Very Necessary — In Fact, Vital

My younger sister lives on a ranch in Colorado in the middle of nowhere. With a state this size, and its acres of open terrain, the middle of nowhere is, well, almost everywhere. To have a pickup truck is commonplace and to drive for long distances in it is too. So is having a dial up connection. Yes, dial up.

I say this because it was until recently that my sister had one. That meant that out on the ranch, they just didn’t check their e-mail often-if ever; in town, it was a different story, where they keep another small house and did check it more often, with the benefit of DSL or some such more dedicated line. For years, my sister’s dictum was, “Just don’t e-mail me. And don’t send photos; they will take forever to download.” To communicate, we had to resort to using trusted old-fashioned methods: The phone and the mail. What a concept.

We do live in a brave new world–communication world, that is. There was a time when the phone was our primary means of talking to someone, or the good old U.S. mail if we weren’t in a hurry. The pager then debuted to help us make contact, a device pretty much relegated now to the ranks of medical professionals. Answering machines were in vibrant use up until about a decade ago, and those who are technologically averse may still find them a simple appliance to use for just leaving a message. Communication between parties now occurs in the palm of one’s hand. Today’s generation probably can’t fathom that the kind of instantaneous messaging they so take for granted never existed until a decade and a half ago, more or less.

Yet it’s not that easy. Connection still evades us at times. Those who aren’t technologically astute leave it to those who are to do what they can’t-in any profession. I’d rather have someone prepare my taxes who has full knowledge of the IRS than do it myself, and I leave it up to the chef at my favorite restaurant to turn out a killer risotto with spring vegetables since that’s not necessarily my strong suit.

Those in the business of providing Internet services have no idea how critical what they do is to those on the receiving end. As with the myriad electronic appliances we take for granted, it’s expected that when we turn on the laptop or desktop, and click on the blue “e” or the globe wrapped in the fox, that instant access will be ours. Not so when there is an interruption in the line. Lack of service can happen for any number of reasons-a power outage, human error, or equipment failure can all trip one up and halt work flow as we know it. When access is compromised, the wheels of business screech to a halt, no matter what business you’re in.

In the personal space, Internet Service Providers-companies with employees full of knowledge that others don’t have-manage our much-needed connectivity. We know them in the popular media to be friendly men in red shirts and hardhats, or raven-haired movie stars boasting snappy tag lines. Verizon, one of the most advertised and most popular, has an ad campaign whose lines have fallen into the vernacular (i.e., “Can you hear me now?”). The current website promises, “A Guaranteed Price for Life of $19.99 per month”–if you sign up now for two years. A free wireless router will be yours too if the order is placed online. Big promises for big customer service returns.

It means everything to end users though, especially those like me. I make my living as a communications specialist: I write, I blog, I release, I e-mail, I IM. I am all that, and more. Without my little laptop-in high working order, connected to the wall-I am lost, no exaggeration. In my own experience, I’ve found that the prospect of not being connected is hampering, frustrating, maddening, and, to use the very au courant term, unacceptable. In fact, it puts me over the edge. Most would describe me as pretty even-tempered, and there truly is not much that makes me flustered. But not being connected is the last straw. Without being able to get on the ‘net, I’m disconnected from multitudinous information sources; can’t get to my e-mail account (actually, my three e-mail accounts) where I transact immense amounts of business daily and receive valuable messages from family and friends; and interact on any social media of which I’m a member-twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and the like. Add anything else I’ve missed and the problem is compounded tenfold.

In the business realm, where managed network services, colocation, hosting, business-class cable and metro Ethernet circuits are the stuff of one’s technological life, to have access is an absolute necessity. It is, in fact, something no one seems to be able to live without. A whole sea change has come about when it comes to not only how we communicate on a professional level, in terms of talking, but how we get information-those photos and files and important documents-to each other, in a more timely and whole manner. These have become our trusted new-fashioned methods, and we all are happy to have them-and to have them stay.