We’ve now been delivering good, honest broadband for 15 years. To celebrate our birthday, we thought we'd take a look back at what's happened online, in the history of the internet, since we were setup back in 1997. Read on to step back in time with us, as we look back over some of the web's landmark moments.
The last 15 years … in the life of the internet
The 1990s were a revolutionary decade for digital technology - in fact, 1991 saw the invention of the World Wide Web and the launch of the first GSM network, as well as the emergence of e-coms, iMacs, web browsers and MP3 players. And it was in 1997, against this backdrop of digital buzz and innovation, that Plusnet was born. Our plan was to provide good, honest cheap phone and broadband and to stand out from the crowd - something that we're still proudly doing today. The last 15 years have turned out to be landmark ones, not just for us, but for the internet itself: • 1997: The term 'weblog', later shortened to 'blog', was coined. 1 million domains had already been registered on the web. • 1998: 3 million domains had now been registered on the internet, and more than 1.5 million web pages were being added to the internet every day. Google was also founded this year, in California. • 1999: Online traffic doubled every 100 days during this year. By this time, more that 100 million computers had been connected to the and 5 million domain names had been registered. • 2000: The internet survived the fated 'Millennium bug' and the Dot-Com bubble burst. • 2001: Wikipedia was launched. • 2002: Statistics showed that there were now more than 544 million users on the internet. • 2004: Facebook was founded. • 2005: YouTube was launched. • 2006: Twitter was founded. By this year, there were over 92 million websites in existence. • 2007: By now, there were more than 1.3 billion internet users, more than half of UK homes had internet access and the average UK web surfer was spending 37 minutes online every day. • 2008: This year, statistics showed that more than 1.4 billion people were using the internet. • 2009: The number of internet users rose to 1.6 billion. • 2010: Figures showed another rise in internet users - there were now more than 1.9 billion. • 2011: It was revealed that 8.2 million adults in the UK are digitally excluded and have never used the internet.
Looking forward … and into the future of the internet
As much as we love what's happened during the past 15 years, we're also really excited about what the next 15 years might hold - especially as we've worked with the Centre for Future Studies to try to predict how the internet will grow to become an even bigger part of our lives by 2027. Some experts think that the internet revolution is only 15 per cent complete at the moment - so we're expecting bigger things from the internet over the next 15 years, even things that have a 'science fiction' ring to them - like using 3D holographic conferencing to have a virtual consultation with your doctor, driving a car that can't crash, wearing clothes that monitor your well-being, and using your smartphone to control home-robots programmed to do your dirty dishes and make your bed. And we know even more of you will be looking for good, honest home broadband, business broadband, fibre broadband and superfast broadband if our predictions really do come true. Just check our blog post about the smart internet and the smart home of the future, and read our interview with Dr Frank Shaw - one of Time Magazine's 'top ten thinkers in the word' - to find out more about what we think the future could hold for the web, broadband and the internet. We promise you, it's worth reading. What do you think's been a real landmark moment in the history of the internet? What do you think the next 15 years will bring? Please leave us a comment and let us know ...