General > General Technical Chat
Order of fallback systems, should the internet go down?
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tooki:

--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on November 01, 2021, 07:10:22 pm ---
--- Quote ---In the end, shutting down the internet would be like saying “shutting down all land travel”
--- End quote ---

I think differently. With travel you are dependant on yourself. Without major roads you can generally get around, albeit sometimes quite slowly and carefully. You don't even need any road at all to do that. With the internet you are completely dependant on your uplink. Without your ISP you're talking to no-one, and without their provider (because they are likely to be resellers) they won't be able to pass anything on even if you sent them a carrier pigeon.

Also don't forget that some countries are easily able to cut off the internet on a whim. And recent accidental routing issues have taken parts offline.

The much vaunted resilience and redundancy only applies if you actually have alternative routes to switch to. The backbone does but the vast proportion of internet users don't. Some parts of the internet will keep up, and those attached to those parts will be able to connect to each other, but the likes of you and me won't be in those parts.

--- End quote ---
That’s literally the point: parts of the internet can go down, but not the whole thing. The discussion wasn’t about the reliability of one user’s internet connection, but about the resilience of the internet as a whole.
PlainName:
I seem not to have explained very well. If your ISP goes down then you, a single user, will surely be cut off but the point was that many many single users would be the same. If the ISP's suppliers goes down you can easily have half a country offline, so the question is: at what kind of numbers do we consider things to be broken?

As I noted, the backbone may well continue, but if you're  not connected to it then it's irrelevant. If, for instance, all of Russia is offline, isn't the internet broken for them? How many such problem are needed before the internet is deemed to be down? Does having a working backbone with no actual user nodes connected count?
madires:

--- Quote from: mfro on November 02, 2021, 08:12:31 am ---
--- Quote from: Nusa on October 29, 2021, 08:15:52 am ---While the internet is a large collection of connected networks, that doesn't mean that all networks are part of the internet. Or even if they are, that local operation would automatically fail when global operation does.

--- End quote ---

For commercial users, it's actually that Internet isn't the most reliable/safe option. There's indeed a large network world existent independently (and to the most part physically separate) from the public Internet.

MPLS providers, e.g., guarantee (at a price) much better availability than any Internet provider.

--- End quote ---

Today most providers run MPLS in their networks anyway. It doesn't matter if you have an MPLS based layer 3 VPN or internet access/transit, they all run over the same infrastructure. Running different networks for different services is simply too expensive. That's also the reason why telcos migrate their telephone service to IP. One network for all services.
G7PSK:
Supposing there was a massive EMP then a week later another EMP, what would survive The mains power goes down on the first one then the back up system goes down, where are we then. No power no internet and most likely no radios as well.
madires:
A few days ago we had an X1 class solar flare. Luckily nothing bad happened.
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