With its limitless boundaries, technology always continues to amaze us. Some of the fans as well as the nostalgics, will realize how many leaps and bounds have happened with the help of progress and innovations that we have been through, especially when it comes to the internet.
Today, the users that are born in the latest years will probably laugh at what many had to go through when it was introduced in the UK. The people of a certain generation may have recollections and tales of their internet experiences that are tough for the ones that have been brought up with broadband or later to understand.
Dial-Up began everything
The emergence of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee was way earlier than its actual use for diverse activities online by people. Still, the introduction of Dial-Up is what initially helped it to boom as it became more accessible.
Dial-up involves the user having to establish a connection to the internet using a modem and a telephone line. For example, if the phone line were being used for a call, one couldn’t use the internet and vice versa. In several homes, you would find that one was asked to get off one to use the other. The use of Dial-up was also associated with certain sounds, where one could get to listen to the PC and try to call the phone line.
Then, it could handle speeds of about 56kbps. Today, we understand that it’s very slow and would be insufficient for many of the Internet activities that we do in the modern day. Presently, it is achievable to achieve speeds of over 1Gbps via numerous options, which is approximately 18,000 times faster.
Broadband’s UK introduction
The first broadband connection in the UK was introduced by NTL, in 2000, in Basildon, Essex. Nevertheless, it was highly-priced, and the take up was also very slow because only 9% of the UK took it up. This was far below the other European countries that had a rate of 30-40% around that time.
However, the boom was in 2008 as it became popular and over 50% of homes had it in the UK. Speeds of 512 kbps were provided, and it turned out to be more trustworthy to the users.
It allowed people to enjoy many of their favorite activities, with some even using the internet alongside other industries to have been experiencing their own growth at the same time. Many multimedia entertainment sites began to grow, with the iGaming sector being one, as online casinos continued to emerge and get better, with players able to use a roulette UK site with more stability and reliability, which is crucial to a conducive gaming experience.
UK’s Fibre Optics history
In the 2010s, broadband continued to escalate and improve in noticeable ways. Speeds continued to increase as speeds of over 100Mbps became the norm for much of the UK, which was still notably slower than many other countries across Europe.
Copper – which was used in Dial-up and ADSL connections – was being used less than before, as fibre broadband became an viable option. This method allowed data to be transferred at quicker rates and in larger volumes. The ability to download a big file or image would take a matter of seconds instead of hours (or even days) as they did on the first forms of internet connections.
Since its emergence, broadband became considered a utility in 2015 by the UK government, giving homeowners a legal right to be able to access affordable broadband and making it just as important as water, gas, and electricity.
5G mobile internet
While the types of internet connections we can receive have changed, the way we surf the web has also changed.
Following the introduction of smartphones, we now have access to the web whenever we want. This has led to the necessity of having a strong mobile internet connection. We have gone from GPRS and EDGE internet to 3G, 4G and now 5G, providing users with a quicker and more reliable internet connection. However, as tech continues to evolve and develop, it may not be long before we get 6G in the UK.
What does the future hold for the UK’s internet?
Even though many might tend to think that we have never had it this good going by the past internet options available, rest assured that new options will be available in the future.
The requirement of high-speed, high-reliability internet will be mandatory as the UK becomes more networked. This is most likely to lead to the delivery of full-fibre broadband. Others have started to work from home or use the internet for on-demand streaming services, where we have moved away from some old-fashioned entertainment forms.