Is the Internet Dead or just Dying?

[iaaems]

The internet is a fragile beast. What goes into your home is a pair of wires - originally for ringing your bell and speech. Now you can use those two wires for speech and interactive putering at the same time. To the modern generation this may not seem much but the amount of background technology (the bits you cannot see) is very great, man made and prone to go up the spout at any time for no reason at all! To say that the internet was down all over the country I find hard to believe - maybe just a large area was in trouble for a short while.
What would we do without hard line communications (and the internet)? That's a good discussion.
What would we do without mobile phones (and the internet)? That's another good discussion.
It's all about communications of one sort or another. What did we do before all this was available?