From Bell's first call to AI: a new tech revolution

As the world marks 150 years since Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone call, technology leaders are drawing parallels between that invention and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.

Bell's call on 10 March 1876 is widely regarded as a defining moment in modern communications. It enabled real-time voice contact over distance and helped lay the foundations of the global telecoms industry.

Executives in the UK's digital infrastructure sector are using the anniversary to compare that breakthrough with today's rapid adoption of large language model-based AI systems in business and everyday life.

Richard Tang, chief executive of internet service provider Zen Internet, said the telephone, the internet and AI each represent inflection points in how societies communicate and access information.

"Every once in a while, something is invented that changes everything. That was the case 150 years ago with the invention of the telephone, a technology that revolutionised communication worldwide, and that we still use today. The invention of the Internet sparked another such revolution, with most of us now having a critical reliance on being online. The latest revolution is Large Language Model (LLM) based AI. We're right at the beginning of that revolution."

Tang said Bell likely had no idea how revolutionary the telephone would become, and that most people today may be similarly underestimating the impact of early experiments with AI. He added that, with the pace of technological change accelerating, the effects will be clearer far sooner than another 150 years.

The comments reflect a wider debate in the telecoms and internet sector about how legacy infrastructure, including fixed-line networks and subsea cables, intersects with cloud computing and AI models running in large-scale data centres.

Analysts often point to the telephone as a catalyst for later network-based services such as mobile telephony, messaging and video conferencing. The internet broadened that evolution into a general-purpose digital platform carrying both human and machine-generated traffic.

AI developers are now building systems on top of those networks and data resources. Large language models process vast amounts of text and code, supporting applications in knowledge work, customer service and software development.

Telecoms and broadband providers face rising data demand as businesses embed AI tools into workflows and consumers adopt conversational services on phones, laptops and smart devices. Network operators are upgrading core and access networks to handle higher traffic volumes and more latency-sensitive applications.

The anniversary also highlights how long-lived foundational technologies can be. Fixed-line telephony shifted from analogue to digital exchanges and then to voice over IP. Many homes and offices still rely on handsets connected to networks that trace their lineage back to nineteenth-century concepts.

By contrast, commercial use of large language models began only in the past few years. The technology has already moved through several generations of model architecture and training approaches. Enterprises in sectors including financial services, retail and media are testing use cases ranging from document summarisation to automated content creation.

Regulators in the UK and other markets are assessing how to treat AI models that sit within critical communication and information flows. Bodies including Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority have opened workstreams on digital infrastructure resilience, data access and market concentration among major cloud and AI providers.

The telephone's history also shows how regulation, standards and interconnection agreements can shape the spread of a communications technology. National networks initially developed different technical standards before converging on interoperable systems that enabled cross-border calls at scale.

AI could follow a similar path. Developers are debating shared benchmarks, safety tests and interfaces that allow different models and tools to work together. Governments are considering rules on transparency, data provenance and accountability, while companies weigh compliance costs against potential gains from automation and new digital services.

For broadband providers such as Zen Internet, AI adoption is raising both traffic and expectations for reliability. Residential users stream more video and rely on more cloud-based services. Corporate clients are moving workloads into public cloud platforms that host AI models, increasing demand for higher bandwidth and more stable connectivity.

Some in the sector see these trends as similar to the growth spurts that followed the introduction of the telephone and the expansion of the internet, arguing that each wave creates new service categories while raising the baseline of what users consider normal.

The 150-year milestone comes as policymakers and business leaders weigh AI's long-term effects on jobs, security, education and healthcare. Many commentators describe the current phase as experimental and expect more significant structural change as the technology matures.