and do have plans for internet outage.
The phone lines will still work. People will just have to use phone and paperwork fo awhile.
A stores internal inventory system only needs internet to send the order. That can be done by fax.
The old systems will still work but may take awhile to implement.
The big problem would be people freaking out because they think the world is over.

The phone lines will not "still work" without the internet. The internet was originally built on the phone network (a T1 line was designed to carry phone calls and was repurposed for data for instance), well, now it's the other way around, the phone network runs over the internet.

You'll still get a dialtone without the internet, and you *might* be able to call your neighbor's house, but forget calling the other side of town, let alone a supplier in another city.

BtW, if you *could* call that supplier, do they have enough people to answer the phones ? Were they paying for 100x the number of people they needed when 99% of their orders were fulfilled automatically ?

 

[Jackalope]

The internet was originally designed for the military, so there are multiple redundancies. It was designed to keep working even if major links were interrupted. The only way it'll go down long term is if a major power interruption occurs, which would take out the core routers. Short term there are multiple provisions for keeping the systems up. So the scenario returns to an EMP, CME or major terrorist attack on the power grid. Otherwise, the internet will keep on chugging along.

 

[Marine Cpl]

BtW, if you *could* call that supplier, do they have enough people to answer the phones ? Were they paying for 100x the number of people they needed when 99% of their orders were fulfilled automatically ?

They'll get enough people along with stacks of paper and pencils to take those orders. They wouldn't just sit back and loose business.

And if the phones were down, they'd also just show up with a similar order from last month.

 

[FrankenCub]

If the Net simply went down due to hardware breakage or a hacker messed something up, that can be fixed pretty fast and would probably be localized. ISP's have plenty of spare parts and techs that would be on the job immediately. Now if it were from a CME or EMP, forget it. The electric, Net, and landlines would be done for, for quite some time. First off the later two require electricity, and we have very few spares for most of the big transformer plants. Then figure in the massive amount of electronics that are needed to keep the Net an landlines working, they'll be fried. Our Internet goes out from a simple storm even after the whole area went through extensive upgrades a couple years ago. All contact will have to be face to face or radio for those who had them protected and self sufficient repeaters.

 

[FrankenCub]

Something else interesting to add to the conversation... watch all 4 videos.
This guy covers some pretty good stuff in his videos and does a lot of research.