The history of Internet in Sweden began with colleges and universities in the 1980s and then expanded through commercial operators to large companies and, in 1994, to the general public.
In the 1970s, an innovation developed in Sweden by was built into ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. By the early 1980s, data links were established between some colleges and universities using modem access and UUCP.
The first Internet connection in Sweden can be considered to have been in 1984, when a Swedish network was connected to the ARPANET using TCP/IP. In 1988 direct access to the Internet was created in the form of the SUNET and NORDUnet university and college networks, which in turn was connected to the USA. In 1991, started operations and became Sweden's first ISP. In 1994, providers started offering Internet access to private individuals.
In 1994, Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and Bill Clinton became the first heads of government in the world to email each other. In 1997, the Swedish government decided that anyone who bought a personal computer at home could deduct the cost. The aim of the reform was to increase digital literacy in Sweden. This decision, known as the Home PC Reform, contributed to an increase in the use of computers and the internet by Swedes. In 2003, some telephony also moved online, through Niklas Zennström's Skype service. Skype was then bought by the auction site eBay for billions. The service made international calls free, among other things. File sharing and online privacy became an increasingly important issue, especially for young adults who grew up with the Internet. In 2006, the Pirate Party was founded, and in 2009 it was voted into the European Parliament. Also in 2006, paradoxically, a service was founded that would kill file sharing of music in Sweden: the streaming music service Spotify.
1960s, 1970s and 1980s
The Internet's predecessor, the ARPANET, carried its first packets in 1969 in the United States using data communication techniques invented and first-implemented by Donald Davies for the NPL network in the United Kingdom. The network research community formed the International Network Working Group (INWG) in 1972, of which Kjell Samuelson, a doctoral student at Stockholm University, was a member.Wessler, Cerf, Samuelson, Barber, Shephard, Pouzin, Sexton, Clipsham, Sandum, McKenzie, Tucker (October 1972) "Report of Subgroup 2 on HOST-HOST protocol Requirements", INWG Note No. 2. The ARPANET grew rapidly and, in June 1973, the first connection outside the United States was a transatlantic satellite link to the Norwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR), via the Earth Station in Sweden. The following month, this connection was extended to Peter Kirstein's research group at University College London, which evolved into SATNET.
In the 1960s, ASEA was commissioned by Vattenfall to create a computer-based monitoring system to reduce the risk of disturbances in Sweden's power grid. This grid was connected with those of Finland, Norway and Denmark. Up until then, the telephone was the main tool for engineers monitoring the power grid. For this purpose an ARPANET-like network, , was developed by ASEA between 1972 and 1975. The TIDAS network included split horizon route advertisement, an innovation to prevent routing loops developed by Swedish researcher , which was soon built into the ARPANET and thus the Internet.
The became central to the history of the Internet in Sweden. In 1978, it was developed at the , by Jacob Palme and Torgny Tholerus. The KOM system was a Bulletin board system (BBS) where users could connect to a central computer and discuss with each other, play games and exchange files. From 1982, users of the KOM system could also send e-mails via a connection to ARPANET.
In 1979, Televerket started its Datavision service (later called Videotex), to which people connected with modems and special software and subscriptions. It was offered commercially in 1982. Many large companies adopted the service, but otherwise it was not widely used. The service was discontinued in 1993. The first Swedish non-profit BBS was started in 1980 by the . An association for users of the ABC 80 home computer.
was a mathematics student in Stockholm in the early 1980s when he was hired to help build and test the infrastructure for the ARPANET.FT Weekend Magazine, March 28/29 2020, The Battle To Control The Internet. TCP/IP or X.25
In the 1980s, there was disagreement about whether TCP/IP or X.25 should be used as the technology for communicating information over packet-switching networks. in Telecommunications companies in Europe and North America preferred X.25 virtual circuits, which had built-in error control and made it easier for operators to track connection usage, and they built public data networks based on this protocol. In Sweden, Televerket's system for this was called Datapak. In the end, adoption of TCP/IP overwhelmed other protocols. Some consider that the Internet was born on January 1, 1983, when ARPANET switched from two-way communication with NCP to TCP/IP, although SATNET, including Norway and University College London, adopted TCP/IP the previous year. The X.25 protocol is still used in private networks that need extra security, such as credit card terminals and ATMs.
A UUCP link was established via EUnet in 1982 connecting Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom.http://users.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave.Marshall/Internet/node16.html Cardiff University/Dave Marshall, History of the internet The first e-mail message received in Sweden was sent by Jim McKie from the Amsterdam Mathematics Centre to at ENEA AB in Stockholm on April 7, 1983. To receive the message, Eriksen had connected a VAX 780 computer to the European part of the Internet with a 1200 bit/s modem. The computer terminal that received the message, a Digital DECwriter III, has been located at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm since October 2023.
In the early summer of 1984, Sweden got its first own part of the Internet, when research assistant Ulf Bilting at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg connected the local network at the Department of Computer Science as IP network number 192.5.50.0, which is then connected to ARPANET.
University pioneers
During the 1980s, the development of the Internet in Sweden was largely about universities. The university network SUNET was created and connected the Swedish universities. This enabled researchers and students to communicate digitally with each other and to send messages and documents. Gradually, the Nordic university networks were also connected to NORDUnet, and in December 1988, the Nordic universities were linked to Princeton University in New Jersey. This gave students and researchers in Sweden real access to the Internet. Between 1979 and 1988, the university network SUNET used Televerket's X.25 and then abandoned it permanently in favor of leased direct connections.
Outside the university system, ordinary people still had to make do with Bulletin boards. The computers in these were reached by ordinary telephone and often only had space for one call at a time. It could therefore only be used by one user at a time and was often located in the home of the owner of the BBS. In 1985, a new BBS was launched by the ABC Club. This version allowed multiple simultaneous users, thanks to a DEC-10 computer available to the ABC Club, and thus real-time discussions. The design of the discussion forum was reminiscent of the American Usenet system, with a feature similar to online services such as the American Prodigy and the British Compunet. This BBS was accessible on a non-profit basis via a modem connection, and discussion groups included many of the people who would later become important key figures in the coming electronic Sweden: Sven Wickberg, Anders Franzén, Henrik Schyffert and Jan-Inge Flücht. In 1986, Björn Eriksen registered the .se top-level domain, which he administered until 1997.
1990s
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web. The Web is free and free to use for both developers and surfers. The first site was launched in 1991 at the CERN research center in Switzerland, and still exists. In May 1990, an initiative was taken to form the Swedish Network Users' Society (SNUS) to promote the use of networks based on TCP/IP. The society was also instrumental in enabling companies and ordinary Swedes to start using the network the following year when , part of the Stenbeck sphere, became the first commercial ISP. Televerket could have been first, but they preferred X.25 technology and declined. However, Televerket, via Unisource, created Tipnet as a quick but half-hearted attempt at a counter move.
In 1990 Nordunet's Atlantic link to the USA was upgraded to 64 kbit/s, in 1991 it was upgraded to 128 kbit/s and in 1992 to 512 kbit/s. Televerket's monopoly on fixed lines ended in 1993. In the same year, Linköping University's Lysator computer association installed a fixed connection in the Ryd student housing area via a microwave link under the project name Rydnet.
Popularity increases, web agencies and forums are launched
In Sweden, 1994 was a key year in the development of the Internet. Carl Bildt and Bill Clinton were the first heads of government in the world to exchange emails, and in the same year the government donated SEK one billion to the newly created Knowledge Foundation () to invest in technology, including in schools. At the same time, the IT Commission was formed, which launched a number of digital initiatives, including in schools. In connection with the 1994 Swedish general election, the election results were sent out by e-mail for the first time, and many Swedish newspapers acquired their first websites as a result. The very first to do so was Aftonbladet, which put its society pages on the web on August 25, 1994.
In May 1994, Kuai Connection opened. In I Ching, Kuai (or Guài) means breakthrough and determination. Shortly thereafter in July 1994, 24-year-old Ragnar Lönn started Algonet. Älgö-nät, after Älgö in Nacka where Lönn grew up. These were aimed at private individuals (Algonet initially hoped for 400 paying customers) and got the common man to start surfing in larger numbers. The cost of use consisted of a fixed monthly fee and a per-minute fee in the form of a call rate which, due to Telia's natural monopoly on telephony, made this fee high. As long term connectivity was expensive, some resorted to illegal methods such as toll-free numbers with hijacked credit cards to stay connected for a long time at no cost.
At this time, the Internet started to grow in Sweden, business leaders acquired email addresses and web agencies were started. In 1995, a new cable was laid across the Atlantic, bringing the connection to 34 Mbit/s, which significantly increased the Swedish capacity. At the time it was the most powerful international connection, the previous record being 6 Mbit/s. In 1995, Sveriges Television's news program Rapport broadcast a report on the Internet every day for a week. In 1995, 2% of the Swedish population (over 12 years) had access to the Internet at home while 25% had access to a computer at home.
In 1995, the punk magazine Flashback also launched its first website. Readers could chat via an IRC channel and participate in mailing lists. It was not until five years later that the discussion forum with which the name Flashback is associated today was launched.