Matthew Webster: Digital Life Lightning strikes my computer

We’ve had some good thunderstorms round here recently. In one of them, my internet connection was struck by lightning.

Late one Friday evening, our internet stopped working. I assumed it was temporary, and expected it to be better in the morning, but it wasn’t.

So I called BT. The recorded message sympathetically advised me to report the problem online, which is a bit like asking someone with a broken-down car to drive to the garage.

My mobile phone still worked. So I filled in the online form and, to my happy surprise, within 20 minutes a cheerful chap in Wales called me. He told me, among other things, that the weather was lovely there.

He explained that there had been a rash of similar problems in my area, because of the ‘extreme’ weather. He tested the line. That was fine, and so he diagnosed that my router (the Home Hub) had been struck by lightning and had given up the ghost. I imagine I would, too, if I were hit by lightning.

He said he’d send me a new one, which would arrive in two ‘working’ days and, in the meantime, they would send me a Mini Hub to keep me online. A Mini Hub allows you to connect to the internet using a mobile-phone signal. Most smartphones can do the same thing, but it sucks up your data allowance at a prodigious rate and would be very expensive if you did it for too long.

The Mini Hub would be with me in 24 hours, he assured me. So far so good.

In practice, to no one’s surprise, the Mini Hub arrived after three days and the router pitched up a day after that. The Mini Hub was useless, because the mobile-phone signal for the BT network (bizarrely known as EE) is almost non-existent here. Nonetheless, the router worked well.

I had, therefore, four days with no proper internet, despite the promises about ‘unbreakable’ connections.

Perhaps you think that four days without internet is no great drama, and for us it wasn’t, but a sick friend of mine is being very successfully cared for in a ‘virtual ward’. In other words, he is at home, but connected to all sorts of sensors, which are linked to the hospital through the internet. They can keep an eye on him, and he is comfortable at home. But if his router had been struck by lightning, as mine was, four days would be too long to wait.

In hindsight, what I should have done was buy a cheap router on Amazon (there is no need to be tied to a BT product) and it would have been delivered the next day. I would have been up and running again and could have swapped it for the official BT router once it finally appeared. In fact, now I think of it, why doesn’t BT use Amazon’s delivery service?

I have now bought a second-hand router as a backup; I should have done it years ago.

I was also reminded how difficult it can be to make even a very small domestic network like ours (three computers and a printer) accept a new piece of equipment and how frustrating setting it up it can be. My late parents, for example, were enthusiastic emailers and web surfers, but the slightest technical issue of this kind flummoxed them.

However, every problem is an opportunity for someone, and their resourceful vicar developed a useful

Webwatch

For my latest tips and free newsletter, go to www.askwebster.co.uk

Lightning maps lightningmaps.org

A lightning-detection network that plots occurrences on a map.

British Museum youtube.com/@britishmuseum

The British Museum’s video channel – lots of fascinating videos made by experts.

I will happily try to solve your basic computer and internet problems. Go to www.askwebster.co.uk or email me at webster@theoldie.co.uk pastoral sideline in solving computer problems for his flock. He thus endeared himself to many who might have resisted his ministrations in any other context. The Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways – even through cyberspace.