We seem to have had a lot of electronic or digital outages just recently: Blackberry, RBS, Nat West & Ulster banks, Orange mobile networks. BBC radio seems to be suffering from an unusual amount of fall off – perhaps something to do with all the moves to Salford or away from White City & Bush House, though that does not explain why RTE went off for quite a while late one evening.
According to The Times the G4S debacle, over recruiting security staff for the Olympics, is also due in part to software failure in a shift rostering system & problems with their website.
At least it proves that it is not just the public sector that has problems getting these things right.
It was always going to be difficult to recruit people for Olympic security in the numbers set by our current fearful standards. An American expert (whose name I did not catch) told Rhod Sharp on Up All Night that you cannot recruit too far in advance because people may find other jobs to go to, & he thought that getting people vetted in time would be the major stumbling block. And heaven help us if the instruction is that all those going to the Olympics be checked with the same sort of thoroughness as are those trying to get in to Heathrow.
Problems with mobile networks will have made many businesses think hard about whether it is altogether wise to become so dependent on just one means of communication.
As for those for whom a mobile communication device provides the security, comfort & reassurance missing from their lives since that faithful fragment of chewed blanket went unaccountably missing long ago, don’t they ever stop to worry about what else they might be missing while their eyes are glued to the latest texts & twitterings?
