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 AnOpte Project visualization ofrouting paths through a portion of the Internet |
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TheUnited Kingdom has been involved with theInternet throughout its origins and development. Thetelecommunications infrastructure in the United Kingdom providesInternet access to homes and businesses mainly throughfibre,cable,mobile andfixed wireless networks.
The share of households with Internet access in the United Kingdom grew from 9 percent in 1998 to 93 percent in 2019.[1] In 2019, virtually all adults aged 16 to 44 years in the UK were recent internet users (99%), compared with 47% of adults aged 75 years and over; in aggregate, the third-highest in Europe.[2] Internet bandwidth per Internet user was the seventh highest in the world in 2016,[3] and average and peak internet connection speeds were top-quartile in 2017.[4] Internet use in the United Kingdom doubled in 2020.[5]
According to theOffice of National Statistics and theGovernment of the United Kingdom'sCulture, Media & Sport andScience, Innovation & Technology departments, the digital sector was worth more than £140 billion to the UK's economy per year, as of 2020.[6][7][8] Research byAdobe suggested the UK spent £110.6 billion online in 2022.[9]
TheInternet top-level domain name specific to the UK is.uk, which is operated byNominet. Four additional domains were introduced byICANN for locations within the UK in 2014:.cymru and.wales forWales,[10].scot forScotland,[11] and.london forLondon.[12]
The UK has been involved in the research and development ofpacket switching,communication protocols, andinternetworking since their origins.[13][14][15] The development of these technologies was international from the beginning.[16][17] While the research and development that led to theInternet protocol suite (and the early infrastructure and governance of the Internet) was driven and funded by the United States,[18][19] it also involved and applied the work of British (and French) researchers. In particular,Donald Davies independently invented and pioneered the implementation of packet switching and associated communication protocols andcomputer network design at theNational Physical Laboratory starting in 1965, which was incorporated into the design of theARPANET in the United States;[20] internetworking was pioneered byPeter Kirstein atUniversity College London (UCL) beginning in 1973 and he and his team at UCL participated in theInternet Experiment Notes (IEN) work to designTCP/IP (which incorporated new concepts for internetworking developed byLouis Pouzin in France around the same time);[21][22][23] andTim Berners-Lee invented theWorld Wide Web in 1989 while working atCERN in Switzerland.
Britain pioneered research and development ofcomputers in the 1940s.[24][25] This led to partnerships between the public and private sectors, which brought about sharing of concepts and the transfer of personnel between industry and academia or national research bodies.[26][27] Thetrackball was invented in 1946 byRalph Benjamin, while working for the Royal Navy Scientific Service.[28][29] At theNational Physical Laboratory (NPL),Alan Turing worked on computer design, assisted byDonald Davies in 1947.[30][31]
Christopher Strachey, who becameOxford University's first professor of computation, filed a patent application fortime-sharing in 1959.[32][33] In June that year, he gave a paper "Time Sharing in Large Fast Computers" at theUNESCO Information Processing Conference in Paris where he passed the concept on toJ. C. R. Licklider who worked onProject MAC at MIT in the United States.[34][35]
After meeting with Licklider in 1965, Donald Davies conceived the idea ofpacket switching fordata communication.[36][37] He proposed a commercial national data network and developed plans to implement the concept in a local area network, theNPL network, which operated from 1969 to 1986.[38][39] He and his team, including Derek Barber andRoger Scantlebury, carried out work to analyse and simulate the performance of packet switching networks, includingdatagram networks.[40][41] Following the inauguralSymposium on Operating Systems Principles in 1967, their research and practice was adopted by theARPANET in the United States, the forerunner of the Internet, and influenced other researchers in Europe, includingLouis Pouzin, and in Japan.[42][43][44]
Donald Davies, Derek Barber and Roger Scantlebury joined theInternational Network Working Group (INWG) in 1972 along with researchers from the United States and France.[45][46][47][48]Vint Cerf andBob Kahn acknowledged Davies and Scantlebury in their seminal 1974 paper "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication".[49]
Peter Kirstein's research group atUniversity College London (UCL) was one of only two international connections on the ARPANET, alongside Norway (NORSAR andNDRE).[50][51] Beginning in 1973, UCL provided a gateway between the ARPANET and British academic networks, the first internationalinternetwork for computerresource sharing. In 1975, 40British academic research groups were using the link;[22] by 1984, there was a user population of about 150 people on both sides of the Atlantic.[23]
The specification of theTransmission Control Program was developed in the U.S. in 1974 through research funded and led byDARPA andStanford University.[52] The following year, testing began with concurrent implementations at University College London, Stanford University, andBBN.[53] UCL played a significant role in the very earliest work recorded in the IEN.Adrian Stokes andSylvia Wilbur, among others at UCL, programmed the computer used as the localnode for the network at UCL and were "probably one of the first people in this country ever to send an email, back in 1974".[54] Kirstein co-authored with Vint Cerf one of the most significant early technical papers on theinternetworking concept in 1978.[55] Further work was done by researchers at theInformation Sciences Institute (ISI), at theUniversity of Southern California.[56][a] Kirstein's research group at UCL adoptedTCP/IP in November 1982, ahead of ARPANET.[57][58]
TheRoyal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) became involved in implementation and testing of TCP/IP in 1976.[59][60] The firstemail sent by ahead of state was sent from the RSRE by QueenElizabeth II to inaugurate the link to the ARPANET in March that year.[61][62][63] RSRE was allocatedclass A Internet address range 25 in 1979,[64] which later became theMinistry of Defence address space, providing 16.7 millionIPv4 addresses.[65]
Roger Camrass, with his supervisor,Robert Gallager, at MIT, showed packet switching to be optimal in theHuffman coding sense in 1978.[66][67]
Derek Barber was involved in Internet design discussions in 1980.[68] British researchers expressed a desire to use a country designation when American researchersJon Postel andPaul Mockapetris were designing theDomain Name System in 1984. Postel adopted this idea for the DNS, which used the ISO standard country abbreviations except for following the "UK" convention already in use in the UK'sName Registration Scheme, rather than the ISO-standard "GB". The.uk Internetcountry code top-level domain (ccTLD) was registered in July 1985, seven months after the originalgeneric top-level domains such as.com and the first country code after.us. At the time, ccTLDs were delegated by Postel to a "responsible person" and Andrew McDowell at UCL managed .uk, the first country code delegation.[69][70][71] He later passed it to Dr Willie Black at the UK Education and Research Networking Association (UK ERNA). Black managed the "Naming Committee" until he and John Carey formedNominet UK in 1996.[72] As one of the first professional ccTLD operators, it became the model for many other operators worldwide.
The UK'snational research and education network (NREN),JANET connected with theNational Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) in the United States in 1989.[73] JANET adoptedInternet Protocol on its existing network in 1991.[74][75] In the same year, Dai Davies introduced Internet technology into the pan-European NREN,EuropaNet.[76]
British Telecom (BT) operated research labs which began, unofficially, relaying its internal email to the Internet at the end of the 1980s.[77]
NetNames,Ivan Pope's company, developed the concept of a standalone commercialdomain name registrar, which would sell domain registration and other associated services to the public.Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), thedomain name registry for the.com,.net, and.org top-level domains (TLDs), assimilated this model, which ultimately led to the separation of registry and registrar functions.
Jon Crowcroft andMark Handley received multiple awards for their work on Internet technology in the 1990s and 2000s.[78]Karen Banks promoted the use of the Internet to empower women around the world.[79]
Over the period 1980 to 2000, BT and other providers adopted TCP/IP and Internet product strategies when it became commercially advantageous.[80]
The South West Universities Computer Network (SWUCN) was an early British academic computer network developed with the objective of resource sharing. After planning began in 1967, work was initiated in 1969 on an experimental network, becoming operational for users in 1974.[81][82] In the early 1970s, theScience Research Council community established SRCnet, later called SERCnet.Other regional academic networks were built in the mid-late 1970s, as well as experimental networks such as theCambridge Ring.[81]
During the 1970s, the NPL team researchedinternetworking on theEuropean Informatics Network (EIN). Based ondatagrams, the network linkedEuratom, the French research centreINRIA and the UK’sNational Physical Laboratory in 1976.[83][84] The transport protocol of the EIN helped to launch theINWG andX.25 protocols.[85][86][87]
Building on the work ofJames H. Ellis in the late 1960s,Clifford Cocks andMalcolm Williamson invented apublic-key cryptography algorithm in 1973.[88] An equivalent algorithm was later independently invented in 1977 in the United States byRon Rivest,Adi Shamir andLeonard Adleman. TheRSA algorithm became central to security on the Internet.[89]
Post Office Telecommunications developed an experimental public packet switching network,EPSS, in the 1970s.[90] This was one of the firstpublic data networks in the world when it began operating in 1976.[91] EPSS was replaced with thePacket Switch Stream (PSS) in 1980.[92] PSS connected to theInternational Packet Switched Service (IPSS), which was created in 1978 through a collaboration between Post Office Telecommunications and two US telecoms companies. IPSS provided worldwide networking infrastructure.[57]
British research contributed to the development of theX.25 standard agreed by theCCITT in 1976 which was deployed on PSS and IPSS.[93][94] The UK academic community defined theColoured Book protocols, which came into use as "interim" X.25 standards. These protocols gained some acceptance internationally as the first complete X.25 standard,[95][96] and gave the UK "several years lead over other countries".[97]
Logica, together with the French company SESA, set up a joint venture in 1975 to undertake theEuronet development, using X.25 protocols to formvirtual circuits. It established a network linking a number of European countries in 1979 before being handed over to nationalPTTs In 1984.[98][99]
Peter Collinson broughtUnix to theUniversity of Kent (UKC/UKnet) in 1976 and set up aUUCP test service to Bell Labs in the U.S. in 1979. The first UUCP emails from the U.S. arrived in the UK later that year and email to Europe (the Netherlands and Denmark) started in 1980, becoming a regular service viaEUnet in 1982.[100] UKC provided the first connections to non-academic users in the early 1980s.[100][101] Several companies established electronic mail services in Britain during the 1970s and early 1980s, enabling subscribers to send email either internally within a company network or over telephone connections or data networks such asPacket Switch Stream.[81][102]
In the early 1980s, British academic networks started a standardisation and interconnection effort based on X.25 and the Coloured Book protocols. Known as the United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association (UK ERNA), and later JNT Association, this becameJANET, the UK'snational research and education network (NREN). JANET linked all universities, higher education establishments, and publicly funded research laboratories. It began operation in 1984, two years ahead of theNSFNET in the United States and was the fastest X.25 network in the world.[81][103][104][105]
TheNational Computing Centre 1976 publication 'Why Distributed Computing' which came from considerable research into future configurations for computer systems,[106] resulted in the UK presenting the case for an international standards committee to cover this area at the ISO meeting in Sydney in March 1977.[107] This international effort ultimately led to theOSI model as an international reference model, published in 1984.[108] For a period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, engineers, organizations and nations becamepolarized over the issue of which standard, the OSI model or the Internet protocol suite would result in the best and most robust computer networks.[108][109][110]
Public dialup information, messaging and e-commerce services, were pioneered through thePrestel services developed byPost Office Telecommunications in 1979.[111][112]
Commercial networking services between the UK and the US were being developed in late 1990.[113]
In 1989,Tim Berners-Lee, working atCERN in Switzerland, wrote a proposal for "a large hypertext database with typed links".[114][115] The following year, he specifiedHTML, the hypertext language, andHTTP, the protocol.[116][117][118] These concepts became a world-wide information system known as theWorld Wide Web (WWW). Operating on the Internet, it allows documents to be created for reading or accessing services with connections to other documents or services, accessed by clicking on hypertext links, enabling the user to navigate from one document or service to another.Nicola Pellow worked with Berners-Lee andRobert Cailliau on the WWW project at CERN.
British Telecom began using the WWW in 1991 during a collaborative project called the Oracle Alliance Program. It was founded in 1990 byOracle Corporation, based in California, to provide information for its corporate partners and about those partners. BT became involved in May 1991.File sharing was required as part of the program and, initially, floppy disks were sent through the post. Then in July 1991 access to the Internet was implemented by BT network engineers using the BT packet switching network. A link was established fromIpswich to London for access to theInternet backbone. The first file transfers made via aNeXT-based WWW interface were completed in October 1991.[119][120]
TheBBC registered with theDDN-NIC in 1989, establishing Internet access viaBrunel University wherebbc.co.uk was registered throughJANET NRS and the BBC's first website went online in 1994.[121] Otherearly websites which went online in 1993 hosted in the UK includedJumpStation, which was the firstWWW search engine hosted at theUniversity of Stirling in Scotland;[122]The Internet Movie Database, hosted by the computer science department ofCardiff University in Wales; and Kent Anthropology, one of the first social science sites (one of the first 200 web servers).[122] The Web brought many social and commercial uses to the Internet which was previously a network for academic institutions.[123][124] It began to enter everyday use in 1993-4.[125]
An early attempt to provide access to the Web on television was being developed in 1995.[126]
Pipex was established in 1990 and began providingdial-up Internet access in March 1992, the UK's first commercialInternet service provider (ISP).[127][128] One of its first customers that year wasDemon Internet, which popularised dial upmodem-based internet access in the UK.[129] By November 1993, Pipex provided Internet service to 150 customer sites.[130]EUnet GB was founded as a commercial ISP in 1993 by a group of academics.[70][100] Other ISPs and web-hosting companies, aimed at businesses and individuals,developed in the 1990s.[131] In May 1998, Demon Internet had 180,000 subscribers.[70]
This narrowband service has been almost entirely replaced by the new broadband technologies, and is now generally only used as a backup.[132][133] BT trialled its firstISDN 'broadband' connection in 1992.[134][135] The first commercial service was available fromTelewest in 2000.[136][127]
Broadband allowed the signal in one line to be split between telephone and Internet data, meaning users could be online and make phone calls at the same time. It also enabled faster connections, making it easier to browse the Internet and download files.[137] BroadbandInternet access in the UK was, initially, provided by a number of regionalcable television and telephone companies which gradually merged into larger groups. The development ofdigital subscriber line (DSL) technology has allowed broadband to be delivered via traditional copper telephone cables. Also,Wireless Broadband is now available in some areas. These three technologies (cable, DSL and wireless) now compete with each other.[138]
More than half of UK homes had broadband in 2007, with an average connection speed of 4.6 Mbit/s. Bundled communications deals mixing broadband,digital TV,mobile phone andlandline phone access were adopted by forty per cent of UK households in the same year, up by a third over the previous year. This high level of service is considered the main driver for the recent growth in online advertising and retail.[139]
In 2006 the UK market was dominated by six companies, with the top two taking 51%, these beingVirgin Media with a 28% share, andBT at 23%.[140]
By July 2011 BT's share had grown by six percent and the company became the broadband market leader.[141]
The UK broadband market is overseen by the government watchdogOfcom. According to Ofcom's 2007 report the average UK citizen used the Internet for 36 minutes every day.[142][143]
The Ofcom Communications Market 2018[144] report showed 42% of adults had access and use of a Smart TV by 2018, compared to just 5% in 2012[145] exemplifying the extra bandwidth required by broadband providers on their networks.
Cable Internet access usescoaxial cables oroptical fibre cables. The main cable service provider in the UK isVirgin Media and the current[when?] maximum speed available to their customers is 1.1 Gbit/s.[146]
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Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) was introduced to the UK in trial stages in 1998 and a commercial product was launched in 2000. In the United Kingdom, mostexchanges,local loops andbackhauls are owned and managed byBT Wholesale, who thenwholesale connectivity viaInternet service providers, who generally provide the connectivity to the Internet, support, billing and value added services (such as web hosting and email). A customer typically expects aBritish telephone socket to connect their broadband modem to.
As of October 2021, BT operate 5630 exchanges[147] across the UK, with the vast majority enabled for ADSL. Only a relative handful—under 100 of the smallest and most rural exchanges—had not been upgraded to support ADSL products. Some exchanges, fewer than 1000, had been upgraded to supportSDSL products. However, these exchanges are often the larger exchanges based in major towns and cities, so they still cover a large proportion of the population. SDSL products are aimed more at business customers and are priced higher than ADSL services.
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Many companies are now operating their own services usinglocal loop unbundling. InitiallyBulldog Communications in theLondon area andEasynet (through their sister consumer providerUK Online) enabled exchanges across the country from London toCentral Scotland.
In November 2010, having purchased Easynet in the preceding months,Sky closed the business-centricUK Online with little more than a month's notice.[148][149][150] Although Easynet continued to offer business-grade broadband connectivity products, UKO customers could not migrate to an equivalent Easynet service, only being offered either aMAC to migrate provider or the option of becoming a customer of the residential-onlySky Broadband ISP with an introductory discounted period. Also, some previously available service features likefastpath (useful for time-critical protocols likeSIP) were not made available on Sky Broadband, leaving business users with a difficult choice particularly where UK Online were the only LLU provider. Since then, Sky Broadband has become a significant player in thequad play telecoms market, offering ADSL line rental and call packages to customers (who have to pay a supplement if they are not also Sky television subscribers).
Whilst Virgin Media is the nearest direct competitor, their quad play product is available to fewer homes given the fixed nature of their cable infrastructure.TalkTalk is the next DSL-based ISP with a mature quad play product portfolio (EE's being the merger of theOrange andT-Mobile service providers, and focusing their promotion on forthcoming fibre broadband and4G LTE products).
Market consolidation and expansion has permitted service providers to offer faster and less expensives services with typical speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s downstream (subject to ISP and line length). They can offer products at sometimes considerably lower prices, due to not necessarily having to conform to the same regulatory requirements as BT Wholesale: for example, 8 unbundled LLU pairs can deliver 10 Mbit/s over 3775 m for half the price of a similar fibre connection.[151]
In 2005, another company,Be, started offering speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s downstream and 2.5 Mbit/sec upstream usingADSL2+ withAnnex M, eventually from over 1,250 UK exchanges. Be were taken over by O2's parent companyTelefónica in 2007. On 1 March 2013 O2 Telefónica sold Be to Sky, which migrated O2 and Be customers onto the somewhat slower Sky network.
TalkTalk offered customers 'free' broadband if they had a telephone package.Orange responded by offering 'free' broadband for some mobile customers. Many smaller ISPs now offer similar packages.O2 also entered the broadband market by taking over LLU provider Be, while Sky (BSkyB) had already taken over LLU broadband providerEasynet. In July 2006, Sky announced 2 Mbit/s broadband to be available free to Sky TV customers and a higher speed connection at a lower price than most rivals.[152]
Exchanges continue to be upgraded, subject to demand, across the country, although at a somewhat slower pace since BT's commencement ofFTTC rollout plans and near-saturation in key geographical areas.
Up until the launch of "Max" services, the only ADSL packages available via BT Wholesale were known asIPstream Home 250, Home 500, Home 1000 and Home 2000 (contention ratio of 50:1); and Office 500, Office 1000, and Office 2000 (contention ratio of 20:1). The number in the product name indicates the downstream data rate inkilobits per second. The upstream data rate is up to 250 kbit/s for all products.[b]
For BT Wholesale ADSL products, users initially had to live within 3.5 kilometres of the local telephone exchange to receive ADSL, but this limit was increased thanks torate-adaptive digital subscriber line (RADSL), although users with RADSL possibly had a reduced upstream rate, depending on the quality of their line. There are still areas that cannot receive ADSL because of technical limitations, not least of which networks in housing areas built with aluminium cable rather than copper in the 1980s and 1990s, and areas served by optical fibre (TPON), though these are slowly being serviced with copper.
In September 2004, BT Wholesale removed the line-length/loss limits for 500 kbit/s ADSL, instead employing a tactic of "suck it and see" — enabling the line, then seeing if ADSL would work on it. This sometimes includes the installation of a filtered faceplate on the customer's master socket, so as to eliminate poor quality telephone extension cables inside the customer's premises which can be a source of high frequency noise.
In the past, the majority of home users used packages with 500 kbit/s (downstream) and 250 kbit/s (upstream) with a 50:1 contention ratio. However, BT Wholesale introduced the option of a new charging structure to ISPs which means that the wholesale service cost was the same regardless of the ADSL data rate, with charges instead being based on the amount of data transferred. Nowadays, most home users use a package whose data rate is only limited by the technical limitations of their telephone line. Initially this was 2 Mbit/s downstream. Until the advent of widespread FTTC, most home products were firstADSL Max-based (up to 7.15 Mbit/s), using ADSLG.992.1 and then laterADSL2+ (up to 21 Mbit/s).
In 2015, BT unveiled universal 5 to 10 Mbit/s broadband and the rollout of 500 Mbit/sG.Fast. The aim was to push "ultra-fast speeds" of 300 to 500 Mbit/s to 10 million homes using the existinglandline cables.[153] Openreach made the decision to pause the rollout of G.Fast in 2019, as a result of their decision to focus on FTTP.[154]
In 2015, BT began the roll out ofG.INP on theirFTTC network,[155] the use of G.INP is to help improve line stability and reduce overheads and latency.[156] The roll-out was paused onECI broadband cabinet equipment due to the lack of support for upstream re-transmission which caused network slowdowns and higher latency.[157][158] The rollout of G.INP onHuawei broadband cabinets was completed in 2015[155] while G.INP on ECI equipment has reentered the trial stage as of May 2020.[159]
In September 2016,Sky "completed" their roll-out ofIPv6 with 95% of their customers getting IPv6 access.[160] BT rolled out IPv6 support for "all BT Broadband lines" two months later in November 2016.[161]
In March 2011, Openreach began the development of anFTTP network inMilton Keynes.[162] As a result, BT began offering eligible customers packages with download speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s.[163]
In October 2011, British operatorHyperoptic launched a 1 Gbit/s FTTH service in London.[164]
In October 2012, British operator Gigler UK launched a 1 Gbit/s down and 500 Mbit/s up FTTH service in Bournemouth using the CityFibre network.[165]
Virgin Media stated that 13 million UK homes are covered by their optical fibre broadband network, and that by the end of 2012 would be able to offer 100 Mbit/s broadband. There are currently over 100 towns in the UK that have access to this service.[166]
During the2019 General Election,Boris Johnson pledged full fibre for all of the UK by 2025.[167] This was later rolled back to "gigabit-capable" broadband.[168] This means that mixed technologies are allowed, for exampleVirgin Media can continue to use their cable infrastructure since theDOCSIS 3.1 is "gigabit-capable" and other ISPs can also sell5G broadband.Vorboss initiated the construction of a full-fibre network in London's business district in 2019.[169] The company deployed 500 km of 800 fiber optic cables[170] in London with 10 to 100 Gbit/s speeds connected directly to premises (FTTP) without a copper-and-cabinet middleman.[171][172]
In January 2020,Openreach announced that they will deploy FTTP technology in 200 rural locations by March 2021.[173] Two months later, in March, the UK government set theuniversal service obligation to 10 Mbit/s Download and 1 Mbit/s Upload.[174] The following month, Rural ISPB4RN launched their 10 Gbit/s symmetrical home broadband.[175]
Openreach reported that on 29 April they saw a record peak of 10 petabytes of data going through their network in one hour. This increase of internet traffic is the result of thelock-down in the UK caused byCOVID-19.[176] The following month, Openreach reported that they had passed 2.5 million premises with its FTTP network.[177]
On 1 September 2023 alternative network ISP YouFibre released an 8 Gbit/s residential service delivered overXGSPON.[178]
The analoguePSTN landline network, maintained byOpenreach, was set to be withdrawn by December 2025, although this has since been extended to 31st January 2027 in some areas due to reasons including panic alarms in sheltered housing needing a persistent connection which can't be guaranteed with internet-based DECT systems. ExistingADSL andVDSL connections will initially be unaffected, but some areas will be restricted to only allowing new FTTP orders.[179][180] Thevoice over IP replacement is branded as "Digital Voice" in the UK. "Digital Voice" handsets must be connected to a broadband router, rather than the old telephone sockets.[181]
Mobile broadband is high-speed Internet access provided bymobile phone operators using a device that requires aSIM card to access the service.
4G internet replaced the old3G technology and allowed download speeds up to 300 Mbit/s.
5G was first deployed in the UK in May 2019 byEE,[182] followed byThree andVodafone in August 2019,[183][184] and finallyO2 in October 2019.[185]
Starlink has been available in the UK since 2021.[186]
Since 2003, BT has been introducingSDSL to exchanges in many of the major cities. Services are currently offered at upload/download speeds of 256 kbit/s, 512 kbit/s, 1 Mbit/s or 2 Mbit/s. Unlike ADSL, which is typically 256 kbit/s upload, SDSL upload speeds are the same as the download speed. BT usually provide a new copper pair for SDSL installs, which can be used only for the SDSL connection. At a few hundred pounds a quarter, SDSL is significantly more expensive than ADSL, but is significantly cheaper than a leased line. SDSL is marketed to businesses and offers low contention ratios, and in some cases, a service level agreement. At present, the BT Wholesale SDSL enablement programme has stalled, most probably due to a lack of uptake.[citation needed]
On 9 April 2003, theAdvertising Standards Authority ruled against ISPNTL, saying that NTL's 128 kbit/s cable modem service must not be marketed as "broadband".Ofcom reported in June 2005 that there were more broadband than dial-up connections for the first time in history.[187] In a similar way, on 13 August 2004,Wanadoo (formerly Freeserve, and part of what is nowEE), was told by ASA to change the way that they advertised their 512 kbit/s broadband service, requiring the company to remove the words "full speed". Rival companies claimed the phrase were misleading people into thinking it was the fastest service available.
With the merger ofNTL andTelewest in March 2006, the resulting NTL:Telewest company created the largest market share of broadband users in the UK. It also brought increases in bandwidth allocations for cable customers, with minimum speeds increasing from the industry norm of 512 Kbit/s to 2 Mbit/s, whilst the company planned to have all domestic customers upgraded to at least 4 Mbit/s downstream and ranging up to 10 Mbit/s and beyond later in the year. In addition to this, it increased the supply of integrated services such as Digital TV and Phone packages.
Also in March, BT Wholesale launched its "up to 8 Mbit/s" ADSL services, known asADSL Max.[188] Max-based packages were made available to end users on any broadband-enabled BT exchange in the UK.
In September 2007, BT announced trials for anADSL2+ service. BT's Wholesale and Retail divisions were chosen alongsideEntanet to provide the first trials in theWest Midlands.[189]
Still in the year 2015 it was common in highly developed areas like the London Aldgate region for consumers to be limited to speeds of up to 8 Mbit/s for ADSL services.[190] This had a major effect in the London rental market as limited broadband service can affect the readiness of prospective tenants to sign a rental lease.[191]
In March 2020, the UK government set the Universal Service Obligation (USO) to 10 Mbit/s download and 1 Mbit/s upload.[192] As of May that year, 96.9% of UK households could receive "superfast broadband" (defined as 30 Mbit/s) whilst 19.29% of households could receive "ultrafast broadband" (defined as 300 Mbit/s) viaFTTP orDOCSIS 3.1. 1.07% of households had broadband slower than the USO.[193]
In September, the UK dropped 13 places in the 2020 Worldwide Broadband Speed League, making it amongst the slowest in Europe with an average download speed of 37.82 Mbit/s. Cable.co.uk blamed this on Openreach, with the network provider having focused on the development of anFTTC network,[194] and been slow to begin the deployment of FTTP technologies. The deployment of FTTC/VDSL technologies was largely driven by the lack of political appetite and funding for FTTP at the time.[195]
In 2022, the UK's average download speed of 72 Mbit/s ranked it only faster than Italy in the G7 league of industrial nations for broadband speeds. According to a report by the Worldwide Broadband Speed League, a global leader in internet testing and analysis, the UK had risen to 35th place, having been ranked in 43rd position the year before.[196]
As of 2024, the median average internet speed in the UK reached 73.21Mbps, reflecting a growth of over 12% since September 2022, with an increase of nearly 8Mbps in under a year. Average upload speeds also rose significantly, climbing by 18% between September 2022 and March 2023 to 18.4Mbps. The data reveals that 99.7% of UK households now have access to reliable internet speeds of 10Mbps or higher.[197]
According to Nations report 2024 by Ofcom, over two-thirds of households in England now have access to full-fibre networks. 17.3 million residential premises (69%) have access to full fibre as of July 2024, an increase of 13 percentage points from September 2023. Gigabit-capable coverage now extends to 84% or 21.1 million premises in England.
5G coverage is steadily increasing across England. 92-96% of premises (across a range covering Very High and High Confidence levels) can now receive 5G outdoor coverage from at least one MNO. England remains the UK nation with the highest 5G coverage from at least one MNO.[198]
62% of residential properties have access to full-fibre networks in Scotland. This is an increase of nine percentage points (265,000 premises) from September 2023 to July 2024.Over three-quarters of Scottish households have gigabit-capable coverage. The increase of five percentage points (166,000) means that 77% of premises can access gigabit-capable services.
The availability of 5G services continues to grow steadily. In Scotland, 5G coverage outside of premises from at least one Mobile Network Operator (MNO) is now at 91% (up from 88% in 2023) for the High Confidence measure.[199]
Access to full-fibre networks has reached 1 million homes in Wales or 68% of residential premises, up 13 percentage points from last year (55%). Gigabit-capable broadband has increased 10 percentage points from last year to 74%. This is the biggest increase across all UK nations.
5G is reaching a growing number of consumers, with Wales seeing a steady increase in coverage. Coverage from at least one MNO now reaches 86% (High Confidence) and 79% (Very High Confidence) in areas outside of premises.[200][201]
Around 760,000 homes in Northern Ireland can now access full-fibre broadband. Among the four UK nations, Northern Ireland (93%) has the highest availability of full-fibre networks. Northern Ireland’s full fibre position reflects significant early commercial rollout and publicly funded schemes designed to improve broadband in rural areas.
There has been a further increase in 5G availability. Mobile network operators (MNOs) continue to increase the footprint of these services, and outside premises coverage from at least one MNO now stands at 92% at the High Confidence level and 86% at Very High Confidence, up from 80% and 70% respectively in 2023.[202]
Educational computer networks are maintained by organisations such asJANET andEast Midlands Public Services Network.[203]
According to a 2017 Ofcom report named 'Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report' more younger children are going online than in 2016 with much of the growth coming from increased use of tablets.[204]
A survey on UK school children's access to the Internet commissioned by security company Westcoastcloud in 2011 found half have no parental controls installed on their internet connected devices and half of parents said they have concerns about the lack of controls installed on their children's Internet devices.[205][206][207]
In 2015 Prime MinisterDavid Cameron proposed aban on end-to-end encryption in the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
In June 2018Tom Winsor, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, argued that technologies likeencryption should be breakable if law enforcers have a warrant. Winsor said the public was running out of patience with organisations likeFacebook,Telegram andWhatsApp. Winsor opined, "There is a handful of very large companies with a highly dominant influence over how the internet is used. In too many respects, their record is poor and their reputation tarnished. The steps they take to make sure their services cannot be abused by terrorists, paedophiles and organised criminals are inadequate; the commitment they show and their willingness to be held to account are questionable."[208]
The UK government has "for years" continued to press for control of encryption, citing worries about child abuse.[209] The proposedOnline Safety Bill was criticised byApple,Meta andSignal.[210][211]
We began doing concurrent implementations at Stanford, BBN, and University College London. So effort at developing the Internet protocols was international from the beginning.
At great human and economic cost, resources drawn from the U.S. Government, industry and the academic community have been assembled into a collection of interconnected networks called the Internet.
Davies's invention of packet switching and design of computer communication networks ... were a cornerstone of the development which led to the Internet
But the ARPANET itself had now become an island, with no links to the other networks that had sprung up. By the early1970s, researchers in France, the UK, and the U.S. began developing ways of connecting networks to each other, a process known as internetworking.
Much of the history of computing has been written by Americans. ... More balanced histories reflect the fact that, for all of the U.S.A.'s dominance from about 1950, the early developments occurred on both sides of the Atlantic
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help). "the first paper on time-shared computers by C. Strachey at the June 1959 UNESCO Information Processing conference".Almost immediately after the 1965 meeting, Donald Davies conceived of the details of a store-and-forward packet switching system
The system first went 'live' early in 1969
The 1967 Gatlinburg paper was influential on the development of ARPAnet, which might otherwise have been built with less extensible technology. ... In 1969 Davies was invited to Japan to lecture on packet switching. He gave what must have been a quite gruelling series of nine three-hour lectures, concluding with an intense discussion with around 80 people.
Roger Scantlebury was one of the major players. And Donald Davies who ran, at least he was superintendent of the information systems division or something like that. I absolutely had a lot of interaction with NPL at the time. They in fact came to the ICCC 72 and they had been coming to previous meetings of what is now called Datacomm. Its first incarnation was a long title having to do with the analysis and optimization of computer communication networks, or something like that. This started in late 1969, I think, was when the first meeting happened in Pine Hill, Georgia. I didn't go to that one, but I went to the next one that was at Stanford, I think. That's where I met Scantlebury, I believe, for the first time. Then I had a lot more interaction with him. I would come to the UK fairly regularly, partly for IFIP or INWG reasons
The authors wish to thank a number of colleagues for helpful comments during early discussions of international network protocols, especially R. Metcalfe, R. Scantlebury, D. Walden, and H. Zimmerman; D. Davies and L. Pouzin who constructively commented on the fragmentation and accounting issues; and S. Crocker who commented on the creation and destruction of associations.
We began doing concurrent implementations at Stanford, BBN, and University College London. So effort at developing the Internet protocols was international from the beginning. ... Mar '82 - Norway leaves the ARPANET and become an Internet connection via TCP/IP over SATNET. Nov '82 - UCL leaves the ARPANET and becomes an Internet connection.
RSRE has been very active in measuring TCP performance and will report some ... RSRE particularly noticed the lost traffic due to the problems with line 41.
I actually set up the first meeting between John Wedlake of the British Post Office and [Rémi Després] of the French PTT which led to X25. There was a problem about virtual calls in EIN, so I called this meeting and that actually did in the end lead to X25.
The set of algorithms, equations and arcane mathematics that make up public key cryptography are a crucial technology for preserving computer privacy in and making commerce possible on the Internet. Some hail its discovery as one of the most important accomplishments of 20th-century mathematics because it allows two people to set up a secure phone call without meeting beforehand. Without it, there would be no privacy in cyberspace.
MCI Vnet goes global
Berners-Lee and others worked to ensure that CERN would make the underlying code available on a royalty-free basis, forever. This decision was announced in April 1993, and sparked a global wave of creativity, collaboration and innovation.
web-hosting companies in the UK at the time were pitched at much bigger companies, ... small businesses and individuals wanted something self-service and easy to use ... Fasthosts was a classic example of the bedroom computer innovation that the UK was so good at in the 80s and 90s.... it also simplified the process of registering domain names and accessing web hosting
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