Not a terrorist event, we think

This weekend, all our phones went out.

I mean all of them...

Everyone's cell phone, everyones land lines. They all went out.
The phone company was mum on why, but I'm sure it's because the mobile carriers use land lines to carry signal sometimes. If we'd had an emergency that required an ambulance, we would have been out of luck. Your cell phone is not a backup to a problem like this.

But guess what?

We had web tone. Yep. All the dial tone lines were dead and useless as a beached whale, but DSL web worked perfectly. Dial Tone was out for 10 hours.

Can Sun and Sun technology help with this? Can we find a way to connect with emergency personnel via the web? It's already a known problem with VOIP, that 911 isn't connected, though according to my friend Mary, they are working on it. What about cases like this where DSL is unharmed, but phone lines are up? Seems like the solution is A. the right thing to do, and B. good for Sun.

Signing off from Davenport, where the phone company called at 8am to see if the phone was working.
"Yes," I said with my smart alec hat on, and not quite enough caffeine in my system, "it rang, and I answered it. That must mean it's working."