What is your communication plan if your internet service goes dark? | Hacker News Reader

What is your communication plan if your internet service goes dark?

4 pointsanigbrowl11 comments

Simple question: assume extended and widespread disruption to your internet service at the mobile carrier/ISP level. What would you do?

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2 meter ham radio (maybe $150), antenna and cables (another $150) plus a 12V battery and trickle charger.

This was my answer. It's one of the reasons I became a licensed HAM.

This is why some people still keep dial up accounts with a larger ISP around. I can imagine that even AOL might come in handy.

The question assumes your ISP is unable to provide service, perhaps through coercion.

If wired ISP, use mobile data.

If mobile, use wired.

If they're both down for an extended period at once, then there are probably bigger things to worry about.

Well that's the question I'm trying to find an answer to. In such a situation, the need to communicate becomes critical to longer-term survival.

Food and shelter are criticial to longer-term survival, communication is not. You need to define what are you thinking about.

I'm not going to have a semantic argument about this. I'm asking for advice about communication, not food and shelter. If you don't have anything to contribute, then we're done here.

You got yourself an advice already: two independent connections, the backup one being cheap to maintain. You need to define what are you expecting if you want any more meaningful advice.

Apparently you can't imagine any other kind of internet access beyond the consumer variety. Other people had some more practical suggestions. Next time I post a question like this I'll be sure to make it as tightly defined as possible.

You can get really good walkie-talkies these days for comms on the ground. I was surprised at the ranges.

You can get Net access via sat link. Download is fine, upload is terrible. Expensive but that's what I'd do if money was no objection. If there is a service that gave you 'minutes' when down-time happened, that would be perfect for me. If you were 'serious', I'd investigate cubesats.

As Paul suggested a ham radio set is a good way to independently receive and send news from abroad. I think you can do TCP/IP over ham radio. http://www.ampr.org/

Depending on circumstance, a system of sneakernet with helpers can be effective. I used to 'browse' the web this way in the beginning when I didn't have a Net connection to the house.

If all of these proposals fail then you would have to setup your own internet infrastructure, make a meshnet. A local meshnet is easy. The trouble is at some point you have to connect to some backbone where Net access is available.

I was just thinking about microwave relays and lo', this appeared in my feed:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/privat...

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