Internet outage and phones - sending broadcast message

[loxford01]

We recently had Internet outage and also took down our Voip phones so there was no way to communicate with staff other than through personal mobiles or doing a run around and its a big site. We do have a backup line that didn't kick in but what I want to know is, is there a way to send a pop up message through the internal network to all end users PCs? Its a windows vanilla network.

[Davit2005]

Email, Teams, etc. etc.

 

There are a few posts on here for emergency notifications but that might be taking it to far and numb users into ignoring messages if not used for emergency??

 

Scrap this, should of read the post better.

Edited April 23, 2024 by Davit2005

[PotNoodleTech]

Yep we had a whole town power cut last week. It's funny how despite thinking about the scenario, when it happens you realise how much you rely on it all.

 

I have the phone system in the server room which is UPS powered so the phone system stayed up.

I have my own office on UPS so that I can make phone calls or sent texts/emails/edit website social media and twitter.

 

However - the power cut took out the local BT exchange due to a technical issue there so we had no internet or external phones anyway and neither did anyone else in the area.

 

We could keep internal phones up and running but it would be costly as you'd have to fit a UPS to every rack to keep the POE switches up and running. This would be useful a a side benefit would be wireless and CCTV would also stay online.

 

We had to resort to me hot spotting to a 4g phone to send texts out to parents and staff.

 

There's room for improvement in all areas but sadly it all comes down to money.

[NegativeKillDeath]

We used Netsupport Notify, initially as a way to communicate a school lockdown but broadened to Internet/Email outages. Other uses are being discussed, eg school buses are late or other whole school last minute updates that might get missed via email.

[mavhc]

msg * /server: /v /w

 

Use powershell 7 to run the for loop for all computers in parallel

 

Run as a user with rdp and admin privs on all the clients

 

Something like (untested)

$message = "The internet connection has failed"
$ldappath = 'LDAP://OU=Computers,DC=domain,DC=local'
$DirSearcher = New-Object DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher([adsi]$ldappath)
$DirSearcher.Filter = '(objectClass=Computer)'
$computers = $DirSearcher.FindAll().GetEnumerator() | ForEach-Object { $_.Properties.name }
$computers1 = @() 

foreach($t in $computers)
{
   if($t -ne $null)# -and $temp -ne "")
   {
       $computers1 += $t
   }
}

$computers1 | ForEach-Object -throttlelimit 300 -parallel {
 
 $t = $_
 write-output $t
 
 if (Test-Connection -computerName $t -quiet) {
   $cmd = "msg * /server:$t /v /w $message"
   
   Invoke-Expression $cmd
   write-output $t
 }
}

[Rob_D]

We used to have Winsent Messenger for sending emergency messages to staff desktops.

[howartp]

We use Impero to popup messages for important issues such as when the No 43 bus is late(!).

[k-strider]

oh for the days when NET SEND was still a thing we had to block kids from doing

[FN-GM]

I would consider expanding the scope to a power outage. Many valid suggestions here for an internet outage wouldn’t be possible if the power is off.

[Andrew_C]

In the old days, the Post Office (and later BT) had hoofing great lead-acid batteries that would keep your phone running in the event of a power cut...

Isn't modern technology wonderful?

[NegativeKillDeath]

I would consider expanding the scope to a power outage. Many valid suggestions here for an internet outage wouldn’t be possible if the power is off.

 

I've tended to find that the teachers can figure out there is a powercut. Our website is hosted so can add a message to that via a mobile phone to let the wider community know.

[Rob_D]

I've tended to find that the teachers can figure out there is a powercut. Our website is hosted so can add a message to that via a mobile phone to let the wider community know.

 

It depends. We went through a period some years ago when 1 of our power phases would go, and because of the way the school was wired we'd loose power to half the classrooms and the network cabs serving the other half.

[pete]

Assuming the internal network is up, we'd send a message via Netsupport to powered-on devices.

 

Most management platforms should have similar functionality.

[howartp]

I would consider expanding the scope to a power outage. Many valid suggestions here for an internet outage wouldn’t be possible if the power is off.

Fair comment.

 

We have an a distribution rota where support staff have assigned areas/corridors/offices to distribute paper/verbal messages to in the event of emergency that can't use IT or delivery needs to be assured.

 

I would say they photocopy the messages before distributing them, but...

[PotNoodleTech]

I would say they photocopy the messages before distributing them, but...

 

That's exacly what we had last week

 

Ooh theres a power cut lets phone people to tell them. Oh wait.

 

OK let's tannoy them. Oh wait.

 

Ok lets email them. Oh wait.

 

Text them. Oh wait.

 

Ok lets walk around all the buildings? Yes that works!!

[p858snake]

In the old days, the Post Office (and later BT) had hoofing great lead-acid batteries that would keep your phone running in the event of a power cut...

Isn't modern technology wonderful?

 

Power Outages and network outages are nothing new, and should already be documented in the disaster recovery plans when the new technologies were introduced and planned out.

[chazzy2501]

iphones have something called Multi peer technology, underused but I think it can basically make an adhoc mesh network. Perfect for a large messaging system that can have thousands of clients and no internet access. (think burning man type event)

[Roberto]

There are solutions to alerting out there that are resilient - https://www.everbridge.com/solutions/business-operations/ springs to mind.

If the data needed for registers was stored natively (or possibly lists generated locally and saved to cloud after registration) then the data can be available online in the event of a local building fire/power issue, then you have access to the data via 4g/5g phone services for taking registrations electronically...