Speaking of losing the Internet, here’s a report by Mahmut Bozarslan on AL Monitor, on what happens when a geographical area accustomed to the Web loses it:
I was in a clothing shop on the main street of Yenisehir district when a customer came in. After he finished shopping, he went to the cashier and wanted to pay with his credit card. The cashier apologized, saying she could not perform the transaction because the internet was down. The customer walked out visibly upset; sales personnel were also disappointed. Similar disruptions were reported from many businesses that rely on internet communications. …
“In hospitals, urgent cases cannot be issued medicines. Turk Telekom, GSM companies: You are committing a crime. You cannot turn off the internet because a governor or the minister asked you to. Communication is a right. People have already paid in advance for internet services. Now they should go and sue these companies. Don’t let them get away with it,” he said.
The disruption lasted 12 hours on the first day and was restored to normal late at night. The next day, the disruption lasted more than 12 hours. The next day, the internet went down an hour before a planned protest action and became the longest disruption at 27 hours. Providers were still citing technical problems, but by that time it became clear that somebody was ordering the service disruptions.
The health sector was one of those most affected by the disruptions. Pharmacies could not sell medicine or could only sell to those who could pay with cash. A desperate relative of a sick person told Al-Monitor that the pharmacist could not give him the medicine his relative needed.
A bus company in Diyarbakir solved the problem by subscribing to an internet satellite connection. Saban Dogmus, manager of the company, told Al-Monitor that it lost at least 50,000 Turkish liras ($16,000) over three days.
“We set up a new system via satellite. We were desperate. We still cannot handle credit cards. The new system doesn’t handle that,” Dogmus told Al-Monitor.
In disruptions that totaled 48 hours over four days, losses by businesses in the city are in the millions. Alican Ebedinoglu, the president of Union of Traders and Artisans, said city businesses are in a crisis. He said all traders are affected and the city’s economy is on the verge of collapse. “Let’s start with our union. We cannot issue any documents to our members. We cannot register any new members. Our connection to the tax offices is through the internet. Many of our traders have switched to wireless internet. They are now helpless. Our members had been suffering from the tensions and clashes in the area already, and now this. They are at end of their resilience — 80% to 90% of our business depends on internet. Businesspeople are about to rise up. A trader owes money and needs credit, but I cannot issue the documents he needs from us. This is a major crisis,” Ebedinoglu told Al-Monitor.
The cause?
Internet disruptions began a few hours after the detentions Oct. 26 of the co-mayors of Diyarbakir metropolitan municipality,Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli. First we thought it was a local problem that usually doesn’t last long. Internet browser administrators said they had a technical problem. But as time passed, we learned the problem was not confined to Diyarbakir but covered many provinces of east and southeast Turkey. Nobody believed that a technical mishap would disrupt internet service in such a large area, and there must be something else behind it. Many believed that the internet was cut off to prevent the organization of protest actions against the detention of the co-mayors.
Your friendly credit card imprinter, still available.
It may be worth your while to keep some cash handy. As useful as credit cards may be, they do constitute a dependency on the Internet that only older businesses can handle – those that still have the mechanical credit card imprinters. They take an impression from your card (thus the raised lettering), transferring it via carbon paper to a receipt, and then they send the receipt in to the credit card company for the actual payment. Via the USPS.
And watch out for autocratic leaders, eager to “preserve public order” at any cost, because rioting reflects poorly on them. Don’t elect any of your own. Electing them is something only chumps do.
