Slightly Off Grid

Blessings Darlings!

All household computers are either unplugged or turned off (or both) as we have a loud active thunderstorm going on right now.  Power surges and electronics don't make for happy households or businesses, you see.

Problems with technology here started rather earlier today, however.  By noon we were not able to either make or receive long distance phone calls.  Being a bit behind in many of our bills I made sure that payment wasn't a problem (it seemed unlikely, since I was able to make local calls and our local carrier handles our LD, too.  Plus, I couldn't even make 800 calls).  No, no holds on our account, but it was the first they'd heard of problems in our area.  Well, yeah -  I couldn't even call THEM on THEIR 800 number, I had to call using a cell phone with a different network to reach them.

But we still had internet and power, so we could communicate with our customers via e-mail. 

Well, UPS got here about 3 pm, and filled me in that NO ONE in the area has LD phone service .... and if you had internet thru' the phone company you are SOL. 

So it looks like NOT bundling all information services thru' one provider is a Very Good Thing.  Internet thru' Comcast, land lines with Frontier, cell phones with AT&T and Sprint, has given us ways to communicate even with Frontier phones and internet down.

It's not a deep a back up as having a ham radio set up, but it will do for today!

Frondly, Fern