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Timeline of key communications milestones & inventions
From the first transmission of a message by electricity to modern broadband, in date order.
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Alexander Graham Bell & the Telephone
The invention that started it all.
How calls get through
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How phone calls get from A to B
The journey a call makes across the network.
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Look inside a typical Strowger exchange
The electro-mechanical switching that ran Britain's phones for decades.
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Crossbar
The electromechanical matrix that briefly bridged Strowger and the electronic age. With a look at the first exchange at Broughton in 1964.
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Subscriber Trunk Dialling
1958 — the Queen's call from Bristol to Edinburgh that let callers dial long-distance themselves.
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Development of Electronic & Digital Switching
From relays to microprocessors.
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30 years of ISDN
Britain's first widely-used digital line service.
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999 service & Police Boxes
How the emergency call number came about.
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SIGSALY
How engineers built a secure transatlantic phone link during WW2
Mobile & the internet
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How mobiles work
Cells, handovers, and the network behind your signal bars.
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History of Packet Switching & the Internet
How data learned to travel in pieces.
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How packet switching works
A step-by-step look at the mechanism itself.
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IPv6
Why the internet needed a bigger address book.
Fibre
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Fibre Optics
How light replaced copper as the network's carrier.
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Fibre To The Premesis
From copper to fibre. How the access network evolved to keep up with demand for speed.

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