So, the DSL modem's radio antenna died.
I knew it was coming. I had to reset it last week, and fortunately that time power cycling it snapped it out of it. The modem is about five years old, and electronics do break and need to be replaced in around that time frame. Yes, all electronics. Your computer, your television, the servers that run DKos, the DNS servers that connect us to each other via the Internet, your phone, even the radio in your car. The life expectancy of the physical components is just about five years. Sometimes you get lucky and they last much longer. Most of the time they begin to show signs of their age, before the hardware fails entirely.
We were lucky it happened today. Two out of four residents of the house are at a convention this weekend. I am always on Ethernet so I'm not affected. The fourth person has grabbed a 14 foot cable and her laptop, and is staked out on the couch.
It's amazing how much we take the Internet for granted today. For a few moments when I realized the hardware was quite literally dying in front of my eyes (the power button is cycling from red to green in utter distress right now), I faced the grim prospect of a weekend without any Internet access.
There's a reason we are campaigning to make broadband Internet a basic right. A utility, like electricity or running water.
I surely could have found a hundred ways to entertain myself without Internet access. I have books I ought to read (although I won't be able to buy any more on my Kindle for a few days.) I have a cross stitch I should finish. I have my own writing to do, including the user's guide that's going to essentially act as my master's thesis.
But all these things can't make up for the fact that I'd be cut off from the rest of civilization today. Within 24 hours I'd be jonesin' so bad I'd probably just go to the nearest Starbucks and camp out until Tuesday (when the replacement modem arrives.)
Then there's the fact that the replacement hardware is going to cost $120. That's for a business class modem and wireless router with overnight shipping. We can afford that money, but what of someone on a fixed income with little wiggle room in the budget? To be fair, AT&T offered to break that cost up over ten months, but I'm well aware that some budgets do not even have the squeak room for an extra $12 on their phone bill.
So for us, this was a moment of serendipity. Good timing on an expected hardware failure, at a time we can afford it.
We're a household, though.
There are businesses out there that do not plan for hardware failures. They do not replace their stuff when it gets old. They don't have any wiggle room in their budgets for a $120 modem, either. I've seen two such businesses go completely under in the last year, as they desperately tried to keep a 6 year old server going and had it basically explode under their noses. We had backups so all their data was fine, but the emergency cost of a $3000 server was enough to topple their books for months. Out of business they went.
I'm glad I'm not a business that's open on the weekend, and I'm glad we have an emergency fund with more than enough to cover a new modem.
I wish everyone, businesses and households alike, could always be so lucky.