by Peter Walker, Director of Technology

2003 will mark a major milestone in the statutory and regulatory history of telecommunications in the UK, with a new Communications Act, and a new regulator for the communications industry. But 2003 is just one of many notable dates in the evolution of the UK telecommunications statutory and regulatory framework.

This five-minute guide looks at some of the key dates in UK telecommunications history, starting in 1839, with the first commercial telegraph line. This instalment goes up to the start of the 20th century. Watch out for the next instalment in the September issue of Oftel News.

1839 First commercial telegraph line opens along the Great Western Railway from Paddington to West Drayton.

1846 Electric Telegraph Act established possibility for telegraphs to be built over public land, instead of only along the railways. It also allowed the Postmaster General (PMG) to take control of the telegraphs in the interests of national security, as it did during the Chartist Uprising of 1848.

1863 Electric Telegraph Act introduces 'wayleaves', allowing the then private telegraph companies to lay plant on the public highway without requiring private Acts of Parliament.

1868 Telegraph Act nationalises the private telegraph companies, with the aim of widening telegraph deployment and creating an affordable 'universal service'.

"The lobbying for wider access to the telegraph in the 1860s parallels today's demands for access to broadband services, only now, nationalisation is not an option."

1869 Telegraph Act creates statutory monopoly over inland telegraphs. This prevents new private companies from starting up with the sole objective of being bought out by the State.

1879 Telephone service starts in the City of London.

"In the very early days of the telephone, subscribers couldn't talk to one another. Instead, like the process of delivering a telegram, the operator would take down a message and read it out to the recipient and ask if there was any reply. This exchange of messages gave us the telephone exchange and the name has stuck ever since."

1880 Courts decide that the telegraph monopoly should also apply to the telephone. Government now has the ability to either close the telephone companies down, buy them out, or licence them.

1881 the Government licenses telephone companies for 31 years, at an annual licence fee of 10 per cent of revenue. The scope of networks is initially limited to five miles to prevent competition with PO telegraphs.

"In the 1880s, anti-competitive practices by the London & Globe Telephone Company comprised tying their competitors' overhead wires of together, thereby shorting out all the conversations. They were successfully prosecuted and then went bust."

1884 Liberalisation allowes phone networks to be larger than 5 miles. Telephone kiosks are allowed for the first time.

1889 Consolidation in the industry brought all the non-PO networks together under the ownership of the National Telephone Company (NTC).

1892 Telegraph Act provides for the nationalisation of the long distance telephone network (completed 1896).

1896 Guglielmo Marconi demonstrates 'telegraphy without wires' to the Post Office: radio is born.

1899 Telegraph Act allows the establishment of municipal telephone systems. 13 local authorities asked for licences but only 6 opened networks. Five of these failed after a few years, except for Hull, which is still with us today.

"I'm often asked why of all the municipal networks launched in the early 1900s, only Hull survived. In part, some of the corporations, such as Glasgow, picked the wrong technology and some British manufacturers wouldn't supply them, as they were afraid of a backlash from the NTC. But the main reason is due to a similar set of issues to that which Oftel was grappling with in the mid-1990s, namely interconnection. Two types of municipal licence were offered. Five of the companies went for the cheaper licence, where interconnection rights with the PO and NTC were obtained only when the authority reached a 25 per cent market share. But Hull went for the more expensive licence that granted interconnection straightaway. This made a subscription to the Hull Corporation network much more useful and their system flourished. Of course, when they got to 1912, they also had the advantage of being granted a monopoly in the Hull area, which certainly helped!"