Dude, Where's My Wi-Fi? On Suddenly Being Without Internet For Days

Honestly, I was stunned at how life came to a grinding halt thanks to a broadband outage

Nothing but tears when the Wi-Fi goes down

Last week the unthinkable happened: our Wi-Fi went down. Like, temporarily-permanently went down.

At first, I thought it was a (not uncommon) blip that meant a router restart.

When it comes to First World problems, this one is top of the list. I’m ashamed at how we (er, make that “I”) have become so utterly reliant on everyday things that require internet connection.

I honestly think it deserved the proverbial puff of smoke, a loud thunderclap or maybe the opening part of Darth Vader's Theme (“der, der, der, DER-der derrr, DER, der, derrr…”) to herald its solemn end before the week had barely begun. I discovered I couldn’t function without it and life came to this sudden, screeching halt.

The resulting Temporary Loss of Daily Functions that occurred was unprecedented. I had no idea that, over time, I had become so reliant on things that require a Wi-Fi connection. The irony is that it happened as I was trying to finish a Substack post in which I was discussing how Generation X is the perfect age to appreciate having technology at its fingertips.

It started around the middle of Monday. Or should I say that’s when it ended? (I’ll let you decide whether I mean our broadband or - and could I be any more dramatic about this - my life…)

The initial frustration

Our internet connection can sometimes be a little unreliable. It goes through phases where I’ll have the odd day where it keeps dropping off (grrrrr!) and I’ll have to switch the router off to reboot it two or three times in a day.

And when you work from home, that’s incredibly annoying.

So when it went down at lunchtime last Monday, I did the classic IT Manager thing of “switching it off and on again” and waited for all the lights to come back on as green.

Instead, the Wi-Fi light stayed orange.

An actual image of me trying to get the Wi-Fi to reconnect last week

After a couple of attempts (and following the troubleshooting instructions that our internet provider “helpfully” gives you when you’re trying to get back online), I did what any capable, 21st-century woman would do… I phoned my husband.

But before you judge: I have a decent grasp of HTML code. I can build flat packs. I can put up shelves. Hell, I even made the built-in cupboard that housed our gas meter in our old house by myself. But when something should be simple and it’s just not playing ball for whatever ghastly reason, I have zero patience. And I have even less patience for technology that’s not working properly. So when it didn’t reconnect, rather than hurling the router across the room and screaming in frustration, I called the husband to ask him if there was anything else I could do.

And when I say I, I mean him.

I left it to him (the account is under his name anyway) to contact our broadband provider, lodge a complaint and hopefully get back to me before he got home from work to say “Hey honey, it’s all done - just go switch the router back on and you’re back in business”.

Again, no. He got home and he told me that it was a bit more of a problem than just a temporary drop in service.

He’d had a message from our broadband provider to say that there was an actual issue with the service in the entire area and it would take about 48 hours to rectify¹.

Oh gawwwwwwwddddd.

All the things I lost along with the Wi-Fi

The last time we were without internet was in 2018 when we moved house. I don’t know about other countries, but here in the UK there is nearly always a gap of about two weeks after your house move before you get Wi-Fi in your new place. No matter how much notice you give them, and despite how advanced technology is these days, an instant switchover (or even a 24 or 48-hour one) is an impossible ask.

(Can you sense my extreme eye roll while I’m talking about this?)

The most obvious thing I lost was, of course, the general “getting online” to enable me to work. I’ve been a freelancer for 11 years now, and being able to access my blog, get on social media and read and write emails is essential for me every day.

Even my writing, accounting and general admin is all done via Substack or my Google Drive. Everything is saved in these remote folders so that I can access them anywhere.

But of course, accessing them requires internet access.

There’s a certain amount I can do with the 4G service we have in our area, but because we live in the country and Devon isn’t known for its super-fast broadband (more eye-rolling), things like posting to Instagram isn’t something that our local broadband cellular network technology (yes, I had to look up a generic name for 3G/4G/5G etc.) can cope with.

(If you’re saying to yourself “What about using 5G?!”, then all I can is bahahahahahha?!… I’m sorry for laughing. We don’t have things like Uber, Deliveroo or same-day Amazon delivery in our area, let alone something as fancy-schmancy as 5G. I barely even KNOW what 5G is, to be honest - it’s THAT alien to us country folk.)

The first this-is-now-a-real-problem part was that I had paid collaboration deadlines last week and therefore HAD to post on Instagram. Getting onto social media “for fun” (is it fun anymore, really?) I can live without. Getting jobs done that result in me getting paid, I can’t.

It then went from bad to worse. Impossible job deadlines aside, countless can’t-do-that-either things kept presenting themselves. I felt like I was playing Whac-A-Mole; once I worked out how to do one thing without the internet, another thing popped up. One after the other after the other after the other.

I realised JUST how many things I do daily that require an internet connection, and it often involves you-know-who…

“Alexa, put on the downstairs lights.” Shit no, that won’t work. I’ll have to unplug the smart plugs and do it manually.

“Alexa, set an alarm for 10 minutes.” Bugger… I’ll set an alarm on my phone then (god it’s annoying having to use my hands to do this stuff).

“Alexa, play Absolute Radio 90s.” Ughhhh no I can’t have the radio either. I’ll do it on my phone inste—- NO I CAN’T THAT REQUIRES THE INTERNET AAARGH

My head started to spin because of the number of things that are controlled by Wi-Fi in our house. It wasn’t like this back in 2018 (can you believe I just wrote “back in 2018” like it’s the 70s or something) when we were last without internet after our house move.

Back to Monday last week. I popped out to check on my elderly parents and to pilfer their Wi-Fi for a bit, and I realised I couldn’t check on my dog on the dog cam because… yeah, no internet at home.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to check into the family WhatsApp group once I got home again, so no WhatsApp. I sent a message warning everyone about our lack of broadband (we do use it for important emergency stuff too - not just trivial things as my mum and dad are 90 and 95 respectively) and to call me via “normal phone” if they urgently needed me.

As the next few days went on without Wi-Fi, the complete list of Things I Cannot Do got frustratingly longer and longer:

~ NO working from home

~ NO social media

~ NO email

~ NO checking on the dog via the dog cam

~ NO turning the lights on and off in the house via voice command

~ NO setting of alarms for cooking or remembering to do stuff in 10 minutes/half an hour/after 1 hour 45 minutes

~ NO radio or music via voice command

~ NO printing (even my wireless printer works only with Wi-Fi, wtf)

~ NO internet shopping

~ NO looking up reviews for items I’m thinking of buying

~ NO looking up reviews for movies/TV shows to watch

~ NO streaming of anything on Netflix, Prime, Sky Cinema, etc.

~ NO watching a show from the beginning using the download function on Sky (“press [green] to restart this show”)

~ NO using YouTube to play soothing videos with relaxing music on our smart TV

~ NO online banking or checking of accounts

I mean, SERIOUSLY?! I can’t believe that such a huge part of our lives is controlled by the internet and a connection to Wi-Fi. Maybe I use Wi-Fi-controlled things far more than the average person, maybe it’s less… I’m not sure. I don’t think what I use it for is too different from what Janet from Dorset uses it for. Is it?

Some time without internet turned out to be good for us

Now in order to redeem myself (and to address my privileged lifestyle, of which I am all too aware), I thought I’d describe some of the positives that came out of having no internet for almost a whole working week.

(We got it back up sometime late on Thursday, but even on Friday it was a bit patchy.)

Being offline forced us to rethink so much of what my husband and I do, and how we do it. Work headaches aside (after having used up all my data allowance, I couldn’t keep buying bolt-ons so made use of external Wi-Fi available to me at places like my parents’ place, Tesco and a local café), it was actually quite refreshing to do things manually rather than relying on automated systems.

Things we did old school style: We…

…went through our DVD collection and realised the selection was WAY better than what you find in the free-to-me section of Prime or the movie section of Netflix.

…went through our CD collection and listened to albums we hadn’t listened to in ages (and were thankful we hadn’t got rid of our physical CDs OR the CD player either).

…read books. Not that I don’t read books at all, we just did it more.

…talked to each other rather than looking at our phones. It’s amazing how much time is spent scrolling and not communicating with your partner.

…played (board) games. We actually played our Star Wars Scrabble (yes, there’s a Star Wars version) and asked each other questions from our Trivial Pursuit Genus II box of cards just to test each other on our knowledge of the world circa 1988. (The latter was INCREDIBLY addictive, my knowledge of Dallas/Dynasty and old European countries like Yugoslavia holds strong.)

…tackled more housework - again, because we were on our phones less. Your phone is an enormous distraction while you’re trying to get shit done.

All in all, not that bad. In some ways we LIKED not being able to automatically grab for our phones: we had to work for information. We had to work to feel connected. We had to work for some entertainment.

What I need now from Madame Alexa

It turns out that the reason the internet was down in the area (the whole of East Devon, apparently) was due to a pole in Yeovil bringing down a cable or something. So it was literally a case of waiting for a group of engineers to get the cable reconnected.

In fact, our local Co-op supermarket had to shut its doors because they use the same provider and I guess they couldn’t do jack shit without Wi-Fi.

No matter HOW much we rely on modern technology to get stuff done, Alexa just ain’t no help at all when it comes to Mother Nature deciding to put us in our places. You can’t beat a bunch of humans going out and mending things the old-fashioned way.

The whole no-internet-at-home debacle has made me think of a few things that would be really helpful, however. A lack of Wi-Fi gives you time to think about automating even MORE stuff (not necessarily a good thing).

For example…

Alexa, what albums in my CD collection haven’t I played for ages and can you put one of them on please?

Alexa, ask me some pink “Entertainment” questions from my 1988 Trivial Pursuit cards.

Alexa, where did I put the book I’m reading?

Alexa, is the front door locked?

Alexa, please clear up the kitchen.

Alexa, don’t leave me EVER AGAIN…

If you enjoyed this post then please click the Like ❤️ button to make it more visible to non-subscribers (even better leave a comment!), thank you so much x

I’m a self-employed writer and blogger, and I hope you agree with my belief that all creative work should be paid. I’ve been happily writing my blog for free for 13 years (thankfully brand sponsorship just about keeps it afloat) but if you think my Substack content is worthy of - and you’re able to afford - a paid subscription*, then my food cupboard, mortgage provider and I will be very grateful.

Either way please like, comment and share the heck out of my content if you can, it’s all appreciated. Thank you so much for your support, whatever form it takes!

*When I turn this feature on, which I’m planning to do soon for some bonus content

1. Unsurprisingly it was a LOT longer than 48 hours - it was four days in the end