The evolution of broadband

Since UK users started accessing the Internet from home in the early 1990s the methods they use to do so have changed beyond all recognition. And with this change in technology has come a change in what we do online.

Back then the first ISPs (Internet Service Providers) such as Pipex required users to login over their existing phone lines via dial-up subscriptions and an (often external) modem. At the time there was something fantastically futuristic about the whole thing; if you had the right equipment you could plug in to a whole world of information 24 hours a day, from the comfort of your own home. Looking back now, however, and the whole thing seems very outdated indeed.

Dial-up web access was a painfully slow moving beast. At best you could expect download speeds of up to 56kbps per second and, worse, connecting to your ISP meant that anyone telephoning your house would find your number engaged for the duration of your browsing.

The low-tech nature of dial-up web access was reflected in the sites of the time; they were big on words and light on graphics. Large image files appeared one line at a time, and there was no chance of the video streaming, music content or file sharing that we take for granted now.  Indeed, for anyone who didn’t live through this era of early home web access the idea of the web as it was then would seem at best quaint, at worst prehistoric.

The next revolution came towards the end of the 1990s as UK ISPs began to roll out ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) services. ADSL utilised higher frequencies, those not needed for vocal frequency (voiceband) calls and, incredibly, meant that Internet access was not interrupted by telephone calls.

This new technology saw connection speeds leap up into the region of 8 Mbits per second. With this paradigm shift came an Internet of richer content. Users began using the web to not just access websites but also to upload more of their own content including MP3s, which could be shared with anyone in the world (usually anonymously) in a matter of minutes.

But BT still held all of the cards when it came to Internet access, even during the days of ADSL.

It was still BT’s network of copper telephone wires that were being used by all UK web users. The limitations of copper wires meant that ADSL Internet access was only available to subscribers in certain regions who also happened to live within a few miles of their local exchange. The Internet we know today was still some way off.

In the mid-2000s a change in telephony regulations resulted in Local-loop unbundling. This meant that ISPs including Virgin Media and Sky were given greater access to BT’s network and were even allowed to install their own equipment. Again, connection speeds leapt up and by 2007 half of all homes in the UK were in areas serviced by unlimited broadband Internet.

This proliferation of Broadband Internet access also sparked a revolution in what users were doing online. The mid-2000s saw the rise of Web 2.0, or the Social Web. Now, users were not just consuming content from the web, they were starting to contribute to it like never more. User Generated Content (UGC) sites like online photo album site Flickr & video site Youtube came from nowhere to leapfrog into top slots in the most visited sites around the world.

Virginmedia.com/bundles
Sky.com/hd

This ‘always on’ Internet access also saw social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo & Facebook flourish as users in their millions flocked to these sites to share further content including pictures and videos. Today, social networking is so ingrained in the very fabric of the Internet (not to mention wider culture) that it’s hard to imagine a time before status updates and virtual farmsteads.

Now, as one decade gives way to the next, another Internet revolution is happening.

Fibre optic broadband is being rolled out to ever more corners of the UK with each passing day by key players BT and Virgin Media.

Fibre optic broadband promises download speeds of up to 40Mbps. This latest leap in connection speeds is certain to lead to an even richer online experience, as content providers are able to stream higher resolution video, social network sites provide ever more diverse and elaborate services to their users and as communications companies offer more and more on-demand services like BT Vision.

Online retailers will focus more and more on selling downloads of high definition movies and computer software alongside their current inventories of physical formats, MP3s and e-books.

And as the technology of the Internet continues to evolve so will the nature of the content of the Internet, and what ‘The Internet’ means to people as a whole. The social web of the late 2000s represents such a radical leap from the sparse early Internet of the 1990s that it is almost impossible to imagine what the Internet of 2020 or 2030 will be like.

But it’s going to be exciting finding out, isn’t it?