A 1994 Report About the Internet Coming to the UK

In a fascinating segment from a 1994 episode of the BBC science show Tomorrow’s World, host Kate Bellingham explains how the internet works, what the internet entails, how to purchase a modem, and how she was able to email President Bill Clinton but not British Prime Minister John Major because he didn’t have a modem yet.

The information superhighway will be a high-capacity digital communication network, which in time could revolutionise the way we shop, socialise and work. The groundwork for this technological behemoth is already well underway, with computers already communicating with one another to allow users to send electronic mail (President Bill Clinton is already connected) and access news, weather and even some shopping services.

Bellingham also discussed how the UK needs to invest in more robust phone lines and infrastructure to keep up with the rest of the world.

For the information superhighway to really take off though, it needs more capacity than the UK’s ageing network of copper telephone wires can provide. Is Britain prepared to invest in the sort of high-capacity fibre-optic cable network that can make the technological utopia a reality?