Happy birthday, internet – 30 years on from a communications revolution

It IS the revolutionary communications system used daily by billions of people – but few know today is the internet’s 30th birthday.

The computer network officially began its technological revolution when it fully substituted previous networking systems on 1 January, 1983.

Known as “flag day”, it was the first time the US Department of Defence-commissioned Arpanet network fully switched to use of the internet protocol suite (IPS) communications system.

Using data “packet-switching”, the new method of linking computers paved the way for the arrival of the world wide web.

Chris Edwards, an electronics correspondent for Engineering and Technology magazine, said: “I don’t think that anybody making that switch on the day would have realised the importance of what they were doing. But without it the internet and the world wide web as we know them could not have happened.”

Mr Edwards said: “The internet means there is nowhere and no-one in the world you can’t reach easily and cheaply.”

Based on designs by Welsh scientist Donald Davies, the Arpanet network began as a military project in the late 1960s.

By 1 January, 1983, the internet was born. English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee was then able to use it to host the system of interlinked hypertext documents he invented in 1989, known as the world wide web.