The Day The Web Died

No Internet for three days and not by choice. It happened at Halloween in Maine.

Imagine life without the Internet. Hard? Just ask state officials in Maine to tell you about the ugly surprise they had on Halloween.

On Oct. 30, Sprint Nextel (nyse: S – news – people ) severed its last connection to Cogent Communications (nasdaq: CCOI – news – people ), disconnecting two of the Internet’s five largest backbones. Instantly, major American and Canadian universities lost contact with each other. Officials in Maine’s state government found they couldn’t link up with many town governments. Millions of Sprint’s wireless broadband customers found themselves cut off from thousands of Web sites. Yet neither the Federal Communications Commission nor the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission took any action to restore global connectivity and the Web stayed broken for three days.

Forbes has the whole story. As I unplugged by choice for a couple of days during the holidays, imagine if you weren’t given a choice over a pissing contest.

Posted by newscoma on Dec 2nd, 2008 and is filed under Tennessee.

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One Response to “The Day The Web Died”

  1. captainkona says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 2:39 pm

    What a nightmare that would be.

    ‘Course…those of us old enough to remember the days before internet and cellphones would just have to work into the old ways again.
    You know, actually having to dial a phone number.
    Maybe walk to our friend’s house to see if they’re home.
    Read a book?

    Heh, it would be amusing enough watching the youngsters walk around like zombies with blank expressions on their faces.

    ….ok, maybe not. There could be suicides.

    Nope, can’t lose the “internets”! They are vital to our ability to separate truth from bullshit.

    ;-]_~