There is an old saying that "eternity is like two people and a ham." But as times change, eternity may be likened to the five hour and 24 minute Internet outage that hit the county last Wednesday.

Computer problem solving skills such as "Ctrl, Alt, Delete" were no match for the problems of that day.

Although many folks looked to the Frontier building at the corner of Third Avenue and Ninth Avenue in Marlinton, the problem with the Internet actually originated in Greenbrier County.

As far removed as that may seem, Frontier General Manager of the Elkins Market Area Reta Griffith revealed that a glitch with the Internet service last winter was caused by a problem in Minnesota.

Cables in Charleston, New Jersey and routers in Chicago can cause problems for us here in Pocahontas County, said Frontier's John Mutscheller.

Redundancy is often annoying and sometimes entertaining in conversation, but it is redundancy in engineering that will prevent Internet disconnections from taking place in the future.

"Redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of a system, usually with a backup or fail-safe."

"We are adding additional routes throughout West Virginia," Griffith said. "Routes to switch over to when problems occur."

One bad day unfortunately overshadows the fact that Internet service has been available for some time in this county in places like Hosterman and Clover Lick, while areas on the outskirts of more populated towns are still waiting for adequate service, said Mutscheller.

Despite the ease with which we bring up our news, weather, sports and anything else we want to see, Internet service is a complicated business.

Just try to understand such language as "ROADM - reconfigurable optical add drop multiplexer."

According to techtar get.com, a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) is a device that can add, block, pass or redirect modulated infrared (IR) and visible light beams of various wavelengths in a fiber optic network.

Frontier is acutely aware that it is by way of the Internet that we work, play, do schoolwork, talk to our friends and family and read books.

"When there is an outage, the guys in Marlinton are really good to respond," Griffith said. "They go out any time of the day and night."

A minute is an eternity in this instant gratification world. The faster it gets, the faster you want it, she said, with regards to Internet speed.

We can't reach out into the world without the world reaching back to us in sometimes negative ways to affect our lives. And the county was affected last week.

Surely there was someone out there on Wednesday who was having a bad day. Unable to post it on Facebook, they just had to suck it up and get over it.

At least one resident was in the midst of an e-Bay deal when "the lights went out."

But at First Citizens Bank it was business as usual, as the bank has its own Internet system.

What would happen if the Internet was down for three or four days?

"People would have to come to the bank and get cash," said teller Diane Price.

State Farm Insurance was unaffected, as well, as it have a dual system.

"It's tighter than a drum," said Agent Darrin Jackson.

But for businesses that depend on the Internet, it was not smooth sailing.

"It stifled our getting doneness," said salesman Brian Tankersley, of Mitchell Chevrolet. "It was an unrestful break. We are still trying to get caught up."

Mitchell's buys, sells, looks up and orders parts and issues license plates online.

At Pocahontas Memorial Hospital CFO Chad Carpenter waited for PEIA records contained on the state's website to figure the employees' insurance and retirement for the monthly financial report.

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The conundrum for doctors and patients was that all tests and scans done at PMH require an official reading from a radiologist. To get that final report requires transmission by Internet. In addition, all billing is done online, so that office was put a day behind, Carpenter said.

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Although progress has been made in the area of electronic health records, to date that has not been implemented and that worked to the benefit of the facility in this case.

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At pharmacies, claims slowly fed through a dial-up feed while customers patiently waited. Orders were delayed and software updates took three times as long to complete.

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At Burns Motor Freight, whose business is not confined within its four walls, things were pretty chaotic.

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"It paralyzed us," said dispatcher Danny Kellison. " We had to do everything over the phone. "

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Not an easy task given the number of trucks on the road and the number of orders that the company deals with each day.

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"It was a nasty day," added dispatcher Gary Kramer, who was confronted with 239 emails when service was restored.

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Just down the road, Pocahontas Foodland did things the old-fashioned way, as well. Credit cards were handled manually - with dial-up. A very slow process in comparison to the speed of "swipe."

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At Glades Building Supply, things moved a bit slower as cash, for a while, was the order of the day.

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"Oh, my," said owner Ruth Sharp. "It was horrible. We can't operate in many ways -with credit cards and with looking up prices and ordering online."

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Fortunately it was slow day, and Glades employees eventually took credit card information on faith and ran the charges later.

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"You just do what you can," said Randy Sharp. "It would've been worse if it was a holiday or a weekend."

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At C. J. Richardson Hardware where pencils and paper are still used, the Internet outage touched them, as well. Although it was business as usual, it was just a little slower.

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"It was nothing we couldn't overcome," said Jerry Davis.

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When it came to submitting orders for the store, it was done by phone.

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"We got on the horn and called in our orders," he said.

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Looking up parts numbers or diagrams on the Internet was a no-go.

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"If it'd been Monday, I'd been through the roof,' said Steve Sharp.

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As for calling in orders and seeking information over the phone, "My communications skills are limited," Sharp joked.

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But maybe Terry Richardson expressed this brief respite from technology best.

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"I felt a sense of peace and serenity," he said, smiling.

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Even here, we live in a world that has become dependent on new, better and faster technology.

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"On the horn" ﾭ a reminder of how things used to be.

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Jaynell Graham may be contacted at jsgraham@pocahontastimes.com

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