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After two freak cable failures (described as a "one in a million" coincidence) put a good amount of Telecom's network out of commission yesterday, many businesses were left without internet, EFTPOS and mobile phone services for over five hours.

Fortunately, such outages are extremely rare these days, which is just as well because in recent times many of us have come to depend on digital data for essential services.

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I'm wondering how many businesses had fall-back plans in place and were able to weather the outage with minimal disruption?

Not many I suspect.

But just what can be done to mitigate such an outage?

Well there aren't really any alternatives to EFTPOS so whether you're a customer or a retailer, losing this service can be a sale-breaker.

What do you do if you're on a long trip somewhere and, almost out of petrol, you stop at a gas-station to fill up only to find that you have no cash and your EFTPOS card isn't working?

And if this sounds dire enough -- just stop and think of the children!

Yesterday, somewhere in New Zealand, there were streets filled with cute little kids who couldn't watch their favourite sports teams compete on their T3G mobiles.

Fast Eddie was left having to sip his coffee slowly as he waited for his wireless internet service to come back on line so he could "download things really quickly".

In a hi-rise office somewhere, a game of mobile-phone tag suddenly stopped short when the words "No Service" flashed up on the players' mobiles (but, to Telecom's credit, the notification was probably displayed "really fast" on Eddies phone).

Oh the humanity!

But what can you do to reduce the potential disruption such "one in a million" outages can produce?

Fortunately Vodafone's mobile and GPRS digital services didn't seem to be affected, so there is probably something to be said for having an old pre-paid mobile phone on an alternative carrier's network if such connectivity is critical to your business or personal life.

Likewise, if you're just a regular shopper, don't forget to carry your credit card (most shops still have an old-fashioned zip-zap machine) or some cash. Don't put all your faith in EFTPOS -- especially when you're travelling.

If you're a broadband internet user, consider getting a "last-resort" dial-up service with some other carrier (preferably one that doesn't use Telecom's data network) -- just in case.

This contingency planning will cost money -- but how much does it cost to be out of business for the best part of a day?

Do you have contingencies in place for a failure of your primary data or mobile services?

If you didn't, have the events of yesterday made you rethink that position?

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