From Beacon Fires to Fibre Broadband: A history of innovation, enterprise and regulation

Modern broadband networks carry vast amounts of data around the world. They have transformed human society, from local to global, and they are an essential ingredient of economic growth. But all of this has only become possible over the last two hundred years; for thousands of years before that, our ancestors could only send the simplest of messages by lighting beacon fires.

This book describes the repeated waves of disruptive innovation which have taken us from beacon fires to fibre broadba...