Indeed, many have seen bandwidth merely as another revenue stream, as witnessed by the wireless bandwidth auctions in 2000, in which telecoms operators throughout Europe bid billions of dollars for license fees. » Read more: Essential Internet: The byte fantastic Part (5)

One reason for this reluctance is a general unwillingness on behalf of monopolistic telecoms companies to expand their precious networks for competitors to exploit. Another is the high cost of converting exchanges to exploit dsl technology or, in the case of cable companies. » Read more: Essential Internet: The byte fantastic Part (4)

The technology to do so has been available for several years in the form of cable and digital subscriber line (dsl) services, both of which offer much faster access to the net than the modems that still reside in people’s pcs or on their desks. » Read more: Essential Internet: The byte fantastic Part (3)

In the ten years since its arrival, the web has become not just immeasurably bigger but immeasurably richer too, as its simple text content has mutated into a complex blend of formatted text, graphics, animations and multimedia components such as sound and video. » Read more: Essential Internet: The byte fantastic Part (2)