Fixed line voice and data to and from Queensland; mobile for customers located in Queensland; Internet browsing for Queensland customers to servers outside Queensland; some mobile services in northern New South Wales - all down!

If you were in Brisbane at the time, you're likely aware of this incident and the resultant mass chaos and confusion. Some almost expected planes to start falling out of the sky; others prematurely predicted an imminent terrorist attack. Central Brisbane ground to a standstill as people ran out onto the street, yelling that their internet and/or phone was busted, and - shock, horror - they had to talk to one another to discover news and information.

This is all speculative and based on second- and third-hand information, however. Here within the safe, comfortable confines of  Digicon Tower House, our internets were unaffected, though we fielded dozens of calls from clients who experienced service outages. While remaining connected and fully-functional, our thoughts turned to the nature of the always-on world into which we've firmly embedded ourselves.

If your business is reliant on connected technology in the slightest, you'd have winced a little - as we did - when you heard the news. If you were affected, you'd likely have been tearing your hair out and blaming everyone within earshot, while irrationally vowing to never deal with Optus again. In retrospect, however, we propose that you'd be better off dealing with Optus than any other popular network provider in the country.

They've experienced the problem. They've weathered the storm - and, likely, tens of thousands of rage-filled customers. Imagine the number of resignations from Optus' customer service department on Tuesday! But if they've learned anything from the experience, they'll have reviewed the processes that led to a bloke with a backhoe forgetting to dial before you dig to attempt to ensure that it never happens again.

The mind boggles when considering the dollar value that could be placed on Optus' five-hour outage. Discussion of compensation has already erupted. Suddenly, concerns regarding potential telecommunications backup service providers have pushed their way to the forefront of many business owners' minds.

Allegedly, all of this originated from the actions of a Gold Coast City Council backhoe operator and the unfortunate coincidence of a hardware failure. As a result, millions of people were effectively disconnected from the loop for five hours. However, to remix Paul Keating's infamous words, perhaps this was the disconnection we had to have. Already, there are calls to decentralise Optus' internet pipes to reduce the chance of this supposed one-in-a-million event reoccurring.

In the meantime, keep your service providers close, and your backups closer.