Most of us keep a torch or candles in the cupboard in case the lights go out, but what preparations have we made for when our broadband connection does the same thing?

For the growing numbers of people opting to work from home these days, a reliable, always-on internet connection has evolved from a ‘nice-to-have’ into a ‘must-have’ service. When the lights stop flickering on your ADSL or cable modem, productivity quickly takes a nosedive.

Photo courtesy Telstra

The predicament was highlighted during the past week with news of a telecoms cable outage in the western suburbs of Sydney. Details are still sketchy but it appears that two Telstra cables in Blacktown were severed, leaving some 10,000 homes and businesses without phone or ADSL internet services.

The finger of blame has been pointed at techno-vandals, but this is yet to be confirmed. However Telstra says the cuts occurred in two separate locations and were unlikely to have been caused by accidental damage.

Regardless of the reason for the outage, the two-day telecoms blackout that it caused would have caused major problems for home-based workers. Anyone unable to work from an alternative location during the outage may as well have put up the ‘gone fishing’ sign and done just that.

So what lesson does this have for those of us working from a home office? Put some thought into a back-up telecoms strategy. Your main broadband connection may well hum along faultlessly for the majority of the time, but consider what you’ll do if it doesn’t. And trust me: interruptions will always happen when you’re up against a deadline or so snowed with work that you can’t afford to take time off.

One option for inhabitants of home offices is to invest in a back-up wireless internet connection. Fierce competition between operators (at least in the metro areas), means there are now some quite cost effective options on the market.

In small offices, a single wireless broadband connection can be configured to provide internet access for multiple PCs. The speeds on offer won’t set your hair on fire, but at least they’ll tide you over until the fixed line service comes back to life.

Obviously the wireless service can also be used when away from the office, providing a constant internet connection for mobile workers. But even if it spends the majority of time sitting idle, it’s a small price to pay to have the insurance of a back-up data link to the world.

Still not convinced? Try unplugging your modem and seeing just how much work you get done for the rest of the day. You’ll be more productive grabbing that rod and going fishing.