FPPad

Sometime between 11:00am and 1:00pm today, my Internet provider’s service went down in the Dallas area (Time Warner Cable if you’re curious, and I confirmed the outage with their service reps on Twitter @TWCableHelp). That means no Internet and no phone service for my office, and Time Warner has no ETA on a fix.

But I’m still up and running with all of my web-hosted tools, including email, contacts, and my blog. I powered up my MiFi 2200 and bought a small data plan ($10 for 100MB) to get me through the service disruption. So everything I need over the web is still accessible. The MiFi supports five active WiFi connections, so I can share the Internet connection among my iMac, iPad, Macbook Air, and Acer laptop.

And what about my office phone line? That, too, is tied to my Internet connection, as it’s a voice-over-IP (VoIP) line. It’s dead.

But, my main number is connected to my Google Voice account, so all I need to do is enable my mobile phone as the primary phone to use (it’s typically active along with my office phone so I can receive calls anywhere). You call, get routed to my mobile phone, it rings, and I answer. You have no idea my office line is dead. And I don’t need to deliver excuses for not picking up your call.

So what’s your backup plan when your connection to the outside world is severed? Good luck dialing up your custodian’s trading line to verbally submit your trades in this market volatility!!!