It always happens at the worst possible time. You’re in the middle of something important—maybe a Teams call with your biggest client, maybe just ordering pizza—when suddenly, your internet dies.

At first, you stay calm. It’s probably nothing. Then reality sets in. What follows is a journey through the Five Stages of Network Outage Grief.

1️⃣ Denial – “It must be the ISP.”

Your first instinct? Blame the ISP.

You open WhatsApp and check your estate or office group chat. No complaints from anyone else? That’s weird. Maybe it’s just a glitch. You refresh the page. Still nothing.

It’s fine. You’ll just wait a minute. It’ll come back. It has to come back.

(Plot twist: It won’t.)

2️⃣ Anger – “Who unplugged the router?!”

Now you’re pissed.

The questions start flying:

“Did someone touch the router?”
“Why does this always happen to me?”
“Why am I paying so much for internet if it doesn’t work when I need it?!”

You storm over to the CPE device, give it the death stare, and do what every IT expert does in an emergency: switch it off and on again.

The lights blink. Hope flickers.

Then... nothing.

3️⃣ Bargaining – “Maybe if I reboot it again…”

Desperation kicks in. You start negotiating with the internet gods.

“I’ll never complain about my ISP again if this just starts working.”
“I’ll upgrade my package, I swear.”
“Maybe if I restart the router one more time, it’ll fix itself.”

Spoiler alert: It won’t.

4️⃣ Depression – “I’ll never finish my Teams conference with my most important client & I'll look like a poephol.”

Now, the full horror of the situation sets in.

Your most important client is waiting on Teams, and you’re stuck with no internet.
No backups. No failover. Just awkward silence and your face frozen in the worst possible expression.

Your client sees you as that guy—the one with unreliable connectivity. You look like a poephol, and now you’re wondering if you’ll ever close this deal.

Maybe you should just move to a cave where internet isn’t even an expectation.

5️⃣ Acceptance – “Okay, I need SD-WAN.”

At this point, you’ve been through all the emotions, and one thing is clear:

This CANNOT happen again.

The answer? SD-WAN with multi-link failover.

With Fusion’s SD-WAN, if one connection dies, traffic automatically shifts to a backup connection. No interruptions. No stress. No looking like a poephol on Teams.

Lesson learned: A single internet connection is a single point of failure. Fusion’s SD-WAN makes sure you never have to experience network outage grief again.

💥 Real-World Example | The Deal That Never Closed 💥

Let’s talk about what happens when businesses don’t have a backup plan.

A high-flying consultant had just landed a big meeting with an international client. The deal? Worth millions.

It was the final negotiation call, and all he had to do was present his final proposal over Teams. Easy, right?

Well, Murphy’s Law kicked in. 🚨

His ISP went down. His mobile data was crawling. His backup LTE dongle was dead.

The client waited 10 minutes. Then 15.

After 30 minutes of silence, the client simply said:

“If this is how your company runs, we’re not interested.”

Deal lost. Millions gone. All because of one dodgy internet connection.

Wrap

If you’ve lived through this nightmare, you know the pain. The good news? You don’t have to suffer anymore.

Sort out your connectivity before the next SHIT moment (Significant Havoc In Technology). Get a proper SD-WAN solution, and stay online—always.

💡 Ready to stop grieving and start winning? Check out Fusion’s SD-WAN and sleep easy knowing you’ll never be a poephol on Teams again.

🔥 Your move: Would you risk a multimillion-rand deal because you trusted a single ISP? Or would you get SD-WAN and keep your business online no matter what?

Let me know what you think! 🚀

😭"My Internet Is Down!" – The Five Stages of Network Outage Grief💔