Can we learn lessons from the flood at the BT Exchange in Paddington?

What happened

Early on Wednesday 31st March 2010, BT issued an announcement:  “Following flooding at a BT exchange in the Paddington area, customers in parts of North and West London may be experiencing a loss of broadband and/or telephone service. Customers in other parts of the country may also be affected.”

Pretty innocuous sounding, but what happened next?

When phone lines within London, and by some accounts all across the country, stopped working, it wasn’t just phone calls that were affected. Indeed, switching to mobiles made that a low impact issue.

But phone lines are used for so much more than conversations. When cash points tried to get approval for someone withdrawing money, they couldn’t, and the ATMs were shut down.  The same happened with PDQ machines for people trying to use a credit card in shops.

By noon, SagePay, one of the UK’s largest online payment processing systems, were saying: “Please be advised Lloyds Cardnet and Halifax Bank of Scotland customers are currently unable to process transactions via the Sage Pay gateway.”  So, websites across the UK stopped being able to take money.

And given the 31st March may well have been pay day for many, how many companies couldn’t contact the bank electronically to make that payment?

Although we all enjoy the benefits of an interconnected world, sometimes there are risks.

A bit too much water and a business’s trading for the last day of their financial year is interrupted.

What is the loss of business this one fault caused?

Did it cause your business issues? 

As we rely so heavily of BT’s network, surely it’s sensible to use technology to give ourselves that “work from home” option?

How often do we consider the impact of what we take for granted failing?