How one piece of equipment took down the ABC this week

Those hoping to tune into the measured tones of Sally Sara on Radio National last Monday morning were greeted with radio silence.

A number of the ABC’s radio and audio services were knocked off air for hours on Monday, and the culprit was, according to the broadcaster, “the core router”.

Of course, this prompted a number of follow up questions. The router was apparently knocked out because of an update, so somone’s had a bad week. But more to the point: “What is a core router?” and “How can one piece of equipment have the power to take down an entire radio network?”