Real info - Where the market is going - Down, but not out

A word of advice: the next time the Internet crashes get on theut it was good for the telcos who thrive on concerns about quality of service. blower. The reason? You and your business could get the equivalent of #100,000 worth of free advertising by selling your sob story to a national newspaper. Hold on, I hear you say: "sob story?"

It goes like this: when the Internet goes down, phone up a newspaper and say you have lost loads of business because you sell a special kind of cupcake to millions of online surfers every day. Throw in the fact that you are thinking of suing BT for not keeping the Net flowing smoothly.

The papers will love it - it's all about identifying with the small guy battling the system.

The last time the Net went down, the Guardian newspaper ran the headline "Crash leaves pizzas in the pan" (even the headline writers had some fun) about a US pizza company that said it had lost thousands of dollars during the recent Net crash.

It makes good copy, but if you are managing a network then you'd better have some good answers when the chairman gets on the phone to ask you why no-one is getting any email and your online sales system has hit the wall.

Firstly, you'd better learn to explain that the Internet was never intended to be controllable from one location; that it was built to withstand nuclear attack and so is decentralised by design.

Secondly, you might like to explain that there is a body called Internic that needs its arse kicked - that's already happening, but he'll be impressed that you have found someone to blame. Tell him that the latest crash was caused by one operator allowing incorrect updates of Web site addresses to go out, even when he was being warned that there was a fault in the system. Tell him that Internic will make sure that updates are overseen by two people in the future.

Some background might be useful. What actually happened is that on a certain day in July, an operator failed to notice a computer warning that zone files were corrupted and allowed files to be sent to 12 root servers.

The updates related to sites ending in .com and .net, and led to 35 per cent of US sites being inaccessible for over four hours. Although .co.uk sites were not affected, emails to affected sites bounced back, and access was impossible.

Other crashes occurred during July thanks to telecom lines going down and fibre links being cut by manual workers. All in all, confidence in the ability of the Net to withstand the growing demands of commerce had hit an all time low.

Ironically this is good news for telcos like BT who benefit from concerns over security and quality of service. Although they cannot guarantee that problems beyond their control won't occur, they can increasingly ensure that traffic is carried over their own network. No wonder they like the word Intranet so much.

I spoke to a small Web design company called Aquea Vitae to see if such services are of interest: "Yes, it's quite important," said MD Malcolm Greenaway. "That's why I connect to Mercury. I like the fact that it has a global network through Cable and Wireless." Greenaway thinks that the important thing to look out for is what kind of re-routing the provider has in place, because although the Net can crash dramatically, it's the failure of the odd leased line that is most common. If the routing is not sophisticated, you end up twiddling your thumbs while the problem is passed from one person to another.

Ben Knox, MD of Internet Service Provider Direct Connect, echoed the sentiment and perhaps predictably pointed out that the Net is far more reliable than many expect: "I'm sure the phone service was unreliable in the early days; most ISPs have good backup arrangements, but leased lines do go down and then it's a case of finding the fault. That's what takes the time. BT's technology is not always the latest thing."

Knox gives some good advice: "Check what backup your ISP has; find out what are the main connections; what sort of service level agreements are there; what kind of back power is there."

The biggest problem is that companies are linking to the Net and becoming reliant on email and information held on Web sites. It's like the problem with motor transport: create a mode of transport that people like and they will flock to it, so much so that you will never keep up with capacity.

Governments are realising that the only way to deal with this is to charge for the high speed routes to avoid congestion. If the plans of the major telcos are anything to go by, the Internet will rapidly go the same way.

In the meantime, get to know your service provider well if you want a quiet life.