This page is not really amateur radio related, but as we all now use the Internet, I thought this little retrospective video would be quite interesting. As you may or may not know the old analogue telephone line system is about to be switched off and all telephones will become Internet telephones. Nowadays not many people use the old dial up telephone. But the thing is the old telephone system had one great advantage over everything else, and that is it does not need an electricity supply. This is because power for the phone came from the exchange. Now, I know you're all thinking well that doesn't matter. As long as I keep my battery charged I can rely on my mobile phone. WRONG! The problem is the mobile phone has a problem. Where you and I can have enough batteries to keep your mobile phone going the mobile towers don't. So, as many parts of the country have recently found out, during this last season of high winds and storms, it's not long before the mobile network breaks.

Up until home broadband came into existence the only way to access the internet at home was to get your modem to call the ISP's phone number and listen to the unpleasant sound that would happen. In this video we look at the history and technology of dial-up ISPs and build one.