The day the internet died
While trudging back towards the washing machine to put the fifty thousandth load in the machine yesterday afternoon I noticed our eldest daughter stood in the hallway with her head leaning against the stair banister.
“What's wrong?”
“The internet has gone wrong again”.
That's 14 year old code for “the router has crashed”. A minute or two later it resurrected itself, and the “internet” returned. She stomped back off to her room to continue watching Vine clips, or whatever she was doing.
I forgot all about it until this morning when I wandered down with Miss 10 to make some breakfast. She complained that the Fire TV wasn't working, so I wandered over to the router and took a look. Red lights. I pulled the plug, and pushed it back in. Still red lights.
Crap.
And that's how I ended up heading out half an hour later to buy a new network router from town. I ended up coming home with a new router, a range extender, and an 8 port switch. Our house has legendarily thick walls which defeat anything but the most powerful radio signals. Rather than buy a consumer hub this time, I bought a ridiculous commercial one with three big fat aerials screwed into the back.
After returning home I had to re-wire the hallway and the study, but once done “the internet” returned to our house once more, and streaming TV obsessed children immediately set off in pursuit of their favourite shows on televisions, tablets, and phones throughout the house.
Panic over.