But just looking at the numbers understates the impact the Internet has had on global communications.

HISTORY:

I was an Internet user in 1986, and had been since 1983. I was a user of the ARPANET before then but I do not consider the pre-TCP/IP ARPANET to be the Internet since it used an inter-computer protocol rather than an internetworking protocol. The 1983 switch of the ARPANET from the Network Control Program (NCP) to TCP/IP enabled the Internet of today.

As an Internet user in 1986 I thought it was pretty cool -- but it had a very heavy geek quotient. It never occurred to me that my mother would ever knowingly use the Internet. Too many seemingly magic incantations were required to get anything done. The magic required started to go away a few years later when the World Wide Web started being deployed in earnest. But the 'Net was still magic -- maybe black magic -- to a few important groups, in particular to telecommunications regulators, the existing telecommunications industry and the existing telecommunications standards development organizations.

The Internet protocol (IP) offered almost none of the features that the people in the telecommunications business in the mid-1980s felt were required for any useful communications protocol. IP did not offer any guarantees, quality of service, or accounting. Governments were not involved in the standardization of IP-related technology, and no one was in control. The obvious disconnect between IP, and thus, the Internet and anything useful for "good" telecommunications meant that most telecom players ignored the Internet until it was far too late for them.