From Beacon Fires to Fibre Broadband

Broadband networks are now an essential utility. They bind our society together, and they underpin the operation of any modern economy. But our dependence on these networks is, in historical terms, a recent phenomenon. For thousands of years, our ancestors were limited to sending simple messages using chains of beacon fires. Just over 200 years ago, beacon fires were replaced by the first telecommunications networks. Since then, repeated waves of disruptive innovation have driven dramatic growth in the volume and variety of data we all consume.

This book describes how we have achieved this transformation. A recurring theme is the way in which each new communications technology has been created by innovators, harnessed by entrepreneurs and regulated by public authorities. The book brings this to life by describing the parallel histories of telecommunications in four countries – France, Germany, the UK and the US. It concludes with a summary of lessons learnt – history provides no easy answers to the questions we face today, but those who fail to learn from it are certainly doomed to repeat it.