No Data

in #life5 years ago

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On the 6th of December one of the main mobile data providers in the UK, O2, suffered a software failure that left over 30 million of their users without mobile data for a whole day.

Read one survivors harrowing account below...

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It was still dark when I left for work. My train was on time and I hopped on eagerly, glad to be out of the rain.

Aah, this was my favourite time of the morning. The early commute to work. Time to get a seat and get my phone out for some quality Steeming.

The train carriage was oddly quiet.

All the better.

I grabbed a seat and whipped my phone out like it was a sugarlump for an angry horse.

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My internet browser was already open on Steemit. I dragged it down to refresh my feed.

No data connection.

Stated a plain message on my screen.

I chuckled. Stupid phone, of course there was an internet connection. This wasn't the nineties after all.

I checked that airplane mode was off. Yep. Checked my mobile data was on. Yep.

My stomach clenched and gave a little jump as if it were trying to get out of my body and chase a mouse.

No internet? That's odd.

I tried to swallow but my throat was dry.

I rebooted my phone. I'd worked in IT long enough to know all the tricks.

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It came back on.

No data connection.

Sweet Jebus!! My phone was fucked!? I had no internet. How in the hell was I supposed to get through the next twenty minutes!?

I looked around the carriage. It was only then I noticed the depressed pale faces of my fellow passengers. No-one was on their phones? No-one. It was like I had traveled back in time.

Fuck! What was that!?!

Nearby me someone had pulled a book out of their bag!? A fucking book? In this day and age?

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Hot flaming shit, this was obviously the end of days. I looked around again, panic stricken that I might see a skeleton charging through the carriage on a white steed, mowing people down with his cold iron scythe.

Fuck, there's no fucking internet?

Muttered the guy next to me as he glared at his phone. He turned to me, his mouth slowly opening.

No! Don't do it!? He wasn't going to do it was he? Surely he wasn't going to break the unwritten covenant of public transport travel and talk to me?

He did.

You got the internet on your phone mate?

What the fuck? Did I look Italian? Oh no wait, he said internet not spaghetti.

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I spoke back. Part of me fearful he would murder me if I didn't join him in his internet lacking.

No, no signal at all.

I croaked in terror.

Whit, fuck sake. The network must be down.

He said with only mild annoyance.

He was right, none of us had the internet. Nearby someone started reading a big newspaper as if the world wasn't going to shit.

The train barreled on through the suburbs. I gripped the armrests of my chair and looked out frantically.

What should I do!? What could I do?

Should I be setting fire to some toilet paper and throwing it the window? I felt about in my pockets, damn, I had none.

I let out a tiny whimper as if a guinea pig were flirting with my beard.

Here mate, I'm getting off at the next stop.

Some burly red faced geezer pressed a newspaper into my hands with a wink.

Fucking internet eh!

I have him a watery smile as I looked at the newspaper in bafflement. What was I meant to do with this? Make a hat?

I tried to find my happy place and look out the window instead of fannying about with the big inky pile of cheap paper.

As I looked out a thought struck me. Was this the usual route? It didn't look like it.

Then realisation dawned on me. As it did, I felt a certain peace steal over my body. It all made sense now. This was obviously a train to hell.

I closed my eyes in acceptance and let the train take me. Onward.

Sort:  

I was lucky enough to be WFH that day. You know.. that perk us contractors get every now and again.. so I had luxury WiFi all day... heaven.

Oh my god, you lot and your gold plated home wi-fi's and doubloons!!!

:0p

You should join us... take a leap of faith.. and possibly lose your sense of humour.

Lol, you know I was going to before the children struck. Now I have the fear!

Hello @meesterboom, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!

Thank you very much!

Nothing has really changed, those were just low tech cell phones back in the day.

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Haha that's a bloody magic meme!!

Great story, my friend.
Sad reality we oldtimers facing with.
Becoming robots.

Cheers! It was an eye opener for sure! I am getting me some phone free time from now on!

It was hard to live without the Internet eh. It had become a symbolism of our purpose of life in this Earth. I hope the service provider can become more reliable in its connection before someone committed suicide. Hahahahahhaa! Upvoted!

They had better become more reliable or im switching

You can always get a Vodafone user or something to set up their telephone as a wifi access point for the rest of the travellers. Use violence if need be. Move to the next one when their data limit is reached.

That is a fine idea and one which crossed my mind during the awful neverending journey!!

Come to Africa they will break you. That is a regular occurrence here.

I couldn't take it. I just couldn't!!

My God man....what horror have you dreamt up now? That's disturbing, to say the least. The world will surely burn if this comes to pass long term. The teens in my world will simply walk off the ends of the Earth while searching out a signal i.e. The Walking Dead

The trend week have a race on their head,I was all for walking off myself!!!

Oh, my! The struggle is real!!

You must be in hell if you had no internet, right? I mean you and half of the world population. I stick a Kindle in my purse in case the Metro fails me or keeps going the underground route where there is no internet. Yes!

The most amazing thing is that you lived to tell. Congratulations. I am not sure how you did it! :)

And how dare they go down without prior permission.

!tip

I used to always have my Kindle with me and then for out of the habit. I was going barmy. There's nothing to do!!!

This internet thing has made us so addicted that without this, spending our time, ewww kinda hard 🙄

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I know! I am an addict!!

Most of us probably 😝

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These days, yeah.

Even can't take a break while eating 😂

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Haha! It's the curse of having that handy camera!

Agree 😂

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