The Disgraceful Duke
Nov. 28th, 2012 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyOh, lovely, lovely internet, how I've missed you!
Last Thursday morning, f-list, the City by the Sea's telephone exchange burnt down. This means: no landlines, no internet, no mobile reception (except for people on one of the smaller providers). Also: limited ATM and EFTPOS access. Mobile reception came back over the weekend, although it's patchy; my home landline is meant to be on by the end of the week; internet connection could take another month.
They are concentrating on getting services back to businesses first. We had to close our office for two days, as we couldn't even access our servers. They fixed that on Monday; yesterday, our phones and internet came back. (Our boss has given us permission to use the internet for personal stuff (within reason) until home access is back to normal. Nice man.)
So that's been fun. Things are getting back to normal. Or to a new normal. Banks had queues out the door and down the street for the first few days, since they were only letting a few people in at a time (and limiting the amount of cash they could withdraw). The local paper is being saved onto a USB and driven to Ballarat to be put together and printed. (Just like me! I wrote this at home and brought it to work on a USB.) I feel sorry for the shop keepers. They've all got signs on their windows: CASH ONLY or WE HAVE EFTPOS! (NO CASH OUT). In their busiest time of the year, too.
It emerged this morning that the exchange burning down was not part of Telstra's disaster recovery plan, which makes me wonder what *was* on it. Running out of cakes for morning tea?
Last Thursday morning, f-list, the City by the Sea's telephone exchange burnt down. This means: no landlines, no internet, no mobile reception (except for people on one of the smaller providers). Also: limited ATM and EFTPOS access. Mobile reception came back over the weekend, although it's patchy; my home landline is meant to be on by the end of the week; internet connection could take another month.
They are concentrating on getting services back to businesses first. We had to close our office for two days, as we couldn't even access our servers. They fixed that on Monday; yesterday, our phones and internet came back. (Our boss has given us permission to use the internet for personal stuff (within reason) until home access is back to normal. Nice man.)
So that's been fun. Things are getting back to normal. Or to a new normal. Banks had queues out the door and down the street for the first few days, since they were only letting a few people in at a time (and limiting the amount of cash they could withdraw). The local paper is being saved onto a USB and driven to Ballarat to be put together and printed. (Just like me! I wrote this at home and brought it to work on a USB.) I feel sorry for the shop keepers. They've all got signs on their windows: CASH ONLY or WE HAVE EFTPOS! (NO CASH OUT). In their busiest time of the year, too.
It emerged this morning that the exchange burning down was not part of Telstra's disaster recovery plan, which makes me wonder what *was* on it. Running out of cakes for morning tea?