Water, gas and/or electricity, and telephone service have been widely available for years and present in almost every household in America. In the past few years, I have noticed that households with Internet connections now panic almost as much with an Internet outage as they would with a power outage or water leak. The Internet has truly become the a 'fourth utility'.
We all use the Internet now as a communication medium and the ultimate reference device. When it slows down, act erratic, or fails, we tend to worry about it almost as much our other three utilities. You can keep your fourth utility humming along problem free by following the advice we have laid out for you on this site regarding Internet security and troubleshooting.
What do you think? If you were stuck on an island and could have water, electricity, telephone, or Internet which would you pick (assuming that you could use any of the above without the other)?