View Full Version : Without phone or internet
Yesterday afternoon, I lost signal to my iPhone and my computer. (at&t) Living out in the country, it was a bit disconcerting. I tried a number of fixes, but nothing worked. DH's phone worked in town, but not when he got home. He was able to call that at&t 611 number and they weren't much help. They said something about a couple of the cell towers 3 and 6 miles from here were not functioning. I drove into the smaller town I live by, hoping to get a better signal, but didn't.
I listened to the TV, in case it was widespread, but nobody was talking about it....so I was pretty sure it wasn't Russia's doing. haha What added to my confusion was that it was totally quiet out here........no traffic sounds, no planes......sort of like on 9-11.
I have to say, it was pretty disconcerting living without the ability to call for help, if needed. The at&t lady said our 911 would still work.........but it didn't, when we tested it.
What would happen if we had a fire? Or had a medical emergency? Or had an intruder? I got rid of my landline because of all the problems we were having with it and they would have needed to put a cable in for 1000+ feet or more, through trees, the garden, the yard, etc. So I got an inexpensive Cellular One back-up phone........but of course, it didn't work either because it was wireless. I got it in case I lost my phone or it died......but I hadn't planned on such an all-encompassing problem.
It was quite disconcerting to think of how dependent this whole country is, with wireless things.
I was going to get a temp. phone, but decided to try the small at&t store in our small town......which wasn't very good the last time I went. But a smart guy was there and figured it all out for me. There's a way of pushing on the home button at the same time as the on/off button that can reset things. He told me at home, to take the battery out of our personal wi-fi device........and it worked! He said that at&t has been having trouble with their cell towers and it seemed to be connected to their getting rid of 3g transmissions. But he said that many times now, he can't get people's cell phones to work that come into his store. I used to hate at&t when we had the landline, so maybe they're getting bad with their wireless service too?
Anyhow.....a bit scary to feel so unable to connect, especially if there had been an emergency. Think of the damage that could be done to large areas if these towers were targeted?
Anyhow.......I'm glad it could be fixed for us.
I can't believe they told you 911 would work - nothing is going to work if you can't connect to the network.
People better get used to it. Landlines are going become a thing of the past - it costs too much to maintain all the infrastructure.
Yeah, and people need to get ready for nobody knowing what the hell they're saying about the product they're working for. Oh wait........that's already happened.....but still hard to accept.
Although like I said, I was unbelievably pleasantly surprised that the guy in the at&t store today was so helpful.
early morning
4-12-17, 5:40pm
CathyA, how sad I feel when we are surprised by good customer service. It SO used to be the other way! I have a land line, and will keep it as long as it's offered. Cell service here is terrible, and we are far from the middle of nowhere.
For emergencies ham radio? CB radio? Or have these gone the way of the buffalo?
I can't get AT&T signals for phone calls anywhere on the property at my new job, yet I can send and receive texts.
It's all beyond me.
I have a friend who has no landline, cellphone or internet. Yeah, she's a bit odd. She's also a super paranoid person about being attacked at work or in her home. Also believes a GPS purposely got her lost on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
It's frustrating because the only way to get in touch with her is at her job, on a Monday at 12pm. Sorry, I'm busy at work at that time. Given her paranoid tendancies, I don't know how she is managing.
At the moment, she also doesn't have a car. And during the winter, no electricity or heat for some time. A mutual friend and I think she may be going off the deep end.
It's one thing to be addicted to phones and internet as entertainment. But when we really need them in an emergency or in a disaster, it's a bit scary to find that they don't work! And being away from other people (who may or may not be in the same situation) makes it worse.
CathyA, do you have wired internet? We gave up our landline phone a decade ago when we moved to a newly built house that didn't have a phone line to it. But we've always had cable internet. So far we've never had both our cable internet and cell phones go down at the same time. But we also live in a big dense city so any widespread problem on either gets dealt with quickly.
If we lived somewhere remote I'd probably try to figure out foolproof backups (it sounds like you've already tried that) and also try to up my self-sufficiency for some emergencies. A major health crisis would be a tough one (although the likelihood of having one when you also are having a communication crisis is relatively low), but a couple of extra fire extinguishers might be money well spent. And, gasp, yes, liberal jp is going to say this, perhaps a gun. I have absolutely no desire to have one here in the city and don't think it would be useful, but if we were in a remote area I'd seriously consider getting one and learning how to use it.
The bottom line is that everyone has potential crisises that they may have to deal with. The most likely crisis(es) are different depending where one lives, but planning for them should be something everyone does. Where we live the most likely thing is a massive earthquake. Towards that end we've done things like stock easily prepared food (and have a grill that uses propane tanks so we can still cook if the gas service gets shut off) and a lot of gallons of bottled water (SO uses a CPAP so we have a constant supply of empty gallon distilled water jugs that I'm constantly refilling with regular water and sticking away in all of our closets.). We've also discussed how to communicate if the earthquake happens when we're not home or together. The SMS message system is more resilient than the cell phone talking network. (SMS messages use the regular talk network so don't need the 3g/4g data network to be up and running, plus a text uses a small fraction of bandwidth that a talking phone call does) If the big one happens we both know to text to my sister if we can't reach each other due to overcrowding of the local cell system. That way we can hopefully find each other and coordinate what our response will be based on how bad things are, where we are, whether my car is accessible, etc.
Re-reading this before posting it occurs to me that one of your potential foolproof backups involves SMS texting. Perhaps pick someone who doesn't live near you (so they're not likely going to be also screwed if the 3G/4G networks go down) who you can SMS text if you have no other communication. That way if you need 911 contacted you could at least text that person and they could then contact your emergency people. (Obviously they'd also need to have bookmarked in their phone the numbers for your EMT's/police/fire.)
I have to admit, no landline, no cell phone, and no internet sounds like a dream at the moment. I know I am romanticizing how peaceful that would be:-), but in this moment it sounds lovely.
I have to admit, no landline, no cell phone, and no internet sounds like a dream at the moment. I know I am romanticizing how peaceful that would be:-), but in this moment it sounds lovely.
There are definitely times I agree with you. And times that reality sets in. First the former. Many a weekend I leave my phone sitting in our den and only look at it a couple of times during the day. Hours spent out on our deck, cat snuggled up next to me, reading a book uninterrupted are pure bliss. But yesterday I had an example of the benefit of always/instant communication. I'd traveled for work at the end of last week and was going to be out of the office Monday and Tuesday of this week also. Apparently I'd forgotten to let him know. Boss was freaking out by tuesday morning. (Employee (me) went on biz trip and didn't show up in the office monday or tuesday. None of his(my) immediate coworkers knew where I was) Boss emailed/texted/called me in a near panic, about to contact HR and alert them to a potential crisis. Thanks to modern technology I got the message about ten minutes later and let him know that I was fine. (and apologized for not making sure that my time off request had been received.) When we talked today I joked "Please. I know better than to fly United, the "friendly" skies. There was nothing to worry about..."
Life was so much simpler 50 years ago. Experienced a major earthquake (9.2) with major destruction without cell phones and land lines down. Survived.
About the only thing I worry about because I have no control is nuclear war.
I think about how scary it must have been for my parents to let us drive in the mountains without cell phones, or maybe I am just used to being able to be reached all the time. We had a deal where I would call when I left work in Denver and then they had an amount of time that I would probably be home in, if the weather was snowy and I wasn't home the neighbor with a jeep would drive out and look for me. He did that a few times.
I totally LOVE that our work got us simple i-phones. It is so much nicer and actually I work less. We are on call from early to late every day, I start checking my phone Sunday evening in case staff is out sick for Monday. Before these phones if I was expecting an important email I would have to stay at the office all day making for often a 12 hour day, or take breaks at starbucks to boot up my laptop and check for the email. Now I can flex my time the way I need to and check for the important email. I can even do a quick reply.
The last time I had a serious phone issue was at the women's march. The place was so packed and people were trying to reach each other so calls and texts were not going through for a long time. I didn't have an emergency but I did miss meeting people because the messages were not getting through.
Williamsmith
4-13-17, 9:13am
We plow through our days blissfully using the tools of the accelerating technology. Computing machines like this iPad I am typing on are a result of technology that has been doubling its capacity about every two years since 2007. That is a non linear change that has not been matched by society's slow ability to adapt. We are utterly reliant on these tools. And as with all technology, there is good and bad.
And living without for just one day can cause dramatic anxiety. Try taking an iPhone away from a high school teen.
Their is a fine line between responding to the threat of a technological breakdown by preparedness or in paranoia. One crosses over that line and back easily.
Realize that this technological reliance has propelled the world on a population explosion due to the lower mortality rates in concert with high fertility rates. This globalization of technology means that the comforts it has brought you are now being shared with more and more people. Those "more and more people are consuming more and more of everything". Power and control are in the hands of those who decide who gets what. As long as your government wields that power and control, you will only be inconvenienced once in a great while.
Imagine an instant and long term failure of the computer infrastructure. An attack that turns the clock back to pre industrial ages. A simple pulling of the plug. It adds a new layer to vulnerability.
Imagine doing without the computerized coffee pot. My God!!
I do not have a smart phone but I do have wi-fi for the tablets.........a day with no wi-fi is a BAD day. Cutoff from the world.......
I spent over half of my life without cell phones or internet. I wonder how I survived?
I spent over half of my life without cell phones or internet. I wonder how I survived?
There were pay phones back in the day, if you got into trouble some where. Good luck finding one of those antiquities now.
There were pay phones back in the day, if you got into trouble some where. Good luck finding one of those antiquities now.
Yeah.....I wanted to find a pay phone when mine wasn't working.......but where? I guess you have to ask someone if you can make a call on theirs?
And when I didn't have a phone, much of my worry was more about a fire, medical emergency.....and especially if my kids were having some problem and they couldn't reach me.
I'm, unfortunately, not a social person.......so I felt uncomfortable going to a neighbor I hardly know.
There were pay phones back in the day, if you got into trouble some where. Good luck finding one of those antiquities now.
Indeed. I saw one yesterday and thought it noteworthy enough to take a picture.
http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s363/jpatter492/IMG_7766_zpsqs1tdkxg.jpg
There were pay phones back in the day, if you got into trouble some where. Good luck finding one of those antiquities now.Yes, they are few and far between these days, but, they were when I was growing up too. There wasn't much call for them in the middle of cotton fields, it was still a 20 mile trek to find one.
rosarugosa
4-17-17, 3:48pm
In Boston, there are pay phones at all the subway stations. I always figured they put them there just for me. :)
In Boston, there are pay phones at all the subway stations. I always figured they put them there just for me. :)
Much harder to find these days, though - not like the banks of phones that used to be there. Like in Back Bay (although the mounts might finally get removed, they are redoing that area of the station).
I don't know if they are still there, but in places in the financial district they had groups of phone stands outside with no phones in them any more.
They used to be everywhere when I was growing up. But then, I grew up in a big city, not in a cotton field. Among my early memories was my dad taking me across the street from our house and "surprising" mom with a call from the pay phone every few months. It was great fun for me, but obviously in hindsight the point was to teach me at a really early age how to phone home if I needed to.
BikingLady
4-22-17, 5:07am
Dinosaurs, pay phones and land lines. Home phones through cable companies are not the same.
Dad retired in 1981 from Splicing at Michigan Bell. He tells stories of someone's phone being out and I remember this growing up, the phone ringing at 2am to get called in and fix the line somewhere! Dad worked every holiday he could for overtime, because Bell would send out someone on any holiday to fix a line. The company actually had a crew that did nothing but drive around and look at lines to see if anything looked out of place. Imagine that or waste at it's finest.
I read a article last year about jobs that left and will never return some seemed so funny now: Street sweepers, Ice delivery, I think the phone repair people like dad was can be added to this.
But yes very scary how dependent the world is on technology and the what ifs happened. Does everyone really have a plan?? I think I revisit this topic with husband.
BikingLady
4-22-17, 5:08am
Remembering the dime, then 2 dimes Mom had taped inside my belt incase I had to use a payphone.
Cell phones are great things if you travel abroad. I am getting ready for a trip to Italy and already have contacted the landlord at my apartment in Lucca. We connected on WhatsApp and now I have a better idea where I am going.
There's a woman I met on a travel forum that's 75 and been to Lucca several times. She's going to be over there when I am. Do you think we've connected over here first? There's some generation gap of behavior going on as I gave her my cell phone number but she won't give me her landline number and have a conversation. She will communicate via e-mail and is asking me to find her over in Lucca after I arrive at her hotel. She doesn't have a cell phone and won't have internet access. She is asking me to call her hotel when I arrive. I am not anticipating meeting her over there. I let her know it was all a little daunting as it's my first trip, I am on my own and it's overwhelming.
I honestly have no idea how to communicate with this person and get the impression she wants to keep a distance.
Cell phones are great things if you travel abroad. I am getting ready for a trip to Italy and already have contacted the landlord at my apartment in Lucca. We connected on WhatsApp and now I have a better idea where I am going.
There's a woman I met on a travel forum that's 75 and been to Lucca several times. She's going to be over there when I am. Do you think we've connected over here first? There's some generation gap of behavior going on as I gave her my cell phone number but she won't give me her landline number and have a conversation. She will communicate via e-mail and is asking me to find her over in Lucca after I arrive at her hotel. She doesn't have a cell phone and won't have internet access. She is asking me to call her hotel when I arrive. I am not anticipating meeting her over there. I let her know it was all a little daunting as it's my first trip, I am on my own and it's overwhelming.
I honestly have no idea how to communicate with this person and get the impression she wants to keep a distance.
It may not be a generation gap. Many people on the INternet are not who they say they are, and that may be why she wants to meet you over there only, in person in an neutral place. For her protection.
I did wonder if there is something odd here. The landlord and I exchanged photos and I've used this rental service before so we can both see our history and figure out it's okay. I don't feel any hesitation talking to him and he is a complete stranger.
I was polite and thanked the woman for her suggestions, but have left this to fade out. I have this vision of me being slightly loopy from the long flight, trying to adapt to a new language, trying to navigate the train and get to my hotel for the first night. I did tell her all this and she didn't seem to connect with my being a little out of the comfort zone. Maybe it's for my protection to let this go. I was half hoping to lean on her for support when I arrived. You are right, I know who I am but she's sending out mixed messages.
Sorry, didn't mean to change the course of conversation. I had a landline until seven years ago and no cell phone. When I moved, I got such a hassle from Verizon on establishing a land line at the residence, I said forget it and went to a tracfone. I had a pay per use phone and was happy being pretty much a low user. That's not new, I rarely talk on the phone and see it as a necessity and safety device. When I decided to travel two years ago, that's when I went to an iPhone. It works great in Europe, relatively low cost, I have a computer in my hand, Wifi in Italy is terrific with no hassles at all. The iphone is so fancy I could post video to my FB page right from Italy. It was super fast and low low low cost. I rarely use my traditional camera but will take it with me anyway. The iphone plan is with Verizon wireless and I've got it down to $55 per month includes text, data and phone.
Cell phones are great things if you travel abroad. I am getting ready for a trip to Italy and already have contacted the landlord at my apartment in Lucca. We connected on WhatsApp and now I have a better idea where I am going.
There's a woman I met on a travel forum that's 75 and been to Lucca several times. She's going to be over there when I am. Do you think we've connected over here first? There's some generation gap of behavior going on as I gave her my cell phone number but she won't give me her landline number and have a conversation. She will communicate via e-mail and is asking me to find her over in Lucca after I arrive at her hotel. She doesn't have a cell phone and won't have internet access. She is asking me to call her hotel when I arrive. I am not anticipating meeting her over there. I let her know it was all a little daunting as it's my first trip, I am on my own and it's overwhelming.
I honestly have no idea how to communicate with this person and get the impression she wants to keep a distance.
Make sure you purchase an international data plan if you have a smartphone--otherwise, one quick use of an app is likely to cost you $100.
I still rely on my landline for my telephone interviews, and I probably look like Lily Tomlin's Ernestine when I wear my old-fashioned headset. Still find it hard to let them go, though.
However, I HAD to do interviews in a hotel a couple of weeks ago and I found that my cell phone worked just fine. So maybe I'll give up my landline, since I use it for business and nothing else--but it will be hard to give up my 31 year old home telephone number--I've had it since the rotary dial days.
I agree, Cathy, that it's so strange that we've come so far that we expect to be connected at all times, whether we use it or not.
Catherine your home phone number is portable. It's the law that you have that option.
Catherine your home phone number is portable. It's the law that you have that option.
But then she'd have to give up her cell #. That said, I wish home numbers had been portable when I got my cell. Then I would have a 212 cell area code!
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