Since 1667, when Robert Hooke described how sound could be transmitted by means of a tightly stretched wire, people have been enjoying communicating from a distance. Later on, Scottish born Alexander Bell invented the telephone in the US and the first telephones arrived in the UK in 1877 Sir William Preece and the same year the Bell Telephone Company was created in the US.

The telephone wires you see in the photograph above, which shows the incredible BT engineer Brian repairing a connection, may no longer be in use in years to come as mobile connections accelerate, although this is the paradox of 5G, the collection of technologies behind next-generation wireless networks which also require a gargantuan quantity of broadband wires.