One of history’s pivotal moments occurred on 29 October 1969, when UCLA engineering professor Leonard Kleinrock, working on a US Defence Department project, sent a message from one computer to another 600 kilometres away.

The technology the internet would one day be built upon was born. The speed of the transmission was 50 kilobytes per second. Almost 40 years later, the speed of many Australians’ internet connection is 56 kilobytes per second. Oh, the wonders of the information age.

The Federal Government’s broadband initiative is, according to many, overdue. What has happened? Why is Australia — a sparsely populated, isolated country — still struggling to coordinate a high-speed network?

Below is a brief timeline of the internet in Australia. How that chronology moves on is very much in the hands of government … whichever that turns out to be.

1988

The term ‘Internet Service Provider (ISP)’ is used.

1989

The term ‘Internet Access Provider’ (IAP) describes an organisation that provides connectivity.

1989

DIALix offers commercial internet services.

1989

Pegasus Networks offers public dialup access to the internet in Australia.

1994

The first ISP charging users under a volume (per-MByte) charging scheme is connect.com.au.

1994

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) services become available, but are not cost-effective.

1994

The Global Info Links Project is launched in Ipswich with 100 local subscribers.

1995

Telstra acquires the infrastructure that comprises the internet in Australia.

1995-97

A competitive market develops, with both Telstra and Optus providing backbone services.

1997

An estimated to be 1.6 million internet users in Australia.

1998

1.27 million households are online, “a jump of almost 50% in 12 months” (DCITA 1998).

1998

Telstra and Optus start separate roll-out of cable internet services.

2000

More than 50% of Australian adults are online and nearly 40% of households have internet access. There are 696 ISPs.

2000

The first broadband ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) services are made available via Telstra Bigpond, with resellers appearing soon after.

2000

The first competition to Telstra’s DSLAMs (Digital subscriber line access multiplexer) provided by Optus subsidiary XYZed.

2000

The internet gets nostalgic. The Telstra/AFR Web Awards inducts pioneers into the “Australian Internet Hall of Fame”.

2001

The ABC streams video content

2002

The ABC in conjunction with the Australian Film Commission creates Broadband Production Initiative.

2003

ISP Internode installs a DSLAM in the town of Meningie, South Australia, providing residential competition in the DSLAM market.

2003-06

Broadband competition results in faster connectivity and increased uptake of broadband services.

2006

The ACCC estimates there are approximately 3.5 million broadband services in Australia

2006

Telstra announces plans to set up a ‘Fibre to the Node’ (FTTN) network.

2007

The Federal Government’s Australian Broadband Guarantee targets broadband services in rural areas.

2007

The ALP announces its “Building a National Broadband Network” policy.

2007

The Federal Government announces a broadband initiative, comprising of an expert panel to consider Australia’s next-generation fibre-to-the-node network.