Ninety Minutes Offline: A Small-Firm Playbook for the Day the Broadband Dies

It usually starts with someone saying "is the internet down?" in a voice that already knows the answer. The router light is red, the softphone app has gone grey, and the shared inbox has stopped refreshing. Somewhere out there, a customer is trying to call you and getting nothing.

The first ninety minutes set the tone for the whole day. Get them right and an outage is an inconvenience. Get them wrong and you lose the afternoon, an order, and possibly a client. Here is the sequence we would run.

Minutes 0–5: resist the urge to reboot everything

Unplugging the router three times in a row feels productive and tells you nothing. Instead, do three quick checks and write down the time.

• Is it the wifi or the whole line? Try one device on mobile data — if the mobile data works and nothing else does, the problem is on your side of the wall socket.
• Look at the router lights. Solid red or no DSL light usually means the line, not the device.
• Ask the room. If only one laptop is struggling, you have a device problem, not an outage, and you can stop reading.

If two or more people are offline and the lights are wrong, assume it is the line and move on.

Minutes 5–15: establish whether it is you or them

Check your provider's status page from a phone on mobile data — not from the office wifi, which is the thing that is broken. If there is a known outage in your postcode, you have your answer and can skip to minute 15. If the status page is green, log a fault anyway; the log timestamp matters later.

While you are there, note three things: your circuit ID or account number, the exact time the fault started, and the fault reference you are given. Screenshot all of it. This is the beginning of your evidence file, and it is the difference between a credit and a polite no.

Minutes 15–25: get a second route to the internet

This is why the 4G or 5G router in the cupboard earns its keep. If you have one:

1. Power it up and check it is on a different network to your main provider if possible.
2. Switch the office wifi over, or tether key laptops to phones.
3. Prioritise two things only — the phone service and email. Everything else can wait.

If you do not have a backup router, phone tethering is the fallback. It is imperfect: a hosted phone system on a tethered connection usually works for calls, but a video call on a weak 4G signal will embarrass you. Turn video off, use audio, and keep sentences short.

Buying a backup router mid-outage is not a plan, it is a shopping trip. Do it next week instead, when the pressure is off.

Minutes 25–40: move the phone number

If your calls run over the broadband, they died with it. Most hosted providers let you set an instant divert from a mobile app or a web portal — to a mobile, or to a colleague in a different location. Look for "call forwarding" or "find me" settings and set it now, not after the third missed call.

If you are on a traditional line with a divert feature, the star codes are usually printed in your provider's help pages. Worth knowing before you need them.

Then update the voicemail greeting, if you can, to say you are experiencing a line fault and give a mobile. A greeting that says "we'll call you back" without a number is just a dead end with manners.

Minutes 40–60: tell people in the right order

Order matters. Customers first, then the people who can fix it, then the wider world.

• Key clients, by text or mobile. One line: what is down, what still works, who to ring, and when you will update them. Vague reassurance annoys people more than bad news does.
• Your team, in one place. A single message beats six people each ringing the provider separately and creating duplicate tickets that slow everyone down.
• Website and socials, if the outage will run past a couple of hours. A banner costs nothing and stops the "I tried to call you" emails.

Designate one person to own communications and one to own the fault. In a small firm that might be the same person, but say it out loud so nobody assumes someone else did it.

Minutes 60–75: escalate with facts, not frustration

When you call, lead with the reference number and the timing. Ask three specific questions and write down the answers:

1. What is the current estimated fix time, and has that changed?
2. Is an engineer required, and has it been booked or merely requested?
3. What is the compensation position under the contract or the automatic compensation scheme?

On that last point: UK providers signed up to the automatic compensation scheme typically pay a fixed daily amount for delayed repairs once a fault runs past the two-working-day mark, plus a smaller sum for missed appointments. It is not a fortune, but it is yours, and it is usually applied automatically — if you have logged the fault properly. Contracts with business SLAs may promise more, so read the service credit clause before you accept the first offer.

Minutes 75–90: write it down while it is fresh

A short note now saves an argument later. Timestamp of first failure, timestamp of fault logged, reference, who you spoke to and when, what workaround you used, and which customers were affected. Ten lines in a shared document is plenty.

The review you do tomorrow, not today

Once the lights are green, spend twenty minutes on three questions:

• Did the backup work? If the 4G router was flat, slow, or still in its box, that is a task with a deadline.
• What broke first — the line or the process? Many outages are survivable; it is the missing divert setting or the missing contact list that turns them into a lost morning.
• Has anything changed in the contract? If the provider missed its SLA, submit the credit claim in writing within whatever window the terms specify. Do not wait for them to notice.

Then put the lessons somewhere permanent: a one-page outage sheet with the divert instructions, the provider numbers, the escalation reference format, and who to ring first. Stick it on the wall.

The honest truth is that most UK small firms will see at least one of these a year. The ones that shrug it off are not the ones with the fanciest kit — they are the ones who wrote the first ninety minutes down before they needed them.